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OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 


BEQUEST  OF 

Alice  R.  Hilgard 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

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http://www.archive.org/details/earliesttimesOOinnerich 


A  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND 


QUKKN    ELIZABKTH 
From  the  painting  attributed  to  Marcus  Ghceracdts  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


A   HISTORY   OF 

ENGLAND 

FROM  THE  EARLIEST  TIMES 
TO  THE  PRESENT  DAY 

By  a.  D.  INNES 

SOMETIME  SCHOLAR  OF  ORIEL  COLLEGE,  OXFORD 
AUTHOR   OF   "ENGLAND    UNDER    THE   TUDORS " 
"ENGLAND'S   INDUSTRIAL   DEVELOPMENT,"  ETC 


From  the  Prayer  Book  0/1662 

ILLUSTRATED 

FROM   SOURCES   MAINLY  CONTEMPORARY 

AND   WITH    MAPS 


NEW   YORK 

G.    P.    PUTNAM'S    SONS 

LONDON  :  T.  C.  &  E.  C.  JACK 


GIFT 


PREFACE 


Every  period  and  every  aspect  of  the  history  of  the  peoples  who  have 
created  the  British  Empire  has  been  dealt  with  in  separate  works  of  a 
manageable  length  ;  works,  that  is,  comprised  in  one  or  two  volumes. 
General  histories  covering  all  periods  and  many  aspects  have  been  written 
in  many  volumes  ;  but  with  a  single  exception  all  the  comprehensive  histories 
of  England  which  could  by  any  possibility  be  printed  in  one  volume  in 
legible  type  have  been  written  as  class-books  for  use  in  schools,  or  have 
at  least  been  composed  primarily  with  a  view  to  the  needs  of  the  youthful 
reader. 

The  one  exception,  that  great  classic,  the  late  J.  R.  Green's  Short  History 
of  the  English  People,  is  incomparable  in  its  kind.  Nevertheless  it  has 
appeared  possible  that  another  history,  of  the  British  nation,  not  confined 
to  the  English  people,  of  approximately  the  same  compass  but  wholly 
different  in  method  and  treatment,  might  appeal  to  that  vast  public  who 
do  desire  to  know  the  history  of  their  native  country  but  are  repelled  by 
the  class-book ;  a  work  which  will  be  found  interesting  as  well  as  in- 
forming ;  a  work  which  does  not  covertly  suggest  that  the  successful 
answering  of  examination  papers  is  the  great  object  of  existence  ;  a  work 
which  cannot  be  used  as  a  class-book :  a  live  history  of  the  mighty  nation 
whose  children  we  are.  The  author  has  done  his  best  to  ensure  the 
thoroughness  and  accuracy  without  which  any  professedly  historical  work 
must  stand  condemned  ;  whether  he  has  succeeded  in  superadding  the 
desirable  attractiveness,  others  must  judge.  An  attempt  to  enumerate  the 
modern  authorities,  not  to  speak  of  the  older  ones,  to  whose  work  he  is 
consciously  or  unconsciously  indebted,  w'ould  be  merely  futile.  It  only 
remains  for  him  to  say  that  he  can  claim  no  credit  for  the  illustration, 
and  to  express  his  warm  admiration  and  gratitude  for  the  manner  in  which 
Mr.  S.  G.  Stubbs  has  carried  out  this  task. 

A.    D.    INNES. 

Gerrard's  Cross, 
September,  1912. 


UHS^y^GB 


CONTENTS 


BOOK   1 

NATION   MAKING:  to  1272 
CHAPTER    I 

FROM    C/ESAR   TO   ALFRED 

SECTION 

I.  Celtic  Britain  and  the  Roman  Occupation 
II.  The  English  Conquest 

III.  The  Rival  Kingdoms    . 

IV.  Wessex  and  the  Danes 
V.  Alfred  the  Great 


CHAPTER    H 

KINGS   OF   THE   ENGLISH 


I.  Alfred's  Successors 
II.  From  Knut  to  the  Conquest 
III.  The  Anglo-Saxon  System 


I.  The  Conqueror 
II.  William  and  the  Church 

III.  England  and  the  Conquest 

IV.  Rufus      . 
V.  The  Lion  of  Justice 

VI.  Stephen 
VII.  Scotland 


CHAPTER     III 

THE    NORMANS 

. 

•      5° 

•      57 

est       . 

.      59 

.      67 

. 

^      70 

. 

'      75 

. 

.      78 

CHAPTER    IV 
THE   EARLY   PLANTAGENETS 


I.  Henry  II.            .            .             .... 

.       81 

II.  The  Annexation  of  Ireland       .... 

.       88 

III.  Coeur  de  Lion    ...... 

.       91 

IV.  John       

.       94 

V.  Henry  III.  and  Simon  de  Montfort     . 

.       lOI 

VI.  Aspects               ...                         .             . 

.     108 

VII.  Scotland            ...... 

.     113 

CONTENTS 


BOOK   II 


NATIONAL  CONSOLIDATION   (1272-1485) 
CHAPTER  V 


NATIONALISM   AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM 


I.  The  Reign  of  Edward  I. 

II.  Edward's  Legislation  . 

III.  Wales  .... 

IV.  Edward  and  the  Constitution 
V.  The  Lordship  of  Scotland 

VI.  Aspects  of  the  Policy  of  Edward  I. 

VI  I.  Robert  Bruce  . 

VIII.  Edward  II.       . 


PAGE 

122 
126 
132 

141 


CHAPTER   VI 
EDWARD    III.   AND    RICHARD    I 


I.  Before  the  Hundred  Years'  War 

II.  The  Era  of  Victories  . 

III.  The  Era  of  Failures    . 

IV.  Crown,  Commerce,  and  Parliament  . 

V.  The  Black  Death  and  the  Peasant  Revolt 

VI.  The  Reign  of  Richard  II. 

YII.  Scotland  .... 


151 

154 
160 
165 
172 
179 
185 


CHAPTER   VII 


LANCASTER 

AND 

YORK 

I.  Henry  IV.        . 
11.  Henry  V.          .             .             . 

III.  The  Loss  of  France    . 

IV.  The  Red  and  White  Roses    . 
V    Edward  IV.      . 

VI.  Richard  III.     . 
VII.  The  Progress  of  England 
k^III.  Scotland 

188 
191 
198 
206 
213 
215 
218 
222 

CHAPTER   VIII 

THE    MIDI 

)LE   A 

GES 

I.  Political  Aspects 
II.  Social  Aspects 
III.  Intellectual  Aspects 


226 
232 
235 


CONTENTS 


XI 


BOOK   III 

THE  AGE  OF  TRANSITION 
CHAPTER    IX 


HENRY   VII 

SECTION 

I.  Problems  of  the  Dynasty 

II.  The  Reign  of  Henry  VII. 

III.  Henry's  System  .  .  .  . 

IV.  The  Commercial  and  Agricultural  Revolution 
V.  Ireland  ...... 

VI.  Scotland  ..... 


241 

243 
249 
252 
257 
259 


CHAPTER   X 

THE    DEFENDER    OF   THE    FAITH 


I.  The  Cardinal     . 
II.  The  Dawn  of  the  Reformation 

III.  The  European  Schism 

IV.  The  Breach  with  Rome 
V.  Thomas  Cromwell 

VI.  Scotland  and  Ireland    . 
VII.  Last  Years 


274 


291 


I.  Protector  Somerset 
II.  John  Dudley      . 
III.  The  Succession 
IV.  Mary      . 


CHAPTER    XI 
IN    DEEP    WATERS 


302 

305 
308 


CHAPTER    XH 

THE    ELIZABETHAN    RECONSTRUCTION 


I.  The  Queen        .... 

II.  The  Settlement  in  England  and  Scotland 
III.  The  Contment:  Mary  Stuart  in  Scotland 
IV.  Cross  Currents 

V.  Ireland  .... 

VI.  The  Seamen      .... 


314 
316 
320 
3^5 
330 
332 


CHAPTER   XHI 
THE   DAY   OF   TRIUMPH 


I.  The  Jesuit  Attack 
II.  Coming  to  the  Grip 
III.  The  Armada 


337 
340 
346 


xu 


CONTENTS 


SECTION 

IV.  After  the  Armada 
V.  Scotland 
VI.  Winter  . 


350 
354 
357 


I.  The  State 
II.  The  Church       . 

III.  Economic  Progress 

IV.  Literature 


CHAPTER   XIV 
UNDER   THE   TUUORS 


363 
367 
372 
378 


BOOK   IV 

THE  SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY 

CHAPTER    XV 

RIGHT   DIVINE 

I,  The  Spring  of  Troubles  ..... 

II.  Puritans,  Romanists,  and  the  Impositions     . 

III.  The  Foreign  PoHcy  of  James  I.  c  .  .  . 

IV.  Buckingham     . 

V.  Puritanism 

VI.  Rule  without  Parliament 
VII.  Scotland 

VIII.  The  Bishops'  Wars     . 


383 
386 
391 
397 
404 
409 
414 
420 


CHAPTER   XVI 

THE    FALL    OF    THE    MONARCHY 


I.  The  Long  Parliament 
II.  The  First  Stage  of  the  Civil  War 
III.  The  New  Model 
IV.  Downfall 


423 
428 

433 
437 


CHAPTER   XVII 
THE   COMMONWEALTH 


I.  Drogheda  and  Worcester       .... 

.     445 

II.  The  Rump       ...... 

.     450 

III.  The  Protectorate  Governments 

.     454 

IV.  Foreign  Policy              ..... 

.     460 

V.  The  End  of  the  Commonwealth 

.     463 

CHAPTER    XVIII 
THE    RESTORATION 


I.  The  King's  Return 
II.  Clarendon 


467 
469 


CONTENTS 


SECTION 

III.  The  Cabal  and  Danby 

IV.  The  Popish  Plot  and  the  Exclusion  Bills 
V.  Scotland  .... 

VI.  The  Victory  of  the  Crown 


Xlll 

PAGE 

474 
480 
485 


CHAPTER   XIX 


NEMESIS 


I.  Quern  Deus  vult  perder 
II.  — Prius  dementat 
III.  Fulfilment 


491 
495 
498 


I.  The  Revolution  Settlement 
II.  Ireland 

III.  Scotland 

IV.  William's  War 
V.  The  Grand  Alliance 


CHAPTER    XX 

I'HE    REVOLUTION 

nt    . 

.     505 

. 

•     509 

•     5'3 

.     517 

.     . 

.     524 

CHAPTER     XXI 

THE   CENTURY 


I.  Colonial  Expansion     . 
II.  The  Trading  Companies 

III.  National  Finance 

IV.  The  Spirit  of  the  Age 


531 

534 
540 

543 


BOOK   V 

THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 


I.   Marlborough 
II.  The  Union 
III.  The  Whig  Ascendency 
IV.  The  Tory  Ascendency 


CHAPTER    XX 11 
QUEEN    ANNE 


549 
555 
560 
566 


CHAPTER   XXIII 
THE   WHIGS.   AND   WALPOLE'S   ASCENDENCY 


I.  The  Hanoverian  Succession 
II.  The  French  Alliance    . 

III.  Walpole  and  the  System 

IV.  The  Rule  of  Walpole   . 


571 
575 
581 
586 


XIV 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   XXIV 

THE    FALL    OF    WALPOLE,    AND    THE    PELHAAI    ADMINISTRATION 


SF-CTION- 

PAGE 

I.  The  War  in  Europe 

.         592 

II.  The  Forty-five  . 

. 

•    597 

III.  Dupleix 

. 

.    602 

IV.  Clive       . 

. 

.    605 

V.  After  the  War    . 

CHAPTER   XXV 

EMPIRE 

.    608 

I.  The  Grouping  of  the  Powers 
II.  Mismanagement 

III.  Pitt 

IV.  Bengal   . 


612 
617 
622 
629 


CHAPTER   XXVI 
THE   THIRD   GEORGE 

L  The  New  King              .... 
II.  Bute 

III.  George  Grenville  .... 

IV.  The  Rockinghams  and  the  Earl  of  Chatham 
V.  Townshend's  Taxes  and  John  Wilkes 

VI.  India   ...... 


636 
637 
641 
647 
650 
655 


CHAPTER    XXVII 
CLEAVAGE 


I.  The  Breach  Widens     . 

II.  From  Lexington  to  Saratoga 

III.  France  Intervenes 

IV.  The  Struggle  for  Life    . 
V.  Warren  Hastings  in  India 

VI.  North,  the  Whigs,  and  the  younger  Pitt 


658 

661 
665 
668 
674 
683 


CHAPTER   XXVIII 

THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 


I.  Ireland 
II.  Enclosure,  Marliinery,  and  Canah 
III.  Literature 


688 
69s 
702 


CONTENTS 


XV 


BOOK   VI 

THE  ERA  OF   REVOLUTIONS 
CHAPTER   XXIX 

BETWEEN    THE   WARS 


I.  Pitt's  Domestic  Policy 
II.  Foreign  Policy  and  the  French  Revolution 
III.  India  and  Canada 


PAGE 

712 
717 


CHAPTER    XXX 

THE    WAR    WITH    THE    REPUBLIC   AND    THE    UNION    WITH    IRELAND 


I.  The  Fiist  Stage 
II.  The  Second  Stage 
III.  Ireland  and  the  Union 


CHAPTER    XXXI 

THE   STRUGGLE   WITH    NAPOLEON 


I.  The  Black  Shadow  and  Trafalgar 
II.  The  Continental  System 

III.  The  Peninsula  War      . 

IV.  India  and  America 
V.  Waterloo 


CHAPTER   XXXI] 

FROM    WATERLOO   TO   THE   REFORM    BILL 


I.  Castlereagh 
II.  Canning  and  Huskisson 

III.  Reform  . 

IV.  India  and  the  Colonies 


CHAPTER   XXXIII 
THE   ERA 


I.  Tne  Industrial  Revolution 
II.  Literature 


724 
731 
738 


743 
749 
754 
763 
767 


775 
782 
787 
794 


801 
808 


BOOK  VII 

THE   MODERN   BRITISH   EMPIRE 

CHAPTER   XXXIV 

THE   REFORMED    PARLIAMENT 
I.  After  Reform  ....... 

II.  Grey  and  Melbourne  .  ..... 


813 

815 


XVI 


CONTENTS 


SECTIO:4 

PAGE 

III.  Peel 

.       822 

IV.  After  Peel         ..... 

.        826 

V.   Ireland 

.        831 

VI.  The  Colonies  and  America     . 

.        835 

VII.  India     ...... 

.       844 

VIII.  Early  Victorian             .... 

.       851 

CHAPTER    XXXV 
THE    PALMERSTONIAN    ERA 


I.  The  Crimean  War 
II.  Dalhousie  and  the  Sepoy  Revolt 

III.  Palmerston 

IV.  Foreign  Affairs 
V.  After  Palmerston 

VI.  Mid-Victorian 


857 
864 
872 
877 
883 


CHAPTER   XXXVI 

DEMOCRACY 


I.  Europe 
II.  The  Gladstone  Administration 
III.  Beaconsfield     . 
IV.  India    .... 
V.  South  Africa    . 
VI.  The  Eighty  Parliament 


892 
894 
900 
905 
908 
911 


CHAPTER   XXXVn 
LORD    SALISBURY 


I.  The  Home  Rule  Struggle 
II.  Lord  Salisbury  and  the  Unionists 

III.  The  Storm  Cloud  in  South  Africa 

IV.  The  South  African  War 

V.  The  Second  Salisbury  Administration 
VI.  Transitional     .  ,  .  . 


920 

925 
930 
934 
939 
946 


CHAPTER    XXXVIII 
EPILOGUE 


I.  Under  King  Edward  VII. 
II.   1910-1912 


949 

9S8 


INDEX 


96s 


List  ok  Illustrations  and  Historical  Notes 
List  of  Maps  ..... 

Genkalogical  Tahlks       .... 
List  of  Plaiics       ..... 


XVIl 
XXX 

xxxii 
xxxiii 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS    AND 
HISTORICAL    NOTES 

PAGE 

THE  WALL  OF  HADRIAN,  NEAR  HOUSESTEADS,  NORTHUMBERLAND.— Hadrian's  Wall  ran  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Tyne  to  the  moutb  of  the  Solvvay,  a  distance  of  about  seventy  iniler..  It  was  built  in  the  years  121  and 
122  A.D.,'and  marked  the  limit  of  the  Pax  Romana  in  Britain.  The  Wall  proper  was  of  hewn  stone,  aboiit  8  feet  thick, 
and  as  high,  perhaps,  as  18  feet  ;  in  front  was  a  ditch  40  feet  wide,  and  at  short  distances,  turrets  and  small  forts 
were  built  on  to  the  Wall,  larger  forts,  or  stations,  being  erected  near  the  Wall  at  points  four  miles  apart.  The  most 
important  of  all  the  stations  on  the  Wall — called  Borcovicus  by  the  Romans — was  at  Housesteads,  the  site  of  which 
is  shown  in  the  drawing 3 

SAXON  SPEAR-HE.ADS. — Saxon  arms  are  known  principally  from  illuminated  MSS.  (some  of  which  date  back  to  the 
eighth  century),  and  from  actual  examples  found  in  barrow  graves.  Those  shown  here  were  found  in  Great  Britain. 
They  were  fastened  by  nails  or  rivets  to  shafts  made  of  ash g 

SAXON  ARROW-HE.ADS. — The   bow  was   used  by   the   Saxons,  though   not  extensively  in   earlier   times.     Several 

of  the  examples  given  are  from  graves 10 

SA.XON  KNIVES. — The  Saxon  knife,  or  dagger,  was  a  weapon  common  to  all  classes,  and  was  used  for  all  kinds  of 
everyday  purposes  as  well  as  for  aggression.  One  in  the  centre  is  remarkable  for  the  fact  that  it  retains  a  carved 
wooden  handle 12 

SILVER  PENNY  OF  OFFA,  KING  OF  MERCIA.— Following  the  sceat  (a  generic  name  for  silver  coins  of  the 
seventh  century)  came  the  penny  first  coined  by  Offa  of  Mercia  (757-706),  and  imitated  from  the  Prankish  silver 
denarius.  Offa's  pennies  are  remarkable  for  the  variety  and  elaljoration  of  their  types,  and,  considering  the  age 
in  which  they  were  issued,  their  artistic  merit     ..............       15 

GOLD  RING  OF  ^THELVVULF.— This  ring  (now  in  the  British  Museum)  is  a  fine  example  of  gold  and  niello  work, 
the  decoration  consisting  in  lines  delicately  engraved  in  the  metal  and  filled  with  a  black  amalgam  of  silver,  copper, 
lead,  and  sulphur,  and  highly  polished.  iCthelwulf's  ring  is  an  interesting  Saxon  example  of  an  art  practised  in 
Europe  from  Roman  times  to  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century 17 

DRINKING  AND  MINSTRELSY  AMONG  THE  SAXONS.— Taken  from  an  English  Psalter  of  the  eleventh  century 
(Harleian  MSS.  603),  the  drawings  in  which  are  very  freely  imitated  from  the  famous  Utrecht  Psalter,  itself  executed 
by  an  Anglo-Saxon  artist  at  Rheims  in  the  ninth  century.  It  is,  therefore,  very  suggestive  of  ninth-century  manners. 
.\  party  of  gleeraen  are  entertaining  the  guests  with  the  harp,  fithelere  (the  modern  fiddle),  pipe,  and  dancing    .         .       20 

A  GROUP  OF  SAXON  SOLDIERS,  ABOUT  a.d.  iooo.— From  a  paraphrase  of  part  of  the  Old  Testament  by 
.■Elfric,  an  old  English  honiilist  and  abbot,  who  flourished  about  a.d.  iooo,  the  subject  of  the  drawing  being  taken 
from  Joshua.  One  king  wears  a  ringed  byrnie,  while  an  unarmed  armour-bearer  carries  a  second  shield.  Note  the 
double  beards 25 

EDG.\R  MAKING  .\N  OFFERING.— Edgar  granted  a  charter  in  966  to  the  new  minster  (known  as  Hyde  Abbey) 
founded  by  .Alfred  at  Winchester.  This  drawing  iorms  the  lower  portion  of  the  frontispiece  of  the  charter  and 
supplies  a  contemporary,  though  cr\ide,  portrait  of  the  king.  The  king  is  represented  as  supported  by  the  Virgin 
Mary  and  St.  Peter,  and  making  an  offering  of  his  charter  to  Christ  seated  in  glory  above 26 

AN  ANGLO-S.\XON  BED,  ABOUT  a.d.  iooo. — From  ^Ifric's  Paraphrase  of  Genesis.  The  bed  shown  consisted  of 
benches  placed  in  a  recess  in  the  chamber  separated  by  a  curtain  from  the  rest  of  the  apartment.  The  modern  word 
"  bedstead  "  means,  literally,  "  a  place  for  a  bed,"  and  what  we  call  bedsteads  were  probably  in  the  ninth  and  tenth 
centuries  only  possessed  by  the  higher  nobles.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  even  in  bed  Saxon  women  kept  the 
head  covered  with  the  head-rail 28 

KNUT  AND  EMMA,  HIS  QUEEN.— From  a  book  of  grants  to  Hyde  Abbey  (Stowe  MSS.)  similar  to  that  of  Edgar. 

Knut  is  shown  confirming  his  grant  on  the  Abbey  altar 29 

AN  ENGLISH  MONARCH.— Copied  from  an  English  Psalter  of  the  eleventh  century.     Especially  to  be  noted  in  the 

rather  elaborate  costume  is  the  leather  cross-gartering 31 

SEAL  OF  EDVv^ARD  THE  CONFESSOR.— From  an  impression  of  the  First  Great  Seal  of  Edward     ....       33 

TAKING  TOLL.— From  the  Psalter  (Harleian  MSS.  603),  before  quoted,  representing  the  taking  of  toll  in  the  market 

place  or  at  the  city  gates 34 

JAVELIN   AND  DAGGER. — A  spirited  little  drawing  from  the  .\nglo-Saxon  Psalter  belonging  to  the  Due  de  Berri. 

It  gives  an  example  of  the  use  of  weapons  shown  on  page  12 35 

A  SAXON  SLINGER.— From  the  Saxon  and  Latin  Psalter  of  Boulogne 35 

THE   KING  UPON  HIS  THRONE.— Montfau?on  (AntiguiUs  de  France)  says   that   this  drawing  appeared   in   an 

English  Book  of  Pravers  of  the  eleventh  centurv,  and  suggests  that  it  represents  Harold  upon  his  throne  ...       36 

xvii  If 


xviii  LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

HAROLD  RECEIVES  A\  ARROW  IX  HIS  EVE,  AN'D  DIES.— A  scene  from  the  famous  Tapestry  of  Bayeus 
discovered  by  MontfaiK^oa  in  1729.  It  was  executed  for  Bishop  Odo  (half-brother  of  the  Conqueror)  soon  after 
Senlac.     A  full-size  facsimile  of  the  Tapestry  is  now  in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum,  South  Kensington      .         .       38 

THE   KING  PRESIDING  OVER  THE  WITAN.— From   -Elfric's    Paraphrase   before   referred    to.     Ostensibly   the 
drawing  depicts  Pharaoh  and  his  ministers  doing  justice  upon  the  unfortunate  baker  who  was  afterwards  hanged, 
but  the  illuminator  has  so  obviously  drawn  upon  the  only  model  of  a  royal  council  kno\\'n  to  him  that  he  has  _ 
preserved  a  contemporary  representation  of  the  chiefs  of  the  Witanagemot "40 

THE  KIXG  AND  HIS  THEGNS.— A  drawing  from  a  paraphrase  of  the  Bible  (attributed  to  Caedmon,  Bodleian 
MSS.,  Junius  xi.),  which,  dt^spite  its  nominal  purpose,  depicts  a  Saxon  king  with  his  quantum  of  knights,  or  comites, 
making  up  the  comitatus,  his  personal  bodyguard 42 

THE  SAXON  TOWER  OF  SOMPTIXG  CHURCH,  SUSSEX.— An  example,  entirely  unique  in  England,  of  a  Saxon 
tower  (early  eleventh  century)  with  a  four-sided  gable  spire,  and  one  of  the  fevr  pre-Norman  English  buildings  now 
existing  in  a  fine  state  of  preservation.  Note  how  the  builders,  though  they  were  working  in  stone,  have  used  and 
imitated  the  forms  of  timbering  to  which  they  were  accustomed,  e.g.  in  the  strips  of  stone  down  the  centre  of  each  side      43 

A  SAXON  BANQUET  AT  A  ROUND  TABLE.— From  an  early  eleventh-century  Psalter.  Roasted  meats  were 
brought  to  the  Saxon  table  on  the  spits  as  they  were  cooked.  Forks  were  not  used,  and  each  man's  dagger  served 
as  his  knife.  The  vessels  represented  are  practically  identical  in  form  with  those  which  are  found  in  earlier  Anglo- 
Saxon  graves 45 

ANGLO-SAXON  GLEEMAN,  OR  JUGGLER.— From  an  eleventh-century  Psalter 46 

THE  OLD  ENGLISH  BVRH,  OR  FORTIFIED  PLACE.— A  drawing  from  the  paraphrase  of  the  Old  Testament 
attributed  to  Casdmon  in  the  Bodleian  Library,  intended  to  portray  the  Tower  of  Babel.  Actually  the  illuminator 
has  drawn  the  kind  of  building  which  he  knew,  and  thereby  gives  a  close  idea,  allowing  for  crudity  of  presentation, 
of  the  Saxon  walled  and  fortified  towTi.     See  also  note  on  page  42 47 

ANGLO-SAXON  SPEARS  AND  SWORDS.— From  contemporary  MSS.  and  specimens  found  in  grave-mounds.     Notice 

the  guards  below  the  heads  of  the  spears  intended  to  prevent  sword  blows  cutting  through  the  ashen  stocks         .         .       48 

S.AXON  PUNISHMENTS.— The  stocks  were  generally  placed  at  the  side  of  the  road  at  the  entrance  to  the  town,  where 

also  offenders  were  chained  in  a  kind  of  pillory.   From  an  English  Psalter  of  the  eleventh  century  (Harleian  MSS.  603)       49 

THE  GRE.AT  SEAL  OF  WILLIAM  THE  CONQUEROR 51 

NORM.ANS  AT  DINNER. — From  the  Bayeux  Tapestry,  representing  Harold  and  his  companions  carousing.     They  are 

seated  in  an  upper  apartment  separated  from  the  miscellaneous  throng  that  crowded  the  great  hall .         .         .'       .       53 

ARCHES  IN  THE  NAVE   OF  ST.  ALBANS  ABBEY  CHURCH.— The  great  nave  of  St.  Albans,  one  of  the  longest 

in  England,  was  built  by  Abbot  Paul  between  1077  and  1093 55 

AN  AISLE  IN  THE  CHAPEL  OF  ST.  JOHN,  TOWER  OF  LONDON.- This  chapel  forms  part  of  the  magnifi- 
cent White  Tower,  or  Keep,  which  was  built  by  Bishop  Gundulf  of  Rochester  about  1078.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
notable  examples  of  early  Norman  work 58 

A  NORM.^N  BED. — From  a  twelfth-century  MS.,  containing  Anglo-Norman  drawings  of  biblical  subjects.     Norman 

furniture  was  much  more  ornamental  than  that  of  the  Saxons  ;  the  beds  also  assumed  new  and  more  elaborate  forms       60 

SCENES  IN  ENGLISH  OUTDOOR  LIFE  IN  THE  ELEVENTH  CENTURY.- From  a  Saxon  calendar  in  a 
hymnarium  in  the  British  Museum,  depicting  the  occupations  of  each  of  the  twelve  months  of  the  year.  The  four 
given  are  for  May,  June,  July,  and  October 61 

AN  IDE.AL  PLAN  OF  A  NORMAN  C.\STLE. — From  Grose's  Military  Antiquities,  showing  the  arrangement  of  a 

typical  castle  of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries 65 

A  MANOR-HOUSE  OF  THE  ELEVENTH  CENTURY.— From  the  Harleian  MS.  referred  to  in  the  note  under  page  20. 
This  drawing  illustrates  Psalm  CXI.  The  larger  building  with  the  stag's  head  and  ending  with  a  tower  is  the  Saxon 
hall.     On  the  right  is  the  chapel.     The  house  was  probably  of  wood  with  a  foundation  and  lower  walls  in  masonry  .       66 

SEAL  OF  ARCHBISHOP  ANSELM.— From  Ducarel's  .4Ms/o-.Von;mw  .-Jn/ijia/iM 68 

A  NORMAN  SCHOOL,  ABOUT  1130-1140.— From  a  Psalter  containing  Anglo-Norman  drawings.  In  the  original 
the  scholars  form  a  complete  circle  round  the  teacher,  who  appears  to  be  lecturing  viva  voce,  while  two  MS.  writers 
proceed  with  their  work 72 

AN  ORGAN,  ABOUT  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  TWELFTH  CENTURY.— This  drawing  from  the  Harleian  MS. 
603,  before  referred  to,  is  one  of  those  imitated  from  the  earlier  Utrecht  Psalter.  Church  Organs  were  therefore 
known  in  England  before  the  Conquest.  William  of  Malmesbury  speaks  of  an  organ  given  to  Malmesbury  by  Dunstan 
in  the  reign  of  Edgar 73 

OFFICERS  OF  THE  ROYAL  TRE.ASURY,  ABOUT  1140.— From  the  same  Psalter  as  the  last  illustration.  It  in.iy 
well  represent  officials  of  the  Court  of  Exchequer  under  Henry  I.,  in  whose  reign  payments  were  required  to  be  made 
in  silver  instead  of  in  kind 74 

THE  ENGLISH  STANDARD,    1 138. —From  an  almost  contemporary   MS.  (at  Corpus   Christi,  Cambridge),  with  an 

account  of  the  Battle  of  the  Standard  by  i€theldred,  Abbot  of  Rievaulx 76 

SEAL  OF  HENRY,  BISHOP  OF  WINCHESTER.— From  an  engraving  in  the  Journal  0/  the  Archcrological  Association  .       77 

CHURCH  OF  ST.   REGULUS,  ST.  ANDREWS.— A  chancelled  Scottish  pre-Xorman  church.     The  tower  dates  from 

the  tenth  to  twelfth  centuries,  but  it  is  properly  related,  in  its  style,  to  the  twelfth  century 70 

THOMAS  A  BECKET  ARGUING  WITH  HENRY  II.  AND  KING  LOUIS.— From  a  French  life  of  A  Recket, 
written  in  England  in  the  thirteenth  century;  a  fine  example  of  French  illumination  carried  out  by  I'nglisli  hands. 
From  a  facsimile  by  the  Sociite  des  Ancicns  Tcxtes  Franrais 83 


AND   HISTORICAL   NOTES  xix 

PACK 

MOUNTED  SOLDIERS  OF  THE  TIME  OE  HENRV  II.— Taken  from  a  page  of  drawings  illustrating  Maccabees  I. 

ina  vellum  copy  of  tlie  Bible  of  Henry  II.  (1154-1189)  belonging  to  the  Dean  and  Chapter  of  Winchester    .         .         .8.5 

KNIGHTS  OF  THE  LATE  TWELFTH  CENTURY 86 

LADIES  OF  THE  TWELFTH  CENTURY  WEAVING.— From  Eadwine's  Psalter  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge, 
which  is  similar  in  many  respects  to  the  Utrecht  Psalter  and  the  Harleian  MSS.  (603),  so  often  drawn  upon. 
Weaving  appears  to  have  been  practised  very  extensively  in  tlie  larger  Norman  households 87 

AN  IRISH  CHALICE  OF  THE  TENTH  TO  ELEVENTH  CENTURIES.— One  of  the  most  beautiful  products  of 
Celtic  art.  It  was  found  at  Ardagh,  and  belongs  to  an  early  class  of  two-handled  cups  meant  for  the  communion 
of  the  minor  clergy  and  people.  It  is  7  inches  high,  and  is  of  silver  and  bronze  gilt,  ornamented  with  repousse  and 
filigree  work  in  gold  and  also  in  fine  enamels,  of  exquisite  execution 8g 

AN  ENGLISH  MONARCH,  ABOUT  1 190.— From  a  Book  of  Prayers  in  the  British  Museum.      It  may,  perhaps, 

represent  Richard  I „         .       92 

TRANSLATION  OF  HOLY  RELICS  IN  THE  THIRTEENTH  CENTURY.— After  a  drawing  by  Matthew  of 
Paris,  a  famous  monk  and  chronicler  of  St.  Albans,  who  died  in  1259.  His  Chronica  Majora  give  exceedingly  vivid 
impressions  of  his  age  ;   as  a  draughtsman  he  was  unequalled 97 

WEST  DEAN  PARSONAGE. — A.  thirteenth-century  building  in  Sussex,  one  of  the  earliest  domestic  buildings  in  England 

which  remains  substantially  intact 99 

AN  EARLY  THIRTEENTH-CENTURY  KNIGHT.— From  an  incised  slab  on  the  tomb  of  Sir  John  de  Bitton  at  Bitton, 

Somersetshire,  1227.     A  fine  example  of  chain  mail 102 

SIMON  DE  MONTFORT  THE  ELDER.— The  father  of  the   English  Earl  Simon.       From  a  window  in   Chartres 

Cathedral,  1230 loG 

ORDINATION  OF  A  PRIEST.— From  an  Anglo-Norman  MS.  roll  (late  twelfth  century)  of  pictures  of  the  life  of  the 

holy  Guthlac  of  Mercia,  who  lived  at  Crowland  in  the  eighth  century no 

TRAVELLERS  IN  ANGLO-NORMAN  DRESS.— From  a  twelfth-century  Psalter,  with  .\nglo-Norman  drawings.     The 

one  chosen  represents  the  Flight  into  Egypt 113 

DAVID  I.  AND  MALCOLM  IV.— As  portrayed  in  Malcolm's  Charter  to  Kelso  Abbey,  about  1160 114 

A  KNIGHT  OF  THE  THIRTEENTH  CENTURY.— The  Brass  of  Sir  John  D'Abernoun  (d.  1277)  in  Stoke  Dabernon 
Church,  the  earliest  effigy  on  brass  known  in  Great  Britain  or  on  the  Continent.  It  is  further  luirivalled  as  an 
example  of  technique  and  patient,  scrupulous  work  by  its  engraver 121 

CONW.\Y  CASTLE,  NORTH  WALES.— Built  in  1284  by  Edward  I.  after  his  conquest  of  North  Wales  .         .         .124 

TOLL  HOUSE  AND  PRISON,  GREAT  YARMOUTH.— Most  of  this  building  dates  from  the  thirteenth  century. 
It  has  a  large  chamber,  which  was  used  for  the  collection  of  tolls  and,  later,  for  meetings  of  the  Borough  Court.  \ 
dungeon  under  the  building  was  in  use  as  a  prison  until  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  centiu-y    .         .         .         .127 

EDWARD  I.  RECEIVING  THE  BULL  OF  POPE  BONIFACE  VIIL— From  a  thirteenth-century  MS.  in  the  British 
Museum  containing  drawings  of  P'nglish  kings  from  Edward  the  Confessor  to  Edward  I.,  with  short  notices  of  each 
king  in  French.  . 130 

A  THIRTEENTH-CENTURY  CARICATURE  UPON  THE  JEWS  OF  NORWICH.— Norwich  was  one  of  the 
principal  seats  of  the  Jews  in  England  in  the  reign  of  Henry  III.,  and  in  this  caricature  (a  sketch  by  the  clerk  who 
engrossed  the  Jews'  Roll  in  the  Public  Record  Office)  Isaac  of  Norwich,  the  crowned  Jew  with  three  faces,  is  repre- 
sented as  chief  among  them.  Demons  (Dagon  and  "  Colbif  "),  false  balances,  and  forked  tongues  make  up  a  piquant 
satire 140 

HOUSEWIFE,    EARLY   FOURTEENTH   CENTURY.— A    figure   from   one  of   the   Sloane  MSS.  showing  an   early 

example  of  the  "  barme  cloth,"  afterwards  called  the  apron 147 

COSTUxME   OF   THE    COMMONALTY,    EDWARD    II.— Showing  the  women's  headgear,  the  wimple,  and  boots  of 

untanned  leather 148 

BRASS  OF  SIR  JOHN  DE  CREKE,   1325.— In  Westley  Waterless  Church,  Cambridgeshire.     A  finely  typical  brass 

of  :the  armour  of  the  period,  perhaps  the  earliest  showing  the  use  of  plate  armour 149 

OPENING  A  JOUST  IN  THE  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY.— From  one  of  the  Egerton  MSS.  in  the  British  Museum, 

giving  rules  for  the  conduct  of  knightly  jousts  and  tournaments 150 

EDWARD  III.  AND  ST.  GEORGE.— From  an  electrotype  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery  of  the  effigy  on  the  king's 

monument  in  Westminster  Abbey 15 1 

A  ROYAL  DINNER  PARTY  IN  THE  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY.— From  a  Norman  MSS.  of  the  Romance  of 
MeUadns  in  the  British  Museum.  The  comparative  meagreness  of  the  table  and  its  appointments,  thougli  for  the 
sovereign,  is  of  interest.     Forks  are  not  yet  in  use 153 

EDWARD  III.  MEETS  HIS  COUSIN  OF  FRANCE.— From  a  French  MS.  chronicle  m  the  British  Museum.  Edward 
met  the  newly-confirmed  PhiUp  VI.  in  1331  (after  he  gained  his  freedom  from  the  Regency  of  his  mother,  Isabella,  and 
Roger  Mortimer)  to  do  homage  to  Philip  for  Guienne  and  his  other  French  possessions.  Six  years  later  he  renounced 
that  homage,  and  the  Hundred  Years'  War  began 153 

A  SEA  FIGHT,   ABOUT  THE   TIME    OF  THE   BATTLE   OF   SLUVS.— From  a  MS.  in  the  British  Museum,  iUu- 

nunated  about  1350.     See  also  the  note  on  the  illustraticn  on  page  170 .        .     156 


XX  LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

AN  ARCHER  OF  THE  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY.— From  a  British  iMuseum  MS.,  illuminated  about  1330.  It 
was  ia  the  fourteenth  century  that  the  efficacy  of  the  bow,  the  most  deadly  weapon  devised  until  the  introduction 
of  gunpowder,  came  to  be  fully  recognised  and  the  archer  attained  the  height  of  his  importance.  Cre^y  proved 
that  archery  combined  with  infantry  could  utterly  rout  forces  that  relied  upon  cavalry  charges      ....     157 

CROSS-BOW  AND  QUARREL  AS  USED  AT  CRE9Y.— The  quarrel  of  the  cross-bow,  or  arbalest,  was  a  heavy, 
short  bolt  with  a  square  head  and  winged  like  an  arrow.  It  did  not  carry  so  far  as  the  arrow,  but  was  deadly  at 
short  range ' 158 

ARCHER    AND    ARBALESTIER. — Occasionally  the  archer  and  arbalestier  (or  cross-bowman)  were  protected  with 

heavy  armour,  as  in  the  two  figures  given  here,  taken  from  a  MS.  159 

A  TEMPORARY  BESIEGING  FORT  OF  TIMBER.— From  a  MS.  of  Sir  John  Froissart's  Chronicles  of  England 
in  the  British  Museum.  The  gate  of  a  castle  is  being  attacked  from  a  timber  fort  of  great  strength  of  construction. 
A  battery  of  two  cannon  is  included,  and  the  mixture  of  arms  includes  long-bow,  cross-bow,  and  hand-guns.  As 
yet  the  bow  and  catapult  remained  weapons  more  effective  than  the  clumsy  hand-guns  and  cannon       .         .         .     161 

ENGLISH  MAN-AT-ARMS  AND  ARCHER.— From  Froissart's  Chronicles  of  England,  a  typical  illustration  of 
the  complete  plate  armour  of  the  fourteenth  century.  The  archer  is  protected  by  plates  of  steel,  a  skirt  of  mail, 
and  a  visored  helmet ;  the  lower  part  of  the  body  is  unprotected 163 

A    FOURTEENTH-CENTURY    ABBOT   PREACHING.— In  the  fourteenth  century,   and  later,  congregations   were 

accustomed  to  sit  upon  the  floors  of  the  churches  as  shown  in  this  drawing  from  a  MS.  of  Richard  II.  's  reign     .         .     i5^ 

A  MERCHANT  OF  1367. — From  a  very  fine  brass  on  the  tomb  of  Robert  Braunche,  a  wool  merchant  of  Lynn,  Norfolk. 
Under  Edward  111.  the  trade  in  English  wool  flourished  greatly,  and  the  merchants  and  burgesses  of  the  east  coast 
became  men  of  affluence  and  importance 16O 

A  GOLDSMITH'S  SHOP  IN  THE   FOURTEENTH   CENTURY.— .A.n  interesting  picture  of  a  medieval  shop.     The 

goldsmiths  were  the  bankeLS  as  well  as  the  jewellers  of  the  Middle  Ages 167 

GOLD  ROSE-NOBLE  OF  EDWARD  III. — The  noble  long  remained  the  sole  gold  currency  of  England.  It  was 
introduced  by  Edward  III.  in  1344.  The  figure  of  the  king  in  a  ship  on  the  obverse  is  generally  thought  to  refer 
to  the  naval  victory  of  Sluys  in  1340 170 

A    BISHOP'S   COURT.— From  an  Italian  MS.  of  the  late  fourteenth  century  in  the  British  Museum  .         .         .171 

A   STATE  CARRIAGE  OF  ABOUT  1330.— From  the  Luttrell  Psalter,  a  finely  illuminated  MS.  written  for  Sir  Geoffrey 

Luttrell  (see  page  227),  who  died  iu  1345 172 

PENSHURST,  THE  HALL  OF  A  FOURTEENTH-CENTURY  BARON.— Penshurst  was  originally  the  residence 
of  Sir  Stephen  de  Penchester.  By  Henry  VIII.  it  was  granted  to  his  chamberlain,  Sir  William  Sidney,  and  thus  it 
became  the  home  of  the  Sidney  family.  The  hall  of  the  mansion,  biiilt  about  1340,  has  a  fine  open-timbered  roof 
and  a  minstrel's  gallery .         .     173 

JOHN    BALL  H.\R.\NGUING.— From  a  picture  in  a  Froissart  MS.  of  Jolin  Ball  addressing  a  crowd  of  V.'at  Tyler's 

insurgents  in  the  market-place 176 

RICH.^RD  II. — From  a  diptych  (representing  the  king  being  presented  to  the  Virgin  by  three  patron  saints)  at  Wilton 
House,  belonging  to  the  Earl  of  Pembroke.  Probably  painted  soon  after  Richard's  accession  by  an  Italian  artist  in 
England.     In  his  reign  the  wildest  extravagances  in  dress  prevailed  ;  his  robes  are  noticeably  luxurious  .         .     178 

LADIES  H.\WKING.— From  a  fourteenth-century  MS.  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  Paris 181 

LADIES  SHOOTING  RABBITS.— .\rchery  was  a  favourite  recreation  with  the  ladies  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  there 
are  frequent  examples  of  their  prowess  in  the  MSS.  In  this  instance,  from  a  fourteenth-century  MS.  in  the  Britisn 
Museum,  a  bolt  is  used  instead  of  the  ordinary  sharp-headed  arrow 182 

RICHARD  II.  GOES  TO  HIS  FRIENDS  .^T  CONWAY  CASTLE.— From  a  masniftcently  illuminated  metrical 
life  of  Richard,  written  by  a  Frenchman  who  was  a  member  of  the  king's  suite  through  the  troublous  later  part  of 
his  life.     In  the  British  Museum 184 

EDWARD    HI.    AND   D.WID    OF   SCOTLAND.— From  an  illuminatiou  at  the  head  of  the  articles  of  the  Peace  of 

135;  with  David.     On^  of  the  Cotton  MSS 186 

AN  .\BBOT  TR.AVELLING.— From  St.  Alban's  I5ook.  The  abbot  wears  a  hat  over  his  hood,  and  is  giving  his  bene- 
diction to  a  passing  traveller      .................     igi 

A    MEDIEVAL   SIEGE-ENGINE.— .A  machine  for   throwing  stones,  etc.,  into  a  besieged  city  by  the  action  of  a 

twisted  cord.     From  one  of  the  Harleian  MSS.  in  the  British  Museum 195 

A   R.ATTERING-RAM   AND   ITS  USE.— The  ram  consists  of  a  heavy  timber  beam  with  a  head,  probably  of  metal, 

swung  from  a  frame  by  a  rope.    The  drawing  also  shows  the  armour  of  the  second  half  of  the  fifteenth  century     ,     195 

THE  SIEGE  OF  ROUEN  BY  HENRY  V.— Part  of  a  delicately  executed  drawing  occurring  in  John  Rous's /-iirx 
0/  the  EarU  of  Waru-uk,  in  a  MS.  of  the  late  fifteenth  century  in  the  British  Museum.  Rouen  was  the  last  town 
to  hold  out  against  Henry  in  his  Normandy  campaign 107 

BESIEGING  A  FRENCH  TOWN  AT  THE  END  OF  THE  HUNDRED  YEARS'  WAR.— A  phase  in  the  siege 
of  Dieppe  by  Talbot,  Earl  of  Shrewsbury.  The  English  had  captured  and  occupied  a  fort  commanding  the  town, 
which  the  French  are  here  represented  as  assaulting.  The  cannon  used  and  portable  bridges  for  crossing  the  mo.ats 
are  of  interest.  From  one  of  the  principal  MSS.  of  Froissart's  Chronicles  at  Paris,  of  whit  h  the  first  jwrtion  is  in 
the  British  Museum ....     201 

CARDINAL  BEAUFORT'S  CHAUNTRY  IN  WINCHESTER  CATHEDRAL.— Henry  Beaufort,  half-brother  of 
Henry  IV.,  made  Bishop  of  Winchester  in  1404  and  Cardinal  in  1426,  was  Chancellor  of  England  three  times  and 
the  principal  opponent  of  the  schemes  and  intrigues  of  Humphrey,  Duke  of  Gloucester.  He  finished  the  building 
of  Wiiirhester  Cathedral  and  died  in  1447 203 


AND    HISTORICAL   NOTES  xxi 

PACE 

TATTERSHALL,    A  FIFTEENTH-CENTURY  CASTLE.— A  splendid  building  in  brick  in  the  Peipendicular  style    .     206 

THE   YOUTHFUL    HENRY   VL— From   a  drawing  in   the   beautiful  MS.  Life  of  St.   Edmund  by  John  Lydgate, 

possibly  written  and  illuminated  when  Henry  stayed  at  St.  Edmundsbury  in  1433.     The  MS.  (British  Museum) 
includes  an  illumination  depicting  Lydgate  presenting  the  "  Life  "  to  the  king 208 

THE    DUKE    OF    GLOUCESTER    AND    THE   EARL    OF    WARWICK   IN    BATTLE.— From  Rous's  Lives  of  the 

£aWjio/ iyarj£i/(.*,  a  late  fifteenth-century  MS 210 

A   BEDROOM    IN   THE    MIDDLE    OF   THE   FIFTEENTH   CENTUR^•.  -From  Lyd^-atc's  Life  of  S/.    Edmund, 

representing  the  saint's  birth  and  showing  well  the  richness  and  luxury  that  was  gro\v;ug  up  in  the  fifteenth  ctntury     211 

EDWARD  IV.,  HIS  SON,  EDWARD  V.,  .A.ND  THE  COURT.— Representing  Earl  Rivers  presenting  his  translation 
of  the  Uictes  or  Sayengis  of  the  Pliilosophres  to  the  long,  to  which  this  illumination  forms  the  frontispiece. 
It  also  affords  the  only  known  contemporary  portrait  of  the  prince  who  became  Edward  \'.  It  has  been  stated 
that  the  figure  in  monkish  garb  is  Caxton,  who  revised  and  printed  this  translation  by  Earl  Rivers,  it  being  the  first 
dated  book  printed  in  England 214 

.\N  ALDERMAN  OF  LONDON,   1474. -From  the  brass  of  John  Field,  "  sometyme  alderman  of  London,  a  merchant 

of  the  stapuU  of  Caleys,  the  which  deceased  in  the  yere  of  our  Lord  God,"  1474 220 

A  MERCHANT.— From  Caxton's  G(i»;ea;«?  P/flj'co/C^MS^-,  printed  in  1475  at  Bruges 221 

AN    ENGLISH    KNIGHT    IN    FULL    CAPARISON.— From  the  frontispiece  illumination  to  the  Luttrcll  Psalter, 

showing  Sir  Geoffrey  Luttrell  being  armed  by  his  wife  and  daughter 227 

A  ROYAL  CARRIAGE  AND  ITS  ESCORT,  ABOUT  1480.— Up  to  the  latter  part  of  the  fifteenth  century  horses 
were  almost  the  only  means  of  conveyance.  About  this  time  pictures  of  carriages  are  mere  often  met  with,  but 
they  are  generally  clumsy  vehicles,  however  gorgeous,  and  seem  only  to  have  been  used  by  persons  of  high  estate  .     229 

A  COMPLETE  SUIT  OF  GOTHIC  ARMOUR,  ABOUT  1470.— From  the  Wallace  Collection 231 

.\iN  ENGLISH   KNIGHT  OF  1400.— From  the  brass  of  Sir  George  FeIbrigge,Playford  Church,  Suffolk  .         .         .         .233 

A  MS.  REPRESENTATION    OF  A    HOUSE.— From  a  fourteenth-century  MS.  of  the  Romance  of  the  San  Graal         .     234 

.\   PUPPET  SHOW.— From  a  French  MS.  Romance  of  Alexander  in  the  Bodleian.     It  is  of  fourteenth-century  origin, 

and  suggests  considerable  antiquity  for  the  modern  Punch  and  Judy  show 235 

THE  HIERARCHY  OF  THE  SCIENCES  AS  CONCEIVED  BY  MEDIEVAL  THOUGHT.— From  a  Bible  in  the 
British  IMuseum  illuminated  about  1290  for  Jehan,  Due  de  Berri.  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  are  seated  on  either  sioe 
of  the  Heavenly  Throne.  The  other  personalities  are  self-explanatory.  The  illumination  is  interesting  in  the 
emphatic  precedence  given  to  theology. over  science,  which  was  natural  to  the  medieval  mind  ....     237 

GEOFFREY  CH.A.UCER.— From  a  portrait  painted  by  Thomas  Occleve  (a  pupil  of  Chaucer)  in  a  copy  of  his  Rc^e- 
ment  of  Princes,  now  in  the  British  Museum.  It  shows  Chaucer  as  an  old  man,  perhaps  as  he  might  have  been 
seen  walking  in  the  precincts  of  Westminster  Abbey  in  the  last  months  of  his  life 238 

A  SPECIMEN  OF  CAXTON'S  PRINTING.— The  dedication  of  the  G^jm^-a/Ki  P/rtjeo/ Cfefssf,  Caxtou's  second  printed 

book,  printed  at  Bruges  (where  he  lived  for  thirty-five  years)  in  1475.     See  also  the  note  on  the  illustration  on  p.  214     239 

HENRY    VII. — From  a  finely  sculptured  bronze  bust  in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum,  ascribed  to  Torregiano,  an 

ItaUan  sculptor,  who  visited  England  early  in  the  sixteenth  century 244 

THE  HUNDRED  MEN'S  HALL  AT  ST.  CROSS,  NEAR  WINCHESTER.— The  Hospital  of  St.  Cross  was  founded  by 
Henry  de  Blois  in  1136  to  provide  lodging  for  thirteen  poor  men  and  a  daily  dinner  for  a  hundred  others.  It  was 
enlarged  by  William  of  Wykeham  and  by  Cardinal  Beaufort,  and  is  a  unique  example  of  a  medieval  almshouse      .     246 

THE  POLITICAL  GAME  OF  CARDS.— Perhaps  the  earliest  example  of  the  modern  caricature.  It  is  French,  and 
represents  Louis  XII.  as  holding  the  winning  hand.  The  other  two  players  are  the  Swiss  and  Venetian  rulers.  Round 
are  grouped  Henry  VII.  of  England  and  the  King  of  Spain  in  conversation.  Pope  Alexander  VI.  (the  infamous 
Borgia) — who  is  anxious  as  to  the  game  his  ally,  Louis,  is  playing — the  Emperor,  with  a  fresh  pack  of  cards,  and 
other  European  princes 247 

\   SHILLING    OF    HENRY    VII.— First  struck  in  1504  and  introducing  the  practice  of  putting  the  head  in  profile, 

wherefore  it  was  called  a  "  testoon  " 248 

BEDESMEN,  TIME  OF   HENRY  VII.— From  the  initial  letter  of  a  deed  by  which  Henry  VII.  founded  a  fraternity 

of  thirteen  poor  men  in  Westminster  Abbey.     The  abbot,  monks,  and  royal  bedesmen  are  shown  ....     249 

MONKS  .\ND  LAWYERS.— An  illuminated  letter  from  a  deed  of  grant  by  Henry  VII.  to  Westminster  Abbey  which 

had  to  be  read  in  chapter  yearly  by  the  king's  attorney 250 

HENRY  VII.'S  CHAPEL,  WESTMINSTER  ABBEY.-This  eastern  chapel  of  the  Virgin  Mary  in  the  Abbey,  which 
replaced  an  earlier  Lady  Chapel,  is  ornamented  with  an  extraordinary  luxuriance  and  fineness  of  detail,  and  is, 
perhaps,  the  most  remarkable  English  building  of  the  period.     It  is  in  the  late  Perpendicular  style         .         .         •251 

A  GENTLEMAN  OF  THE  TIME  OF  HENRY  VII.— A  drawing  of  a  well-to-do  citizen  from  a  MS.  of  the  Romaimi 

of  the  Rose -i- 

A  FIFTEENTH-CENTURY  WOOL  MERCHANT.— From  a  brass  in  Northleach  Church,  Gloucestershire    .        .        .253 

AGRICULTURAL   LABOURERS.— From  woodcuts  in  Barclay's  Eclogue,  1509 -         .        .     255 


xxii  LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 
A  COMMON  OR  OPEN  FIELD. — This  comnion  or  open  field  at  Stogursey,  near  Watchet,  Somersetshire,  was  carried 
on  until  1879.  The  balks — pieces  of  unploughed  land — separating  each  strip  are  well  shown.  The  strips  of  land 
were  ordinarily  of  an  acre  or  half  an  acre  in  extent,  forty  rods  long,  and  four  rods  wide,  each  man's  holding  consist- 
ing of  strips  distributed  over  the  whole  field  or  district,  so  that  he  might  have  as  many  as  150  strips  to  farm  of  which 
uo  two  would  be  adjacent.     From  a  photograph  by  Miss  E.  M.  Leonard 256 

JAMES  in.   OF  SCOTLAND.— From  a  painting  of  James  and  his  son  at  Holyrood 260 

CARDINAL  WOLSEY.— After  the  portrait  by  Holbein  at  Christ  Church,  Oxford 263 

FRANCIS  I.  AND  HENRY  VHI.  AT  THE  FIELD  OF  THE  CLOTH  OF  GOLD  IN  PICARDY,  in  1520.— From 
a  sculpture  at  Rouen  in  a  house  of  the  sixteenth  century  of  the  scenes  at  the  meeting  of  the  two  kings  done  b\-  the 
order  of  Francis  1 266 

THE  ARMY  OF  HENRY  VIII.,  .■VBOUT  1513.— From  a  contemporary  MS.  in  the  British  Museum.  The  assault  has 
just  begun  on  the  king's  army,  which  consists  of  artillery,  protected  by  mantelets  of  timber,  two  lines  of  arquebusiers 
and  a  main  body  of  pikemen 267 

ERASMUS. — The  obverse  of  a  German  medal  of  1519  in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum 269 

JOHN   FISHER,    BISHOP    OF    ROCHESTER.— After  the  drawing  by  Holbein  in  the  British  Museum     .         .         .270 

M.\RTIN  LUTHER.— After  the  painting  by  Lucas  Cranach  at  Florence 272 

THE    POPE    STRUGGLING    WITH    CALVIN    AND    LUTHER.— From  Jaime,  Musle  dc  la  Carkalurc.     An  early 

engraving  representing  the  mutual  hostility  of  the  two  great  opponents  of  the  Papacy 273 

THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  DEMON. — A  contemporary  woodcut  satirising  Luther  from  the  Catholic  standpoint  .         .     274 

THE  OVERTHROW   OF  THE  POPE.— From  a  pamphlet  issued  in  1521  by  Lucas  Cranach,  presenting  the  idea  that 

Antichrist  was  emblematical  of  the  Papacy,  and  that  the  end  of  his  reign  on  earth  was  then  approaching         .         .275 

HENRY  VIII. — After  a  painting  usually  attributed  to  Holbein  ;  it  is  probable  that  none  of  the  many  paintings  of  Henrv 

VIII.  is  by  Holbein  .  .      ' '.277 

THOMAS   CRANMER. — From  Vertue's  engraving  of  Holbein's  painting 279 

HEADING  OF  THE  PAPAL  BULL  AGAINST  THE  DISSOLUTION  OF  HENRY'S  MARRIAGE   .         .         .         .281 

THOMAS   CROMWELL.— After  the  engraving  in  Holland's  Heroologia 282 

QUEEN   JANE   SEYMOUR.— After  the  drawing  by  Holbein 286 

IRISH  GRO.\T  OF  HENRY  VIII.— Struck  in  1530.     The  first  Irish  coin  on  which  the  harp  appears  .         .         .         .290 

SUIT  OF  ARMOUR  FOR  FIGHTING   ON  FOOT,  HENRY  VIII.— Preserved  in  the  Tower  of  London.     This  smt, 

made  in  the  Maximilian  style  for  Henry  VIII.,  is  one  of  the  finest  in  existence.     It  weighs  93  lbs 293 

THE  SIEGE  OF  BOULOGNE  BY  HENRY  VIII.,  1544.— From  an  engraving  in  Ft/!ti/aA/om/m««to,  after  a  painting 
which  hung  in  Cowdray  House,  Midhurst,  Sussex,  until  its  destruction  by  fire  in  1793.  Sixteenth-century  siege 
tactics  are  depicted  with  great  vigour.     The  painting  is  one  of  a  series  executed  about  1550  ....     293 

AN   ARQUEBUSIER       .        .  295 

A    PIKEM.\N. — Two  drawings  from  the  same  MS.  as  the  illustration  on  page  267.     They  show  well  the  weapons  and 

half-arroour  worn 296 

A  PORTRAIT  MEDAL  OF  EDWARD  VI.— A  medal  struck  by  a  foreign  artist  in  England,  1547.  Medal-making 
was  not  practised  in  England  till  long  after  Continental  artists  had  achieved  high  distinction,  and  it  is  only  at  rare 
intervals  up  to  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  that  English  medallists  of  note  are  met  with  .         .         .     299 

THE  CORONATION  PROCESSION  THROUGH  LONDON  OF  EDWARD  VI.— Part  of  a  large  engraving  published 
by  the  Society  of  Anticmaries  of  a  contemporary  painting  at  Cowdray  House,  Midhurst,  destroyed  in  1793.  The 
procession  is  passing  Cheapside  Cross  on  its  way  to  Westminster  from  the  Tower    .         ......     300 

MUMMERS   AT   A   FEAST   ABOUT   THE    MIDDLE    OF   THE    SIXTEENTH   CENTURY.— From  an  engraving 

in  Der  Weiss  Konig,  a  life  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian 303 

L.\DY  JANE  GREY. — From  an  engraving  of  the  painting  by  Holbein 307 

QUEEN   MARY. — From  a  miniature  painting  by  Luis  de  Vargas,  1555,  in  the  \'ictoria  and  .■\lbcrt  Museum         .        .    309 

STEPHEN    GARDINER.— .\fter  a  portrait  by  Holbein.     Gardiner  was  Bishop  of  Winchester  under   Henry  \I1I., 

imprisoned  in  Edward  VI. 's  reign,  and  Lord  Chancellor  under  Mary 3ir 

THE  MARTYRDOM  OF  LATIMER  AND  RIDLEY.— From  John  Foxe's  .Ic/es  and  Monimcnics  of  tlusc  latter  and 
perillous  Daves  totichin/;  Matters  of  the  Church,  commonly  spoken  of  as  the  Book  of  Martyrs,  published  in  ijij- 
Latimer  and  Ridley  were  burnt  in  1555 3i3 

QUEEN  ELIZABETH.— From  the  painting  by  Marcus  Gheeraedts  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.     It  is  very  similar 

to  a  portrait  at  Pcnshurst  presented  by  the  Queen  to  Sir  Henry  Sidney 31? 

QUEEN   ELIZABETH'S  STATE  CARRIAGE.— From  a  print  in  Braun's  Civitates  Orbis  Tcrrarum      .         .         .        .319 

QUEEN  MARY  STUART.— From  a  remarkable  chalk-drawing,  by  Francois  Clouct  (generally  known  as  J  anet  or  J anette), 

in  the  IJibliotnfeque  Nationale.     The  Queen  is  represented  in  her  widow's  weeds 321 


AND    HISTORICAL    NOTES  xxlii 

PAGE 

THE   BATTLE   OF   CARBERY   HILL,    IJ67.— From  an  engraving  after  a  contonipoiary  original  in  Vehtsta  Mnnu- 

menta.     Queen  Mary  is  seen  surrendering  herself  to  the  Confederate  Lords 323 

JAMES  STEWART,   EARL   OF   MORAY.— After  a  contemporary  painting 324 

SIR  THOMAS  GRESHAM.— Banker  and  merchant  under  Mary  and  Elizabeth  ;  he  was  known  as  the  "  greatest  merchant 

in  London."     He  built  the  First  Royal  Exchange  in  1566  and  established  Cresham  College 326 

TOWN  HOUSES  IN  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY.— From  an  engraving  in  the  English  edition  of  John  Barclay's 

famous  book  of  satires,  67i(//i/fm  iVni'is,  or  S/i/;^  0/ Foo/s,  1570 327 

QUEEN   ELIZABETH   HUNTING.— From  Turberville's  A'oWc  .4/7  0/  IVdo/V,  1575 329 

KNIFE    WHICH    BELONGED    TO    DR.AKE.— A  clasp  knife  mounted  in  a  handle  of  chamois  horn  and  engraved 

brass 334 

THE  GOLDEN  HIND  XX  JAVA.— From  the  rare  chart  of  Drake's  voyage  round  the  world,  and  Cavendish's 
repetition  of  it  in  1586.  New  Albion  was  the  northernmost  point  of  the  .American  west  coast  that  Drake  touched  at. 
The  district  that  Drake  discovered  there  includes  the  whole  province  of  California  and  part  of  the  north-west  coait 
of  America  adjoining.     From  there  he  sailed  home  through  Java  and  the  Spice  Islands 334 

FRANCIS   WALSINGHAM.— From  an  engraving  by  Vertue 339 

QUEEN    ELIZABETH    IN    PARLIAMENT,    1586.— From  a  contemporary  print.     Cecil  will  be  seen  on  the  Queen's 

right  hand,  and  in  the  foreground  the  Commons 341 

A.N  ENGLISH  SHIP  IN  THE  ARM.\DA  FIGHT.— From  a  contemporary  engraving  of  one  of  the  tapestries  which 
hung  in  the  old  House  of  Lords  until  its  destruction  by  fire  in  1834.  They  were  done  to  the  order  of  the  Earl  of 
Nottingham,  Lord  High  Admiral,  but  were  not  put  up  imtil  1650 347 

THE  DEFE.^T  OF  THE  ARMADA. — From  a  broadside  issued  on  the  occasion  of  Elizabeth  going  to  the  Thanks- 
giving at  St.  Paul's  for  the  victory.  It  quaintly  depicts  the  English  fireships  drifting  into  the  Spanish  Fleet,  and 
the  Queen  on  the  shore  and  bodies  of  pikemen  ready  to  repel  any  landing  349 

QUEEN    ELIZABETH    IN    HER    ARMADA   THANKSGIVING    ROBES.— From   a   miniature  in  the  Victoria  and 

Albert  Museum  executed  in  1616 350 

ELIZ.\BETHAN  ARMOUR. — A  very  typical  suit  of  fighting  armour  from  the  brass  of  Humphrey  Brewster,  Wreutham 

Church,  Sufiolk 353 

SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH.— From  the  engraving  by  Houbraken 354 

JAMES  DOUGLAS,   FOURTH   EARL  OF   MORTON.— From  a  painting  at  Dalmahoy 355 

ROBERT  CECIL.— After  the  engraving  by  Elstrak 358 

THE  FUNERAL  HEARSE  OF  QUEEN  ELIZABETH.— Taken  from  a  series  of  drawings  of  the  great  funeral  pro- 
cession by  William  Camden.  Clarencieux  King-at-Arms,  and  a  famous  antiquarian  and  historian.  He  published  his 
Bntannia  in  ii%(>,MxA\i.\s  History  of  the  Reign  of  Elizabeth  m  161^ 361 

ARMOUR  PRESENTED  TO  HENRY  VIII.   BY  THE  EMPEROR  MAXIMILIAN.— In  the  Tower  of  London         .     364 

THE  HARRY  GRACE  A   DIEU,   BUILT   BY   HENRY   VIII.    IN    1513.— From  a  drawing  of  15.16  in  the  Pepysian 

Library,  Cambridge 365 

AN  ELIZABETHAN  FAMILY.— From  a  monumental  brass,  dated  1584,  of  the  Day  familv  at  Little  Bradley  Church, 

Sufiolk 366 

A  CUT  FROM  THE  GREAT  BIBLE  OF  1530-— I^picting  manna  falling  in  the  wilderness.  This  splendid  folio 
Bible,  carried  out  by  order  of  Henry  VIII.  under  the  direction  of  Thomas  Cromwell  and  Miles  Coverdale,  was  the 
first  official  translation.  The  printing  was  begun  in  Paris  in  1538,  but  was  stopped  by  the  Inquisition,  and  the  pruiters 
and  their  presses  transferred  to  London.  The  second  edition  of  1540,  called  Cranmer's  Bible,  was  the  "  Byble 
apoynted  to  the  use  of  the  churches  " 368 

THE  TWO  SHEPHERDS.— From  a  broadside  by  Hans  Sachs  satirising  the  papal  church  on  the  text  of  the  Gospel  of 
St. John  X.  1,4,  12.  Christ  stands  by  the  door,  while  the  Pope  "  climbeth  up  some  other  way  "  and  sits  on  the  roof 
pointing  out  the  wrong  way  to  the  Christian  flock.  One  of  the  learned  doctors  of  the  Church  is  looking  out  over  the 
entrance  to  watch  the  proceedings  of  the  Good  Shepherd       ........  ...     369 

AT   THE   MARKET,    1603.— From  a  broadside 373 

WEAVING   IN   THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY.— From  one  of  the  early  editions  of  Erasmus's  Praise  of  Folly  .         .     374 

EASTCHEAP  MARKET,  .\BOUT  1598.— From  a  drawing  in  the  British  Museum.  Stow  says  that  this  flesh-market 
was  kept  for  serving  the  east  part  of  the  City,  being  afterwards  removed  to  l.eadenhall.  Eastcheap  was  swallowed 
up  in  the  London  Bridge  improvements  in  William  IV. 's  reign.     Westcheap  became  Cheapside     ....     376 

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY   MENDICANTS.- From  Barclay's  Ship  of  Fools  before  referred  to  (page  327)       .         •         -377 

A  CUT  FROM  THE   FIRST  EDITION    OF   SPENSER'S  SHEPHEARD'S  CALENDAR.— The  on\y  known  copy 

of  this  edition  is  in  the  British  Museum 379 

SH.\KESPEARE. — From  the  Droeshout  portrait.  Mr.  Spielmann  and  other  leading  authorities  conclude  that  of  all  the 
swarms  of  Shakespeare  portraits,  fabrications  and  others,  only  two — the  engraving  by  Droeshout  affixed  to  the  First 
Folio  of  1623,  and  the  bust  at  Holv  Trinity  Church,  Stratford-on-Avon— can  be  accepted  as  authentic  likenesses     .     381 

A   MUSKETEER  OF   1603. — From  an  engraving  in  Skelton's  Armour  ......        ...e     ^(84 


xxiv  LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

James   I. — From  the  engraving  by  J.  Smith  after  the  painting  by  Vandyck  .        .  387 

THE  GUNPOWDER  PLOT  CONSPIRATORS.— From  an  engraving  by  C.  Van  der  Passe,  showing  the  eight  principal 

conspirators 3S8 

HENRV  FREDERICK,  PRINCE  OF  WALES,  DIED  1612.— From  Michael  Drayton's  Po/y-0/6joH,  a  monumental 
work  published  in  thirty  "Songs"  or  books  between  1612  and  1622.  It  was,  the  poet  says,  "a  Herculean  toil,"  and 
covered  every  point  then  of  topographical  or  antiquarian  interest  in  Great  Britain 3y3 

SIR   FRANCIS  BACON,   VISCOUNT  ST.   ALB.A.N.— After  the  contemporary  engraving  by  WiUiam  Marshall  .         .  395 

GEORGE   VILLIERS,   DUKE   OF   BUCKINGHAM.— From  an  engraving  after  the  portrait  by  Mierevelt  .         .  398 

A   CAVALIER   OF   1620 400 

.\.N    INFANTRVM.A.N   OF   1625.— Two  engravings  from  Skelton's  Armour 402 

CHARLES   I.— From  a  miniature  painting  by  Matthew  Snelling,  1647,  in  the  \ictoria  and  Albert  Museum.     Drawn  on 

paper  prepared  with  a  thin  coating  of  plaster 405 

WESTMINSTER   IN   THE   TIME   OF   CHARLES   I.— From  a  print  by  Hollar,  164 1 407 

ARCHBISHOP   LAUD.— .-Vfter  the  portrait  by  Vandyck 408 

A  LADY  IN  HER  CH.\IR.— From  an  album  of  MS.  drawings,  dated  between  1603  and  1638,  in  the  British  Museum. 

She  is  evidently  a  lady  of  rank  ................     409 

THE   OLD   STAR   CHAMBER.— Pulled  down  after  the  burning  of  the  old  Houses  of  Parliament  in  1834  .         .     411 

A   PIKEM.\N,    1635. — From  Skelton's  Armour 412 

CHE.\PSIDE  AND  THE  CROSS  IN  i6i8.—¥romLdiSerres' Entree  Royalede  la  Rcgne  Mere  du  Roy,  an  account  oi  the 
entry  of  Marie  of  Medici,  mother  of  the  Queen  of  Charles,  into  London.  The  Cross  was  destroyed  in  1643  by  the 
Parliamentarians  as  an  object  of  superstition 414 

PLAN   AND  VIEW   OF  EDINBURGH   IN   THE   EARLY   SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY.— From  a  contemporary 

print 416 

A  NEWSPAPER   HEADING   OF    1641 426 

THE  CHURCH  MILITANT:  A  BISHOP  OF  1642.— From  a  large  caricature  of  the  year  of  the  Royalist  judges,  the 
warlike  prelates,  and  the  ruffling  cavaliers.  The  prelate  satirised  is  Archbishop  W'iUiam  of  \ork,  who  garrisoned 
Conway  for  the  king 427 

REVERSE   OF  £3    PIECE   OF  CHARLES    I.   STRUCK   .\T   OXFORD,    1643 430 

COIN  PORTRAIT  OF  CHARLES  I.  ON  £3  PIECE  OF  1643.— Reverse  and  obverse  of  a  fire  coin  struck  at  Oxford, 
one  of  the  provincial  mints  of  the  king  during  the  Civil  War.  The  reverse  bears  the  "Declaration  "  of  September 
1643,  to  the  effect  that  the  king  would  preserve  the  Protestant  Religion,  the  Laws  of  England,  and  the  Liberty  of 
Parliament.     Besides  £3  in  gold,  £1  and  los.  pieces  in  silver  were  also  struck  at  O.xford 4Ji 

A  CUIRASSIER.— From  Skelton's  Armour 435 

THE  CAVALIER  AS  "  ENGLAND'S  WOLF."— From  a  broadside  of  1646  speaking  of  "  England's  Wolfe,  with 
Eagles-claws:  the  cruell  impieties  of  'j.iod- thirsty  royalists  and  blasphemous  antiparliamentarians  under  that 
inhuman  Prince  Rupert,  Digby,  and  the  rest  " 436 

THE  TRIAL  OF  CHARLES  I.— From  a  print  in  Nalson's  Journal  of  the  .  .  .  Tryal  of  King  Cltarles  I.,  16S4.  The 
original  inscription  under  this  print  ends  :  "  The  pageant  of  this  mock  tribunal  is  thus  presented  to  your  view  by 
an  eye-and-ear  witness  of  what  he  saw  and  heard  there  " 441 

THE   EXECUTION  OF  CHARLES  I.   IN  WHITEHALL  {January  30,  1649).— From  a  print  of  the  year.     It  shows 

the  windows  of  the  Banqueting  Hall  through  one  of  which  Charles  stepped  on  to  the  e.xecution  stage        .         .         .     442 

THE  WARRANT  FOR  THE  EXECUTION  OF  CHARLES  I.— From  the  original  document  in  the  House  of  Lords  .     443 

THE  SCOTS  KEEP  THEIR  YOUNG  KING'S  NOSE  TO  THE  GRINDSTONE.— From  a  broadside  of  1651, 
ridiculing  the  conditions  (including  the  Covenant)  which  the  Presbyterians  exacted  from  the  young  Prince  Charles 
before  they  offered  him  the  crown  in  Scotland  after  the  death  of  Montrose  in  1650.  Jack  Presbyter  holds  the  Icing's 
nose  down,  while  the  Scots,  personified  as  Jockie,  turn  the  grindstone.     Underneath  arc  the  hues  : — 

"  Come  10  the  grindstone.  Cliarlcs,  'tis  now  too  late 
To  recolcct—  'tis  prcbbitarian  fate."  .  .  ,  .440 

OLIVER  CROMWELL. — After  a  miniature  by  Samuel  Cooper,  perhaps  tlie  greatest  miniature  painter  wlio  ever  lived. 

This  miniature  is  in  the  collection  of  the  Duke  of  Bucclcuch 450 

CROMWELL  EJECTING  THE  RUMP.  1653.— A  Dutch  print  in  the  British  Museum.  Cromwell,  supported  by  Strick- 
land and  Coop<T,  is  saying  to  the  members  :  "  Begone,  you  rogues,  you  have  sate  long  enough  !  "  On  either  side,  in 
Dutch  and  English,  is  the  inscription  "  This  House  is  to  let  " 453 

THE   GREAT  SEAL   OF   THE   COMMONWEALTH,    1651 455-456 

A  DINNER-PARTY  UNDER  THE  PROTECTORATE.— From  the  English  edition  of  the /auwa /.tHg«a,-i<;»  r/rsrnj/a 
of  Comenius,  a  famous  writer  on  education,  published  in  163 1.  The  salt-cellar,  making  the  division  of  rank  at  the 
table,  is  particularly  noticeable 459 

HICH.\P.D   CROMWliLL.— .Mter  a  miniature  painting  by  Samuel  Cooper,  the  master  miniaturist,  16(14       .         .         .     463 


AND    HISTORICAL   NOTES  xxv 

PAGE 

UNITE,  OR  SOVEREIGN,  OF  THE  COMMONWEALTH,  1660.— These  coins,  which  alone  among  English  coins  have 
their  legends  hi  HngUsh,  are  of  a  markedly  simple  type.  The  sovereign  of  James  I.  was  first  called  a  "  unite,"  partly 
because  they  were  intended  to  circulate  on  both  sides  of  the  Dorder 464 

CHARLES   IL— From  the  engraving  by  Vanderbanc 468 

EDMUND    HYDE,    EARL    CLARENDON. — From  an  engraving  after  the  portrait  by  David  Loggan,  an  exquisite 

drawing  in  pencil  on  vellum.     Loggan  died  in  1700 470 

A    VIEW    OF    LONDON    AT    THE    TIME    OF    THE    GREAT    FIRE.— From  a  print  by  \^isscher.     Taken  from 

Bankside,  Southwark 473 

SOUTHWARK,   LONDON   BRIDGE,  THE  CITY  AND  THE  TOWER,   IN  1666.— From  Visscher's  Gau-raM-'icjr' 0/ 

Loiuion,  a  long,  tinely-engraved  panoramic  print ....     475 

AN  ENGLISH  SHIP  OF  WAR,   TEMP.  CHARLES    IL— From  a  medal.     A  type  of   the  ship  for  which  Pepys,  as 

Secretary  to  the  Admiralty,  was  responsible 478 

"  DR.   O.ATES   DISCOVERETH   THE    PLOT  TO   YE    KING    AND   COUNCIL."— From  one  of  a  series  of  playing 

cards  of  1684  in  the  British  Museum 480 

CONTEMPORARY  MEDAL  OF  THE  GODFREY  MURDER.— One  of  several  medals  struck  during  the  general 
frenzy  of  the  "  Popish  Plot"  following  on  the  murder  of  Sir  Edmund  Berry  Godfrey.  Supernatural  events  were 
associated  with  Godfrey's  death,  and  he  is  represented  as  walking  after  he  was  dead  and,  on  reverse  of  the  medal, 
as  carrying  his  own  head 481 

ARCHIBALD  CAMPBELL,   MARQUIS   OF   ARGYLL.— From  the  painting  by  George  Jamesone      ....     485 

JAMES   1 1.— After  the  engraved  portrait  by  Giffart 510 

THE  SEVEN  BISHOPS. — From  a  medal  struck  in  honour  of  the  petitioning  Bishops  ;  in  tlie  British  Museum.  On 
the  obverse  is  Sancroft,  Archbishop   of  Canterbury.      The  Bishop  of  London  is  included,  though  he  was  not  a 

petitioner 4'j7 

THE  EMBARKATION    OF   WILLIAM   OF   ORANGE    FOR   ENGLAND,    1688.— After  an  old  print        .         .         .500 

MEDAL   COMMEMORATING   THE    FLIGHT   OF   JAMES   II 503 

WILLIAM    III 505 

QUEEN    MARY   II. — .After  the  painting  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller 506 

LONDONDERRY,  ABOUT    16S0.— From  an  original  drawing  of  the  time  in  the  British  Museum         ....  ;io 

MEDAL   COMMEMOR.\TIVE   OF   THE    BATTLE    OF   THE    BOYNE.— William  is  shown  crossing  the  Boync  at 

the  head  of  his  troops 512 

THE  P.ARLIAMENT  HOUSE,  EDINBURGH.— From  an  engraving  by  Gordon  01  Rothicmay  about  1650.  The 
Parliament  House  was  completed  in  1640,  and  in  it  the  Assemblies  of  the  Estates  of  Scotland  were  held  until  tne 
dissolution  of  the  Parliament  by  the  Act  of  Union  in  1707 515 

THE  FLEET  PRISON. — Used  for  defendants  committed  by  order  of  the  Star  Chamber  and  later,  and  more  notoriously, 
for  debtors.  It  was  rebuilt  after  the  Great  Fire,  but  was  destroyed  in  the  Gordon  Riots  of  1780.  It  was  situated 
in  Farringdon  Street.     From  a  print  of  1691 5-i 

JOHN  SMITH  .\T  THIRTY-SEVEN.— One  of  the  most  successful  of  early  English  colonial  administrators.  He  was 
head  and  one  of  the  foiuiders  of  the  Colony  of  Virginia,  which  owed  much  of  its  prosperity  to  his  efforts.  From  his 
General  History  of  Virginia,  1624 5j- 

THE   OLD   EAST   INDIA   HOUSE.— Drawn  from  an  old  print  by  Herbert  Railton 537 

.A   FIRST-RATE    MAN-OF-WAR   OF    1680.— From  a  print  of  that  year       .        ,         .         , 541 

THE  OLD  MERCER'S  HALL,  WHERE  THE  BANK  OF  ENGLAND  WAS  FIRST  ESTABLISHED.— The 
Bank,  founded  in  1694,  was  carried  on  in  the  Mercer's  Hall  until  1734,  when  it  removed  to  its  present  site  in  Thread- 
ueedle  Street 54- 

A    BEDROOM   P.ARTY    OF    163 1. — From  a  print  by  .Abraham  Bosse.     An  illustration  of  domestic  manners  in  the 

seventeenth  century  544 

JOHN   MILTON 545 

JOHN   DRYDEN.— From  the  engraving  after  Kneller's  portrait 546 

HEAD-PIECE  FROM  THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRAYER,  1662 548 

QUEEN   ANNE.— After  the  painting  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller 550 

JOHN   CHURCHILL,   DUKE   OF   MARLBOROUGH.— After  the  painting  by  Van  der  Werff 552 

THE    ALLIED    FORCES    GOING    INTO    ACTION    AT    RAMILLIES  .—From  a  medal  struck  to  commemorate  the 

victory 561 

A   MEDAL  CELEBRATING  THE   FRENCH   DEFEAT  AT  OUDENARDE.— The  obverse  represents  Marlborough 

and  Eugene  as  Castor  and  Pollux,  while  the  reverse  gives  a  view  of  the  town  and  of  the  battle         .         .         .         .562 

QUEEN   ANNE   CLIPPING   THE   WINGS   OF    THE    GALLIC    COCK.— A  contemporary  caricature  celebrating 

the  eclipse  of  Louis  XIV,  in  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession 5<53 


XXVI  LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

A  HIGH  CHURCH  CARICATURE  ON  THE  SACHEVERELL  PROSECUTION,  1710.— Entitled  "  Like  coach- 
man, like  cause,  or  what  we  must  expect  if  Low  Church  becomes  uppermost."  Cromwell  rides  in  the  carriage, 
with  the  devil  driving ;  Hoadley  is  postilion 565 

A   HACKNEY  COACH,  ABOUT  1710.— Hackney  coaches  were  first  established  in  London  in  i6;5.     About  the  time 

of  the  Sheriff's  table  of  fares  from  which  the  cut  is  taken  there  were  over  700  in  London 569 

GEORGE   I. — From  the  painting  by  Kneller  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 571 

A   CARICATURE   OF   THE   DAY   ON   THE   SOUTH   SEA   COMPANY,    1720 579 

SIR   ROBERT  WALPOLR.— From  the  painting  by  J.  B.  Vaiiloo,  a  French  painter  who  worked  in  England  from  1737 

101742.     The  painting  is  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery J82 

QUEEN   CAROLINE,   CONSORT   OF   GEORGE    II 584 

GEORGE    II.— After  the  painting  by  R.  E.  Pine 587 

COSTUME   OF  THE   EARLY  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY.— A  group  taken  from  Nicholas  View  of  Hampden  Court      588 

A  SATIRE  ON  WALPOLE  AND  HIS  ADMINISTRATION,  ABOUT  1738.— From  a  print  in  the  British  Museum. 
The  composition  includes  Walpole,  who  is  wavmg  away  Captain  Jenkins's  complaint  about  his  severed  ear  (p.  592),  a 
Frenchman  oSering  jewels  to  Walpole's  wife,  a  courtier  ejecting  a  man  with  a  petition  against  the  "  Spanish  de- 
predations," a  dog  destroying  the  Merchants'  Complaint,  and  a  financier  pouring  gold  through  a  gridiron  into  the 
Sinking  Fund 590 

THE  HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  IN  1742. — From  a  fine  drawing  by  H.  F.  Gravelot,  a  French  artist,  who  did  much 
English  book-illustration  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  centur}'.  Engraved  by  W.  J.  White.  Sir  Robert  Walpole 
is  addressing  the  House 595 

THE  DESPAIRING   FRENCHMAN   AT  LOUISBOURG.— From  a  drawing  by  Boitard,  a  French  caricaturist,  of  the 

blockade  of  Louisbourg,  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  in  1745 596 

EUROPEAN  SOVEREIGNS  AT  MARKET,  1748.— A  satire  on  the  re-arrangements  following  the  Treaty  of  Aix-Ia- 
Chapelle.  The  Kim?  of  France  sells  hostages,  George  II.  turnips  from  Hanover  (Hanover  was  nicknamed  "  Turnip 
Garden  "),  the  Stadtholder  gin,  and  the  Kings  of  Sweden  and  Sardinia  their  soldiers  as  mercenaries  .         .         .         .     597 

LORD   CLIVE   IN   LATER   YEARS.— After  the  painting  by  Gainsborough,  about  1773 607 

GENERAL  JAJIES  WOLFE 626 

SURAJ    UD-DAULAH,   NAWAB    OF   BENGAL.— From  a  contemporary  group-painting  of  the  Nawab  by  Kettle, 

belonging  to  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society 630 

GEORGE  III.   IN   1767.— From  the  painting  by  Allan  Ramsay  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 636 

A  SATIRE  OF  1762  ON  BUTE  AND  HIS  .ADMINISTRATION.— From  an  etching  by  the  Marquis  Townshend, 
who  became  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland  in  1767.  He  was  one  of  the  keenest  critics  of  the  blundering  government  of 
Bute,  and,  deriding  Hogarth,  who  was  a  supporter  of  the  Government,  signs  himself  "  Oh  !   Garth  "...     639 

WILLIA.M    PITT,   EARL   OF   CH.\THAM.— From  the  painting  by  Richard  Brompton 648 

A  VIEW  OF  BOSTON  IN  NEW  ENGLAND  AND  BRITISH  SHIPS  OF  WAR  LANDING  THEIR  TROOPS.— 
From  a  print  "  engraved,  printed,  and  sold  by  Paul  Revere,  Boston,"  1768.  This  was  the  first  demonstration  of 
force  by  the  home  Government 651 

WILKES  ASSURING  GEORGE  III.  THAT  HE  HAD  NEVER  BEEN  A  WILKITE.— From  the  caricature  by 
GiUray.  .\f  ter  his  contests  with  the  Government  and  the  House  of  Commons,  Wilkes  rose  to  various  offices,  and  in 
1774  became  Lord  Mayor  of  London.  The  caricature  is  based  on  his  remark  to  the  king,  concerning  his  legal  ad- 
viser, •'  Ah,  sir  !  he  was  a  Wilkite,  which  I  never  was  "     . 653 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON.— After  the  painting  by  Trumbull 661 

AN   AMERICAN   TWENTY-DOLLAR   BILL  PRIOR  TO  THE  DECLARATION   OF   INDEPENDENCE      .         .     662 

THE    FIRST   TWENTY-FOUR   SIGNATURES   TO    THE    DECLARATION    OI'    INDEPENDENCE      .         .         .664 

GIBRALTAR    BEFORE   THE   GREAT   SIEGE   OF    1780.— From  a  print  by  Coquart 670 

AN   AMERICAN   GENERAL.— From  Barnard's  History  of  England,  1790 672 

ADMIRAL   SIR   GEORGE    RODNEY.— After  the  painting  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds O73 

ASAF  UD-DAULAH,  WAZIR  OF  OUDH.—  Taken  from  an  engraving  of  a  contemporary  painting  by  Home  be- 
longing to  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society 681 

WARREN  HASTINGS.— After  the  portrait,  made  late  in  Hastings's  life,  by  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence 682 

LORD    NORTH 683 

"  ENGLAND    MADE    ODIOUS,    OR    THE    FRENCH    DRESSERS."— A  caricature  on  Shelburne  and  Fox  at  the 

timeof  the  arrangement  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  (1783),  which  was  exceedingly  unpopular 685 

THE     IRISH     PARLIAMENT    HOUSE    IN    THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY.— Now  the  Bank  of  Ireland.     The 

building  was  commenced  in  1729,  but  was  not  braught  to  its  present  state  until  1805 690 


AND    HISTORICAL   NOTES  xxvii 

PACE 

HENRY  FLOOD. — From  a  contemporary  drawing  by  J.  Comerford.  Flood  entered  the  Irish  Parliament  in  1759,  at 
the  age  of  twenty-seven,  and  became  a  minister  of  the  Crown  in  1775.  According  to  Lecky  he  was  "  beyond  all 
comparison  the  greatest  popular  orator  that  his  country  had  yet  produced  "  and  "  a  master  of  parliamentary  tactics  "     693 

A  TYPICAL  "  STRIP  "  FARM  OR  OPEN  FIELD.— A  plan  of  "  strip  "  holdings  at  Laxton,  Northants,  which  con- 
tinued to  be  farmed  in  the  old  way  until  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Sec  the  note  on  the  illustration  on 
page  256 69G 

AN   OLD  HAND  WEAVER   AT  HIS   LOOM.— From  the  Universal  Magazine,  1747 698 

THE  CANAL  AQUEDUCT  OVER  THE  IRWELL.— One  of  the  successful  canal  schemes  of  the  Duke  of  Bridge- 
water  and  his  engineer,  James  Brindley.  The  canal  crossed  the  Irwell  at  Barton,  Lancashire,  at  a  height  of  40  feet. 
From  a  print  issued  in  1793 699 

ADAM   SMITH.— From  the  medallion  portrait  in  enamel  by  James  Tassie,  a  famous  gem  engraver  and  cnameller  .         .  70! 

DR.    JOHNSON.— From  an  engraving  by  Finden 703 

ALEXANDER    POPE. — From  a  crayon  drawing  in  the  Bodleian  Library 703 

AN   "EXQUISITE"   OF    1720 704 

HENRY   FIELDING.— By  Hogarth,  from  the  1772  edition  of  Fielding's  Works 705 

THE   RIGHT  HON.   WILLIAM   PITT.— Pitt  entered  Parliament  two  years  after  the  death  of  his  father,  the  Earl  of 

Chatham,  and  became  Prime  Minister  three  years  later  at  the  age  of  twenty-five.     After  the  portrait  by  Gainsborough     706 

"  THE  RAREE  SHOW." — A  caricature  by  Gillray  published  in  1797,  when  there  were  loud  complaints  of  the  burden  of 
ta.xation  and  against  Pitt's  foreign  policy.  Pitt  is  represented  as  a  showman  picking  John  Bull's  pocket  while  his 
attention  is  occupied  with  the  show 709 

PITT  AMJRTING  THE  PARTITION  OF  TURKEY  BY  CATHERINE  OF  RUSSIA.— An  adaptation  of  a  scene 
from  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew  (.\ct  v.  Sc.  2)  to  the  British  intervention  between  Russia  and  Turkey.  Austria  and 
France  support  Catherine,  while  Prussia  and  Holland  back  Pitt 713 

EDMUND   BURKE.— After  the  painting  by  Romney 7i5 

"  BLOOD  ON  THUNDER." — Chancellor  Thurlow,  sometimes  called  the  "  Thunderer,"  was  a  firm  supporter  of 
Warren  Hastings  during  his  impeachment.  Gillray  seized  the  opportunity  for  this  caricature,  published  in  1788, 
called  "Blood  on  Thunder  fording  the  Red  Sea,"  representing  Hastings  carried  on  Thurlow's  shoulders  through  a 
sea  of  blood  strewn  with  Hindu  corpses 7i8 

TIPPU  SULT.\N     OF    MYSORE.— From  an  Oriental   painting  at  Apsley  House  which   belonged   to   the   Duke  of 

Wellington 720 

LORD  CORNWALLIS 721 

NAPOLEON   BUONAP.\RTE.— From  the  unfinished  painting  by  David  of  Buonaparte  as  a  young  officer     .         .         .726 

"THE    GREATEST    GENERAL    OF    THE    AGE— GENERAL    COMPLAINT."— From  a  caricature  of   1796  by 

Woodward  727 

"  A  MODEL  OFFICER." — From  Rowlandson's  caricature  published  m  1796,  under  the  title  "Anything  will  do  for  an 

Officer,"  when  dissatisfaction  was  rife  at  the  state  of  the  army  and  at  the  purchase  system  in  particular   .         .         .     728 

ADMIRAL  DUNCAN.— After  the  portrait  by  Hoppner 729 

"  GRANDFATHER  "  GEORGE  WITH  THE  PRINCESS  CHARLOTTE.— From  a  print  by  Woodward  which 
appeared  at  the  birth  of  a  daughter  to  the  Princess  of  Wales  in  1796.  It  was  entitled  "  Grandpapa  in  his  Glory," 
one  of  many  satires  of  the  day  on  the  homely  habits  of  George  III 730 

SERINGAPAT.\M,     TIPPU'S    CAPITAL,     STORMED      IN     1799.— Taken     from     a    view    in     Home's     ^fysol'e, 

Madras,  1794 7^^ 

GEORGE  III. — After  the  painting  by  Sir  William  Beechev,  representing  the  king  in  an  admiral's  uniform      .         .         .743 

THE   DOUBLE-HE.A.DED    GOVERNMENT.— A  French  caricature  of  the  alliance   of   Pitt  and   Fox.     From  Jaime's 

Mus4e  lie  la  Caricature 745 

LORD  NELSON.— After  the  painting  by  Sir  William  Beechey,  R.A.      . 747 

ADMIRAL   LORD   COLLINGWOOD.— After  an  engraving  by  Charles  Turner,  A.R.A 748 

THE  EMPEROR   NAPOLEON.— After  the  painting  by  Delarochc 752 

SIR   JOHN   MOORE.— From  an  engraving  after  a  sketch  portrait 755 

BADAJOZ    AND  ITS  CITADEL,   FROM   THE    NORTH    BANK    OF  THE  RIVER  GUADIANA.— From   a  view 

taken  in  1813 760 

THE  DUKE  OF  WELLINGTON.— After  the  painting  by  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence,  P.S.A 768 

THE  CHATEAU  OF  HOUGOUMONT  AFTER  THE  BATTLE.— From  a  drawing  by  S.  Wharton  made  in  1815         .     772 

LORD  CASTLE  REACH.— After  the  portrait  by  Lawrence 775 

CATO     STREET,   THE   SCENE   OF   THE   CONSPIR.A.CY    OF    1S20.— From  a  contemporary  drawing    .        .         .780 


xxviii  LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

fAGE 

GEORGE   CANNING.— After  the  portrait  by  Lawrence ,        ...  783 

GEORGE   IV. — From  a  sketch  made  at  Ascot  Races,  1828 788 

WILLIAM   IV 7go 

BOMBAY   FORT,   ABOUT   1825.— From  a  drawing  by  William  Westall,  A.R.A 797 

THE   EXTENDED   DRESS   OF   1789 802 

"  ROYAL   AFFABILITY." — Gillray  rarely  let  pass  an  opportunity  of  caricaturing  George  III.  ;   here  he  pictures  him 

walking  with  the  queen  in  the  neighbourhood  of  his  Windsor  farm  and  accosting  a  labourer 804 

"  FARMER  "   GEORGE. — Another  of  Gilkay's  prints.     The  king  was  known  generally  by  this  title      .        .        .        .805 

THE    FIRST   STEAMBO.\T,   THE    COMET,   ON   THE   CLYDE.— From  a  print  of  1812 807 

STEPHENSON'S   LOCOMOTIVE,   THE   "ROCKET"          .                  808 

ROBERT  BURNS.— From  the  portrait  by  Nasmyth 809 

SIR   WALTER   SCOTT.— After  the  painting  by  Raeburu 811 

LORD   SHAFTESBURY.— From  the  portrait  by  MiUais 817 

QUEEN   VICTORIA   IN    1837.— After  a  painting  by  W.  C.  Ross 820 

SIR    ROBERT    PEEL    MOVING    THE    REPEAL    OF    THE    CORN    LAWS    (January     1846).— From    a    sketch 

made  in  the  House  of  Commons 825 

LORD   JOHN    RUSSELL.— From  a  drawing  in  the  "  Maclise  Portrait  Gallery  "            827 

THE    MONSTER    CHARTIST    MEETING    ON    KENNINGTON    COMMON    (April  10,    1848).— From  a    print  in 

the  Illustrated  London  News  of  1848,  made  after  a  daguerrotype 828 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL.— After  a  painting  by  T.  Garrick 833 

GOLD-SEEKERS    AT    BATHURST,     WESTERN     AUSTRALIA,    ON    THEIR    WAV    TO    THE    FIELDS    AT 

OPHIR.— From  a  print  published  at  Sydney,  N.S.W.,  in  1851 839 

PORT   NATAL   IN    1852 843 


DOST   MOHAMMED 

.         .     847 

OPEN   COACHES   ON   THE   MANCHESTER   AND   LIVERPOOL    RAILWAW- 

From  a  prmt  of  1S31    . 

.      8j2 

ROBERT  OWEN     

.     S53 

DR.   PUSEY.— From  a  photograph 855 

THE   E.\RL   OF   ABERDEEN.— From  a  sketch  made  in  the  House  of  Lords  in  1854 857 

THE    BRITISH  FORCES  MARCHING  TO  THE  ATTACK  AT  THE   BATTLE  OF  THE  ALMA.— From  a  sketch 

by  a  lieutenant  of  a  ship  stationed  in  the  river  during  the  battle 860 

LORD   RAGLAN.— From  a  drawing  made  by  Edward  Arciitage,  R.A.,  in  1854 861 

PORT  AND  TOWN  OF  SEVASTOPOL,  SHOWING  THE  FORTS,  IN  1854.— The  port  is  a  bay  four  miles  long 
and  one  mile  wide  at  the  entrance,  and  having  also  a  military  harbour  one  and  a  half  miles  long,  which  is  landlocked. 
Die  principal  forts,  Fort  Constantine  and  Fort  .Alexander,  are  seen  on  the  left  and  right  of  the  drawing.  The  town 
was  bombarded  from  the  sea  and  from  bills  behind  that  could  be  occupied.     Yet  so  well  were  the  defences  arranged 

that  it  sustained  a  siege  of  eleven  months 862 

NANA   SAHIB.— From  a  sketch  made  in  India  in  1857 868 

SIR   JOHN   LAWRENCE 869 

THE   MEMORIAL   WELL   AT   CAWNPORi: 870 

SIR   HENRY   HAVELOCK.— After  the  portrait  by  I'rederick  Goodall,  R.A 871 

QUEEN   VICTORIA    IN    1857.— From  a  pastel  painting  by  Alexander  Blaiklcy 873 

BENJAMIN   DISRAELI.— From  an  early  portrait  in  the  "xMacHse  Portrait  Gallery  " 674 

THE  CAPTURE   OF   THE    NORTH    FORT   AT   PIHO,    iSbo.— From  a  sketch  made  on  the  spot    .        .                 •  S77 

LORD   PALMERSTON.— From  a  photograph 879 

THE   /lL/lBylA//4— From  a  sketch  by  Charles  W.  Wylhe                882 

CHARLES   DARWIN.— From  a  medallion  by  Alphonse  Lcgros .        .        .  8S9 

MR.   GLADSTONE   IN    1869.— From  a  photograph ^5 

W.   E.    FORSTER.— From  a  photograph  by  Elliot  &  I-ry , ^<)7 

THE  BRITISHI  RESIDENCY,    KABUL.   AFTER  THE   RISING  OF   1879 906 


AND    HISTORICAL    NOTES  xxix 

PAGE 

SIR   FREDERICK   (LORD)    ROBERTS    IN    1880.— From  a  photograph 907 

CETEWAVO 910 

THE    MONUMENT    AT    PAARDEKRAAL,    KRUGERSDORP,    WHERE    THE    BOERS    PROCLAIMED    THE 

INDEPENDENCE    OF   THE   TRANSV.^AL    IN    1880 912 

MAJUBA   HILL 913 

C.   S.    PARNELL.— From  a  photograph 914 

ARABI    PASHA 9I5 

OSMAN    DIGNA,    LEADER    OF   THE    MAHDI'S    FORCES.— From  a  photograph 916 

GENERAL   GORDON.— From  a  photograph 9i7 

MR.    A.    J.    BALFOUR.— An  early  portrait  'uy  Lafa>ette,  Dublin 922 

LORD    SALISBl'RV.— From  a  photograph  by  Russell  &  Sons 925 

MR.   JOSEPH   CHAMBF.RLAIN.- From  a  drawing  by  W.  Hodgson,  1895 930 

THE    SURRENDER    OF   GENERAL   CRONJE    AT    PAARDEBERG.— From   a   photograph  by  R.  Thiele,  by  per- 
mission of  the  Graphic 937 

THE  PAL.^CE  OF  THE  GOVERNOR-GENERAL  OF  THE  SUDAN  AT  KHARTUM 94' 

QUEEN   \  ICTORIA.— From  a  ->hotograph  by  Bassano 943 

ALFRED,    LORD   TENNYSON.— After  the  painting  by  G.  F.  Watts 947 

KING    EDWARD   VH. — After  a  photograph  by  Lafayette,  Dublin 949 

MR.    JOHN   MORLEY    in    1894 ...        o         ....  957 

KING   GEORGE   V.— After  a  photograph  by  Lafayette 960 


LIST   OF   MAPS 


*   The  starred  jnaps  have  been  taken,  by  the  kind  permission  of  the  Cambridge  University  Press,  from 
their  School  History  of  England  [by  the  same  author). 

PAGE 

•SAXOX  ENGLAND          ....                 13 

THE  BATTLE  OF  SENLAC 37 

'ENGLAND  AND   THE    LOWLANDS  OF  SCOTLAND    UNDER    NORMANS    AND    PLANTAGENETS.— Covering 

English  history  from  the  Conquest  to  the  later  part  of  the  fifteenth  century 52 

EUROPE,  ABOUT  1200 95 

THE  BATTLEFIELDS  OF  ENGLISH  AND  SCOTS  IN  THE  THIRTEENTH  AND  FOURTEENTH  CENTURIES  135 

THE  BATTLE  OF  BANNOCKBURN 143 

THE  BATTLE  OF  CRE9Y i57 

♦FRANCE  AND  THE   ANGEVIN  DOMINION 162 

ENGLAND  IN  THE  REIGN  OF  EDWARD  III i68 

DISPOSITION  OF  ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  FORCES  AT  AGINCOURT 196 

•IRELAND   UNDER   THE   TUDORS 258 

THE   BATTLE   OF   FLODDEN 264 

•ENGLAND   AND   THE    LOWLANDS   OF   SCOTLAND   IN   TUDOR   AND    STUART    TIMES    .         .         .         .  2S5 

DRAKE'S  VOYAGE   ROUND  THE  WORLD,    1577-1580 336 

•THE   LOW   COUNTRIES    AND    PICARDY    IN   THE   SIXTEENTH   CENTURY 343 

EUROPE.\N   POWERS   IN    1610            393 

ROYALIST   AND    ROUNDHEAD    IN   THE   CIVIL   WAR 439 

THE   SEDGEMOOR   CAMPAIGN,    1685 493 

THE   BATTLE   OF   BLENHEIM             .                  553 

THE   CAMPAIGNS   OF   MARLBOROUGH             564 

THE  MARCH   OF  THE   JACOBITES 599 

A   CONTEMPORARY   PLAN    OF  THE    BATTLE   OF  CULLODEN 601 

THE   PRUSSIAN   AREA   OF  THE   SEVEN    YEARS'   WAR 619 

THE   SIEGE    OF    QUEBEC 627 

THE   BATTLE   OF   PLASSEV.— From  a  plan  published  in  17O 633 

NORTH   AMERICA 644 

THE  WEST   INDIES,  THE   SCENE   OF   ENGLISH   AND    FRENCH   NAVAL   OPERATION'S,    1778-1779   •         •  669 

INDIA   AND  THE    BRITISH    DOMINION    IN    1785              677 

IX'ROPE,    1789-1794 712 

THE   BATTLE   OF  THE   NILE    IN   ABOUKIR    BAY    (August   i,    i7<j8) 732 

•THE    BATTLE   OF  TRAFALGAR 749 

•THE  SPANISH  PENINSULA,  SHOWING  THF.  AREA  AND  CHNTRl-S  OF  THE  WAR  OF  1808-1813      .         .  757 

THE  WATERLOO  CAMPAIGN ^ 769 

•WATERLOO:  THE  OPPOSING  ARMII-S - 11<i 


LIST   OF    MAPS 


WATERLOO:  THE  CRISIS  .         .  . 

INDIA   IN   THE    EARLY  NINETEENTH   CENTURY 

THE   DOMINION    OF   CANADA 

AUSTRALIA   AND   TASMANIA 

NEW   ZEALAND     . 

SOUTH   AFRICA      . 

THE   CRIMEAN    PENINSULA 

INDIA   IN    1857 

THE   TERRACE   MOUNTAIN    RANGES   OF   SOUTH 

EGYPT   AND  THE   SUDAN 

BRITISH   POSSESSIONS   IN   AFRICA,    1903 
THE   BRITISH   EMPIRE  TO-DAY       . 


XXXI 

PAGZ 

773 
795 
836 
838 
840 
842 
859 
865 
935 
942 
957 
963 


xxxiv  LIST   OF    PLATES 

FACING   PAGE 

THE  COURT  OF  KING'S  BENCH  UNDER  HENRY  \T 250 

One  of  four  illuminations  taken  from  an  abridgment  of  English  law  of  the  time 
of  Henry  VI.  Below  the  hve  judges  are  the  King's  Coroner  and  Attorney,  and  the 
Masters  of  the  Court ;  standing  on  a  table  two  ushers  are  swearing  in  the  jury  ;  at  the 
bar  a  prisoner  stands  in  custody  of  a  tip-staff  and  in  the  foreground  other  prisoners 
wait  their  trial.     The  illuminations  are  in  the  Library  of  the  Inner  Temple. 

QUEEN  ANNE  BOLEYN  AND  THE  LADY  I^IARY,  AFTERWARDS  QUEEN  MARY  2S6 
Two  of  the  famous  collection  of  eighty-seven  drawings  by  Holbein  at  Windsor 
Castle.  Holbein  displayed  to  an  extraordinary  degree  a  power  for  seizing  the  character 
of  his  sitter  and  rendering  the  features  without  flattery  ;  and  while,  in  his  paintings, 
he  spared  no  labour  or  finish,  he  never  lost  thereby  any  resemblance  or  expression.  The 
drawings,  made  between  his  arrival  in  England  in  1528  and  his  death  in  1543  (he  was 
portrait  painter  to  Henry  VIH.  after  1537)  are  sketches  for  paintings  that  still  exist  or 
have  been  lost. 

THE  ENC.\iIPMENT  OF  THE  ENGLISH  FORCES  NEAR  PORTSMOUTH,   1545  294 

Taken  from  an  engraving  of  one  of  the  fresco  paintings  executed,  at  Cowdray 
Castle  about  1 5  50  and  destroyed  by  fire  in  1 793.  This  and  other  important  paintings  of 
the  same  date  were  fortunately  engraved  by  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  shortly  before  the 
(ire. 

THE  ENGLISH  FIRE-SHIPS  SENT  INTO  THE  SPANISH  ARMADA  AT  ANCHOR 

OFF  CALAIS 348 

From  an  engraving  of  one  of  a  series  of  tapestries  executed  to  the  order  of  the  Earl 
of  Nottingham  (Lord  Howard  of  Effingham).  Lord  High  Admiral,  which  were  destroyed 
with  the  old  House  of  Lords  in  the  fire  of  1S34. 

CHARLES  1 398 

From  the  original  painting  by  Van  Dyck  at  Windsor.  The  equerry  standing 
beside  the  king  is  M.  St.  Antoine  who  was  sent  over  by  Henn,-  IV.  of  France. 

"THE    TRUE    MANNER    OF    THE    TRYAL "    .\nd    of    ••  THE    EXECUTION    OF 

THOMAS,   EARLE  OF  STRAFFORD  " 42^ 

Two  fine  etchings  by  Wenceslaus  Hollar,  1641.  In  the  trial  picture  the  "  knights, 
cittizens  and  burgesses  of  the  howse  of  Commons  "  are  massed  on  either  side,  with 
"  carles  "  in  two  rows  in  front  of  them  ;  Strafford  stands  in  a  gown  and  hood  in  a  dock 
in  the  centre  of  the  foreground  with  the  Lieutenant  of  the  Tower  beside  him.  In  the 
background  is  the  King's  seat  of  state  (empty — the  King  and  Queen  are  in  a  kind  of 
Roj'al  box  behind),  immediately  in  front  of  which  sits  the  Lord  High  Steward,  the 
Earl  of  Arundel,  ha\-ing  the  Judges  and  Barons  of  the  Exchequer  and  the  blasters  of 
the  Chancery  gi-oupcd  in  front  of  him.  In  the  execution  scene  Straftord  has  his  head 
on  the  block,  and  round  him  are  standing  the  Primate  of  Ireland,  the  Sherifis  of  London, 
and  his  kindred  and  friends.  The  view  gives  an  interesting  picture  of  the  Tower  in  the 
seventeenth  century. 

THE  HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  ABOUT  THE  MIDDLE  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH 

CENTURY 4-M 

From  a  Dutch  print  engraved,  probably,  in  1649  ;  one  of  a  set  of  three  setting 
forth  "  The  manner  in  which  the  British  sovereign  assembles  liis  Parhament,"  "  The 
manner  and  order  of  sitting  of  the  lower  house,  or  commons,  which  consists  of  knights, 
gentlemen  and  burgesses,"  and  of  the  sitting  of  the  Lords.  The  interest  in  English 
parliamentarj'  methods  aroused  on  the  Continent  during  the  struggle  of  the  King  and  the 
Parliament  called  forth  many  prints  of  this  kind. 


LIST   OF    PLATES  xxxv 

FACING    PA.GE 

THE  ATTACK  ON  CHATHAM  BY  THE  DUTCH  IN   1667 472 

The  burning  of  the  dockyard  at  Chatham  and  of  ships  of  the  hne  lying  in  the  Medway 
by  the  Dutch  under  De  Ruyter  in  June,  1667,  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  incidents 
in  the  remarkable  wars  with  the  Dutch  in  the  seventeenth  century.  The  balance  of 
the  advantage  during  1666  lay  with  the  Dutch,  and  in  spite  of  an  English  victory  at 
Terschelting,  the  King's  neglect  of  the  navy  (only  a  Ught  naval  force  was  kept  at  sea  to 
damage  Dutch  trade)  rendered  it  impossible  to  oppose  any  considerable  force  to  De 
Ruyter's  powerful  fleet,  which  easily  forced  the  entrance  to  the  Thames  and  the  Medway 
and  threw  London  into  a  panic. 

THE  LANDING  OF  WILLIAM  III.  AT  BRIXHAJVI,  TORBAY,  NOVEMBER  5.  1688     500 
From  a  painting  by  an  unknown  artist  at  Hampton  Court  Palace.     Every  detail 
of  the  landing  as  described  by  Macaulay  is  shown.     The  original  of  the  print  repro- 
duced on  p.  500  is  a  companion  painting,  also  at  Hampton  Court. 

THE  BATTLE  OF  BLENHEIM  (OR  HOCHSTAEDT),  AUGUST  13.  1704  .  .  .554 
From  a  print  by  John  van  Huchtenburgh,  a  Dutch  painter  whose  work  was  much 
admired  by  Prince  Eugene  and  WiUiam  III.,  by  whose  choice  he  was  commissioned  to 
depict  the  battles  of  Marlborough's  wars.  A  reference  to  the  map  on  p.  553  will  render 
clear  the  position  of  the  opposing  armies.  On  the  left  is  the  Danube,  on  the  banks  of 
which  the  village  of  Blenheim  in  flames  is  seen,  and  Tallard's  troops  in  flight,  pursued 
by  the  English. 

THE  HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  UNDER  SIR  ROBERT  WALPOLE'S  ADMINISTRATION     582 
From  an  engraving  of  the  painting  by  Hogarth  and  his  father-in-law.  Sir  James 
Thornhill.     Walpole  stands  to  the  left  of  the  Speaker,  Arthur  Onslow. 

A  VIEW  OF  THE  TAKING  OF  QUEBEC,  SEPTEMBER  13,  1759  .  .  .  .628 
From  a  print  pubUshed  in  the  same  year  "  shewing  the  manner  of  debarking  the 
EngUsh  Forces  and  of  the  resolute  scrambUng  of  the  Light  Infantry  up  a  woody 
precipice  to  dislodge  the  Captain's  post  which  defended  a  small  entrenched  path  through 
which  the  troops  were  to  pass  ;  also  a  view  of  the  signal  victory  obtained  over  the 
French  regulars,  Canadians  and  Indians,  which  produced  the  surrender  of  Quebec." 

PART  OF  A  PANORAMIC  VIEW  OF  BOSTON  AND  THE  COUNTRY  ROUND  AT 

THE  TIME  OF  THE  BATTLE  OF  BUNKER'S  HILL 662 

Taken  from  the  original  water-colour  drawing  made  by  a  heutenant  of  the  British 
army  directly  after  the  battle.  The  upper  part  looks  towards  Cambridge  and  shows 
some  of  the  American  works  ;  the  lower  shows,  on  the  right,  the  ruins  of  Charlestown 
and  Bunker's  Hill  (4),  part  of  North  Boston  being  in  the  foreground.  The  latter 
view  covers  the  area  of  the  battle. 

HORATIO,  VISCOUNT  NELSON 732 

After  the  painting  by  Hoppner  in  the  state  apartments  of  St.  James's  Palace,  where 
the  finest  of  his  portraits  are  collected. 

GEORGE  IV.  AND  HIS  TRAIN  AT  HIS  CORONATION  IN  1S21  .  .  .  •  782 
From  one  of  a  series  of  paintings  by  Stephanoft  made  by  the  king's  order.  This 
was  the  last  of  the  coronations  at  which  the  utmost  pomp  and  display,  regardless  of 
expense,  was  shown.  The  coronation  of  George  IV.,  an  unpopular  monarch,  cost 
;/[243,ooo,  while  that  of  his  successor  cost  only  a  Uttle  over  /45,ooo,  and  that  of  Queen 
Victoria  about  ;^70,ooo. 


xxxvi  LIST   OF    PLATES 

FACING   PAGE 

GREAT  COLLINS  STREET,  MELBOURNE,  IN  1857  AND  1912  .         .         .         .838 

From  a  book  of  views  of  Victoria  published  in  1857  and  from  a  photograph  lent 
by  the  courtesy  of  the  Agent-General  for  Victoria. 

BOMBAY  FROIM  MALABAR  HILL  IN  1800  AND  IN  THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY     872 
From  a  print  pubhshcd  in  1 800  and  from  a  photograph. 

WINNIPEG  IN   1870  AND  IN   191 2 888 

The  early  view  is  from  an  original  painting,  made  in  1870,  lent  by  the  Canadian 
Department  of  the  Interior  and,  contrasted  with  the  modern  view,  gives  an  idea  of 
the  extraordinary  development  of  the  city. 


A    HISTORY   OF   THE    BRITISH 
NATION 


BOOK    I 

NATION  MAKING 

CHAPTER    I 

FROM   C.^.SAR   TO   ALFRED 

I 

CELTIC   BRITAIN   AND   THE   ROMAN   OCCUPATION 

The  British  Isles  first  come  in  contact  with  the  general  current  of  history 
in  the  year  55  B.C.  In  that  year  Julius  Caesar,  then  engaged  in  the  subjuga- 
tion of  Gaul,  thought  fit  to  cross  the  Channel  with  a  military  force,  doubtless 
in  the  hope  of  finding  that  he  could  add  to  his  resources  for  the  achievement 
of  his  personal  empire.  He  spent  only  a  short  time  in  the  island,  and  re- 
turned again  the  next  year  with  larger  forces.  But  he  found  the  prospect 
less  promising  than  he  had  anticipated  ;  and  having  no  wish  to  extend  the 
boundaries  of  the  Roman  dominion  except  as  a  means  to  more  important 
ends,  he  again  retired  without  making  any  serious  attempt  at  subjugation  ; 
and  for  the  next  hundred  years  the  Romans  left  Britain  alone. 

But  nearly  three  centuries  before  Julius  Caesar  the  Greek  voyager,  Pytheas 
of  Massilia,  had  visited  the  British  coast  and  had  spoken  of  its  inhabitants  by 
the  name  of  Pretanes,  which,  according,  to  the  best  authorities,  is  a  Celtic  term 
meaning  the  "  painted  people,"  and  of  this  term  the  later  title  of  Britanni 
was  probably  a  corruption.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  were  the  same 
race  who,  at  the  coming  of  Julius  Caesar,  were  in  the  habit  of  painting  or 
possibly  tattooing  themselves  with  woad. 

It  is  generally  agreed  that  the  dominant  races  and  languages  were 
Celtic,  akin  to  those  of  Gaul.  Further  it  is  tolerably  clear  that  there  were 
two  or  perhaps  three  waves  of  Celtic  invasion,  since  two  Celtic  stocks  at 
least  can  be  definitely  distinguished.  The  first,  called  the  Goidelic  or  Gaelic, 
found  before  them  non-Aryan  races  commonly  named  Iberian,  who  were 
partly  driven  by  them  into  the  more  inaccessible  parts  of  the  islands,  and 

A 


2  NATION    MAKING 

partly  absorbed  by  them.  The  second  wave  is  called  Brythonic — the  Pre- 
tanes  of  Pytheas,  and  the  Britanni  of  the  Romans,  who  treated  their 
Goidelic  kinsmen  very  much  as  these  had  treated  the  Iberians.  In  language, 
at  least,  there  was  a  very  marked  distinction  between  these  two  waves.  In 
effect  the  Goidels  or  Gaels  were  driven  into  Ireland,  the  isles,  and  the 
highlands  of  Scotland  ;  while  the  Brythons  occupied  England  and  Wales 
and  the  Scottish  lowlands.  The  Gaelic  of  Scotland  and  the  Erse  of 
Ireland  descend  from  the  Goidelic  dialect,  while  the  Welsh,  the  old  Cornish, 
and  the  Breton  tongues  descend  from  the  Brythonic.  The  third  wave  was 
also  Brythonic  in  character,  and  seems  to  have  been  merely  an  overflow 
from  the  continent  of  Celts  nearly  akin  to  the  preceding  wave,  who  occupied 
only  the  southern  part  of  England.  When  Cassar  visited  England  the 
last  wave  represented  the  highest  stage  of  civilisation  so  far  achieved,  while 
the  rest  of  the  Brythons  represented  a  stage  intermediate  between  that  of 
the  latest  comers  and  the  Gaels.  We  shall  now  use  the  term  Briton  for 
the  non-Gaelic  Celts  in  general. 

It  was  not  till  the  year  A.D.  43  that  the  Roman  Emperor  Claudius  re- 
solved to  add  Britain  to  the  Roman  Empire.  In  the  meantime  there  had 
been  a  not  inconsiderable  intercourse  between  the  southern  Britons  and 
the  Roman  world  ;  and  the  Romans  learnt  a  great  deal  more  of  the  geography 
than  had  been  known  to  them  in  Caesar's  day.  The  Roman  conquest,  of 
course,  bore  no  sort  of  resemblance  to  the  previous  conquests.  It  was  very 
much  more  analogous  to  the  British  conquest  of  India,  which  began 
seventeen  hundred  years  later.  It  was  a  military  occupation,  in  which  the 
conquering  race  established  military  centres  and  military  roads,  imposed 
taxes,  and  took  upon  itself  the  organisation  of  government  without  either 
extirpating  or  enslaving  the  natives.  The  advance  was  gradual.  Within 
the  first  decade  the  Roman  supremacy  was  established  up  to  a  line  drawn 
from  the  Severn  to  the  Wash.  In  the  eighties  the  more  northern  tribes  of 
the  Brigantes  up  to  the  Sol  way  were  subdued  ;  and  the  Roman  Governor 
Agricola  carried  his  arms  successfully  as  far  probably  as  the  Tay. 

But  though  the  Roman  legions  marched  through  Scotland  no  practical 
conquest  was  effected.  Agricola  routed  the  highlanders,  but  that  did  not 
mean  that  they  were  in  any  sense  brought  to  subjection.  In  fact,  Agricola 
had  hardly  left  the  country  when  even  the  Brigantes  in  the  north  of  England 
were  again  in  revolt,  showing  that  the  chastisement  inflicted  upon  them  had 
only  broken  them  for  a  time.  They  were,  however,  repressed  not  long  after- 
wards. From  the  last  years  of  the  first  century  Britain,  south  of  the 
H umber  and  the  Mersey,  was  well  under  control  ;  and  when  Hadrian's 
Wall  was  built  in  A.D.  121  and  the  year  following,  from  Solway  to  the  Tyne, 
the  Romans  commanded  the  north  up  to  that  line.  Twenty  years  later  the 
boundary  was  carried  farther  to  the  wall  of  Antoninus  from  Clydemouth  to 
the  Firth  of  Forth.  But  the  Roman  stations  beyond  Hadrian's  Wall  appear 
never  to  have  been  more  than  garrisons  planted  in  a  hostile  count^-y,  military 
outposts  which  prevented  the  northern  tribes  from  gathering  in  force.     On 


4  NATION    MAKING 

the  whole  we  may  take  it  that  from  about  the  middle  of  the  second  century 
the  Pax  Romana  reigned  over  the  land  south  of  Hadrian's  Wall  so  long  as  the 
Roman  occupation  endured,  but  that  north  of  that  line  the  Romans  merely 
planted  garrisons  to  hold  hostile  tribes  in  check. 

Early  in  the  third  century  the  Emperor  Severus  conducted  in  person  a 
great  campaign  in  Scotland,  in  which  his  troops  suffered  terribly,  though  the 
natives  could  not  stand  against  them  ;  but  immediately  after  his  death  the 
Romans  again  fell  back  behind  Hadrian's  Wall,  now  strengthened  by  the 
Wall  of  Severus. 

The  whole  story  of  the  Roman  activity  beyond  the  Solway  is  curiously 
suggestive  of  the  operations  of  British  troops  on  the  north-west  frontier  of 
India  ;  while  in  Roman  Britain,  south  of  the  Tyne  and  Solway,  the  Roman 
legions  preserved  peace  and  the  Roman  officials  conducted  the  government, 
as  do  the  British  in  India.  And  the  Roman  legions,  like  the  British  regi- 
ments, largely  consisted  of  levies  drawn  from  the  natives.  The  country  was 
superficially  Romanised,  adopting  a  degree  of  Roman  manners  and  Roman 
culture.  On  the  whole,  it  would  seem  that  during  the  third  century  Britain 
flourished  and  waxed  wealthy,  its  shores  unmolested  by  foes  from  over  the 
sea,  while  the  unromanised  tribes  of  the  north  were  held  securely  back  by 
the  forts  of  the  Roman  wall. 

But  at  the  end  of  the  third  century  and  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
Teutonic  sea-rovers  begin  to  put  in  an  appearance.  Tribes  of  the  Saxons 
and  the  Franks  took  to  the  sea  and  to  miscellaneous  piracy.  Here  appears 
the  picturesque  figure  of  Carausius,  who  was  appointed  by  the  Emperor 
Maximian,  the  colleague  of  Diocletian,  to  the  command  for  the  suppression 
of  the  pirates.  The  operations  of  Carausius  were  successful,  but  were 
directed  to  serving  his  own  ambitions  ;  in  fact  he  set  himself  up  as  an 
independent  emperor  ;  and  it  seems  quite  possible  that  he  would  have 
succeeded  in  maintaining  that  position  had  he  not  been  assassinated.  His 
successor  Allectus  went  down  before  Constantius  Chlorus,  the  father  of 
Constantine  the  Great  who  transformed  Christianity  from  being  the  religion 
of  a  persecuted  sect  into  the  dominant  creed  of  the  Roman  Empire  ;  and 
the  Roman  supremacy  was  again  established.  Roman  Britain  continued  to 
prosper  and  was  Christianised  like  the  rest  of  the  Roman  Empire.  But 
the  Roman  Empire  itself  was  now  on  the  verge  of  being  shattered  by  the 
Teutonic  advance  ;  and  in  the  year  A.D.  410  the  Roman  legions  were  re- 
called, and  the  province  of  Britain  was  cut  adrift  and  left  to  shift  for  itself. 

Fifty  years  before  the  Roman  evacuation  new  names  appear  for  the 
races  outside  the  Roman  sphere  which  were  beginning  to  surge  against  the 
Roman  barriers  in  Britain  as  elsewhere.  We  hear  of  the  Picts  and  Scots 
and  the  Attacotti,  who,  acting  sometimes  in  conjunction  w^th  the  Saxon 
rovers,  began  to  descend  upon  the  coasts  of  Britain  or  dash  themselves 
against  the  Roman  wall  and  even  to  burst  through.  "  Picts  "  and  "Attacotti" 
must  be  taken  as  merely  new  names  for  the  northern  peoples  hitherto 
classed    together    as   Caledonians.     The    Scots,  on    the  other    hand,  were 


FROM    C/ESAR   TO    ALFRED  5 

certainly  Gaelic  tribes  from  the  north  of  Ireland,  who  were  presently  to 
establish  themselves  in  what  is  now  Argyle,  and  from  the  kingdom  there 
set  up  were  to  extend  their  name  over  the  whole  northern  region.  But  we 
have  now  reached  the  point  when  the  character  of  these  peoples  outside 
Roman  Britain  calls  for  further  consideration. 

It  has  been  laid  down  as  a  general  proposition  that  the  Scottish 
highlands  were  occupied  by  Goidelic  Celts,  Gaels  ;  and  it  may  further  be 
laid  down  that  Galloway,  roughly  speaking  the  triangle  between  the  Firths 
of  Clyde  and  Solway,  was  also  mainly  occupied  by  Gaels,  not  by  Brythons, 
whatever  may  have  been  the  case  with  the  eastern  lowlands.  Presently 
we  shall  find  Argyle  and  the  Isles  in  possession  of  colonies  of  Scots  from 
Ireland.  The  name  of  the  Attacotti  will  disappear  ;  but  who  were  the  Picts 
who  apparently  held  sway  over  the  greater  part  of  the  country  ?  The 
ethnological  experts  are  very  much  at  variance  on  the  subject.  On  the  one 
side  are  those  who  urged  that  they  were  simply  Goidelic  Celts  ;  on  the 
other  side  are  those  who  do  not  recognise  them  as  Aryans  at  all  ;  while 
a  third,  but  now  wholly  discredited,  theory  attributed  to  them  a  Teutonic 
origin.  A  detailed  examination  of  the  question  is  here  impracticable  ;  but 
perhaps  the  strongest  argument  in  favour  of  the  non-Aryan  theory  is  the 
indubitable  prevalence  among  them  of  the  tracing  of  hereditary  descent 
through  the  mother  instead  of  through  the  father,  a  practice  which  is 
affirmed  to  be  non  Aryan.  At  the  same  time,  although  among  the  Aryan 
races  in  historic  times  descent  was  always  traced  through  the  father,  there 
are  indications  that  this  had  not  always  been  the  case  ;  and  it  is  quite 
conceivable  that  in  one  branch  of  the  great  Aryan  family  the  other  system 
may  have  proved  victorious.  The  very  inconclusive  evidence  seems  to 
point  to  the  language  of  the  Picts  being  Gaelic,  mainly  because  Gaelic  was 
certainly  the  language  which  survived,  and  there  is  no  definite  indication  that 
another  tongue  was  spoken.  On  the  whole  the  presumption  is  distinctly  in 
favour  of  the  Gaelic  theory,  in  spite  of  the  difference  between  the  Pictish 
law  of  succession  and  that  which  prevailed  among  the  Aryan  peoples  at 
large,  including  the  rest  of  the  Celts,  Gaelic  as  well  as  Brythonic. 

The  position  then  in  the  British  Islands  at  the  time  of  the  Roman 
evacuation  may  be  thus  summarised.  Ireland  had  not  been  touched  by 
the  Romans,  and  was  wholly  Celtic,  apart  from  the  survival  of  an  Iberian 
element.  What  we  now  call  Scotland  was  wholly  Celtic,  unless  it  is  after 
all  true  that  the  Picts  were  not  Aryans  at  all.  Neither  Ireland  nor  Scotland 
was  as  yet  Christianised,  and  Scotland,  too,  had  been  untouched  by  Roman 
ideas  and  Roman  culture,  and  had  never  really  been  brought  under  Roman 
domination.  On  the  other  hand,  the  greater  part  of  the  larger  island, 
practically  corresponding  to  what  we  now  call  England  and  Wales,  had 
been  under  Roman  dominion  for  more  than  three  hundred  years  ;  there 
was  probably  an  actual  Roman  element  in  the  upper  classes  ;  there  was  a 
considerable  infusion  of  Rinnan  culture  in  the  towns  which  had  grown  up 
at  the  Roman  centres  ;  Celtic  customs  had  been  in  some  degree  modified 


6  NATION    MAKING 

by  contact  with  Roman  law  ;  but  still  the  Britons  were  the  least  Romanised 
of  all  the  Western  peoples  w'ho  had  come  under  the  Roman  sway,  as  may 
be  most  definitely  seen  in  the  fact  that  the  Roman  language  disappeared, 
whereas  in  Spain  and  in  Gaul,  as  well  as  in  Italy,  Latin  had  been  so 
thoroughly  adopted  that  it  prevailed  even  over  the  Teutonic  conquerors. 


THE   ENGLISH    CONQUEST 

In  A.D.  410  the  Roman  legions  were  withdrawn.  In  the  course  of  the 
next  century  and  a  half  the  Jutes,  Angles,  and  Saxons  had  made  them- 
selves masters  of  the  main  part  of  the  greater  island  between  the  Forth 
and  the  Channel,  with  the  exception  of  the  western  regions  ;  for  in  the 
west  the  Celtic  dominions  still  stretched  in  an  unbroken  line  from  north 
to  south.  Some  years  were  still  to  elapse  before  the  west  Saxons  in  the 
south  finally  split  the  Celts  of  Devon  and  Cornwall  from  the  Celts  of  Wales 
after  the  battle  of  Deorham ;  and  it  was  not  till  613  that  the  Angles  of  the 
North  severed  Wales  from  Cumbria  or  Strathclyde  after  the  battle  of  Chester. 

For  the  most  part  the  history  of  the  conquest  is  obscure  and  legendary. 
The  only  record  in  any  sense  contemporary  is  that  of  the  Briton  Gildas, 
about  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century ;  and  he  is  exceedingly  untrustworthy 
except  as  concerns  what  came  directly  under  his  own  personal  cognisance. 
Otherwise  we  have  to  rely  on  later  compilations,  a  so-called  History  of  the 
Britons,  written  about  the  end  of  the  seventh  century,  and  edited  about 
the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century  by  Nennius  ;  the  invaluable  work  of  the 
Venerable  Bede,  who  was  born  in  673  ;  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle, 
compiled  under  the  auspices  of  Alfred  the  Great  at  the  end  of  the  ninth 
century.  Bede  and  the  Chroniclers  did  the  best  they  could  with  their 
materials  ;  but  trustworthy  history  does  not  emerge  until  the  closing  years 
of  the  sixth  century,  at  least  as  far  as  details  are  concerned. 

The  traditional  story  is  that  Roman  Britain  went  to  pieces  after  the 
withdrawal  of  the  legions,  overwhelmed  by  the  incursions  of  the  Picts  and 
Scots.  In  449  a  southern  kinglet,  Vortigern,  called  in  to  his  aid  the  Jute 
pirate  chieftains  Hengistand  Horsa,  who,  having  come  to  rescue,  remained 
to  conquer,  and  were  followed  by  successive  swarms  of  their  kinsmen  from 
Denmark,  Schleswig,  and  Holland.  The  helpless  Britons  who  had  forgotten 
the  art  of  war  were  exterminated  or  fled  before  them  ;  though  surprising 
legends  gathered  about  a  British  king  named  Arthur,  who,  in  his  time,  smote 
the  invaders.  King  Arthur  is  the  hero  who  appears  in  the  History  of  the 
Britons,  whereas,  according  to  Gildas,  the  victor  who  gave  a  great  check  to 
the  invaders  was  Ambrosius  AureHanus.  As  Gildas  himself  was  probably 
born  before  the  battle  of  Mount  Badon,  the  great  victory  which  he  attributes  to 
AureHanus,  it  may  at  least  be  assumed  that  his  statement  is  tolerably  correct. 

Very  little  value  is  to  be  attached  to  the  History  of  the  Britons,  although 


FROM    C/ESAR   TO    ALFRED  7 

King  Arthur  may,  on  the  whole,  be  accepted  as  having  been  a  real 
chief,  who  performed  real  deeds  of  prowess.  Still,  between  Gildas, 
who  represents  the  Britons  in  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century,  Bede,  who 
was  a  careful  and  critical  historian,  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  which 
stands  broadly  for  Bede  modified  by  Wessex  tradition,  we  can  arrive  at  a 
tolerably  consistent  account  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Conquest.  But  before  we 
follow  the  story  of  the  conquest  we  may  consider  the  character  of  the 
invading  hordes. 

The  group  of  tribes  known  by  the  three  names  Saxons,  Angles,  and 
Jutes  all  belonged  to  the  Teutonic  stock;  the  Jutes  perhaps  being  nearer 
akin  to  the  Gothic  and  Scandinavian  branch  than  to  the  German,  It  is 
doubtful  whether  there  was  any  real  distinction  between  Angles  and  Saxons 
other  than  the  designation  of  the  territory  from  which  they  started.  They, 
at  any  rate,  were  thoroughly  German,  and  there  is  no  legitimate  ground 
for  doubting  that  their  development  while  still  on  the  European  Continent 
was  on  the  lines  depicted  in  the  Germania  of  Tacitus.  The  basis  of  the 
German  community  was  kinship,  whether  real  or  fictitious  ;  that  is  to  say, 
the  tribe  regarded  itself  as  an  aggregate  of  families  having  a  common 
ancestry.  The  tribesmen  were  freemen,  which  meant  that  they  owned 
the  soil  of  their  settlements  ;  that  they  had  the  right  to  carry  arms,  and 
the  right  of  attending  the  assemblies,  local  or  tribal,  which  were  the  courts 
of  justice  and  the  parliaments  of  the  village,  the  district,  the  tribe,  and  the 
tribal  federation.  Kingship  was  an  institution  which  was  apparently  only 
beginning  to  develop  sporadically  among  the  frontier  tribes  in  the  time  of 
Tacitus.  Normally  there  was  no  king,  but  there  was  a  recognised  aristo- 
cracy of  high-born  families,  from  among  whom  a  war-lord  was  appointed 
with  the  approval  of  the  tribal  assembly  when  the  tribe  went  to  war.  The 
tendency,  however,  was  for  the  war-lord  to  retain  his  authority  when  the  war 
was  over  ;  and  next,  for  the  office  itself  to  become  hereditary  in  the  family, 
though  without  recognition  of  the  rule  of  primogeniture.  The  German 
had  two  main  occupations,  fighting  and  agriculture.  Instead  of  concen- 
trating in  cities,  like  the  Aryans  of  the  Mediterranean  regions,  the  tribes 
were  collections  of  agricultural  communities  ;  and  besides  the  free  tribes- 
men there  was  a  subject  or  servile  population,  mainly  consisting  of  captive 
foes  or  their  offspring,  who  had  no  rights  and  no  property  of  their  own. 
It  is  matter  of  dispute  whether  in  the  fifth  century  the  land  occupied  by 
each  community  was  already  looked  upon  as  the  permanent  property  of 
the  individual  households  or  was  regarded  as  the  common  property  of 
the  community,  the  individual  family  being  entitled  only  to  the  produce 
of  that  portion  annually  allotted  to  it. 

Now  in  the  fifth  century  the  tribes  from  the  east  were  pressing  upon 
the  western  tribes,  and  the  western  tribes  were  pressing  upon  the  barriers 
of  the  Roman  Empire.  We  have  already  seen  that  those  who  lived  by 
the  sea  were  starting  upon  a  career  of  freebooting  and  piracy,  even  as  early 
as  the  end  of  the  third  century,  and  that  Saxons  were  joining  with   Picts 


8  NATION    MAKING 

and  Scots  in  raiding  Roman  Britain  in  the  latter  half  of  the  fourth  century. 
Up  to  this  time  and  for  some  while  longer  they  were  satisfied  with  raiding 
for  booty,  and  did  not  begin  to  attempt  territorial  conquest  across  the  sea — 
precisely  as  happened  with  the  Danes  and  Norsemen  four  centuries  after- 
wards. But  it  would  seem  that  even  in  the  earlier  half  of  the  fifth  century 
the  need  for  expansion  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  pressure  from  the  east 
on  the  other,  impelled  adventurous  spirits  to  seek  not  only  booty  but  new 
lands  to  settle  in.  This  migratory  movement,  however,  was  not  that  of  a 
consolidated  nation,  or  at  first  even  of  consolidated  tribes,  but  of  adven- 
turers who  as  war-lords  gathered  kindred  spirits  to  their  standards,  and  set 
forth  to  carve  out  new  dominions  for  themselves  in  lands  which  offered  a 
tempting  prey  to  the  spoiler. 

Such  a  land  was  Britain  after  the  Roman  evacuation.  The  idea  that  the 
Britons  had  wholly  forgotten  all  that  pertains  to  the  art  of  war  under  the 
Roman  dominion  is  not  tenable,  for  the  legions  in  the  country  were  largely 
recruited  from  the  Britons  themselves.  But  the  withdrawal  of  the  Romans 
left  the  country  without  any  centralised  government.  It  fell  back  on  the 
traditional  Celtic  system  of  petty  principalities,  generally  incapableof  con- 
sistent united  action,  and  thus  it  became  a  prey  to  the  invader.  There  is 
no  reason  to  throw  over  the  tradition  which  brings  Hengist  and  Horsa  to 
Kent  as  the  hired  allies  of  a  British  chief,  prince,  or  king.  When  the  grow- 
ing anarchy  had  revealed  itself,  it  was  natural  that  the  new  comers  should 
have  taken  up  the  idea  of  making  themselves  masters  of  the  soil  and  calling 
fresh  volunteers  to  their  aid. 

Now,  as  to  the  course  of  the  conquest,  there  is  a  considerable  difference 
between  the  Anglo-Saxon  tradition,  as  it  survived  in  Wessex  to  be  written 
down  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  in  the  ninth  century,  and  the  British 
tradition  current  in  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  as  set  forth  by  Gildas 
little  more  than  a  hundred  years  after  the  conquest  began.  The  Chronicle 
describes  a  very  gradual  conquest  effected  by  successive  hosts  of  invaders 
who  established  a  footing  at  different  points  along  the  whole  coast  line  at 
various  dates  through  a  long  series  of  years.  Gildas  describes,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  sudden  storm  devastating  the  country  from  end  to  end.  Yet  the  two 
stories  can  be  reasonably  reconciled  in  a  manner  which  accords  with  such 
evidence  as  excavation  gives  us.  Probably  there  was  a  storm  which  swept 
over  the  whole  east  and  south  in  the  latter  half  of  the  fifth  century,  in  the 
course  of  which  the  Roman  cities  were  permanently  ruined.  The  force 
of  the  flood  was  broken  by  a  rally  of  the  Britons  and  the  great  victory  of 
Ambrosius  Aurelianus  at  Mount  Badon,  which  appears  to  have  taken  place  at 
some  date  between  493  and  516.  The  wave  rolled  back,  but  the  territory 
was  only  partially  reoccupied,  the  British  being  incapable  of  a  constructive 
reorganisation  ;  and  there  followed  the  more  systematic  organisation  and  ad- 
vance of  the  kingdoms  set  up  by  the  Teutonic  invaders  on  the  coasts  from  the 
Forth  to  the  Isle  of  Wight. 

Now   we  may  conveniently  apply  the  name  English  which   ultimately 


FROM    CiESAR   TO    ALFRED  9 

predominated  to  the  whole  group  of  the  Teutonic  invaders,  Jutes,  Aii<4les, 
and  Saxons.  Saxons  and  Jutes  entered  upon  the  new  land  by  way  of  the 
coast  of  Essex,  tiie  Thames,  Kent,  Sussex,  and  Hampshire  ;  while  the  Angles 
established  themselves  along  the  east  coast  above  Essex  up  to  the  estuary  of 
the  Forth.  From  these  bases  they  drove  their  way  inland,  sometimes  as  in- 
dependent units,  sometimes  recognising  a  common  war-lord.  No  confidence 
can  be  placed  in  the  names  attributed  to  the  legendary  leaders  of  the  various 
bands.  It  is  probable  that  even  Cerdic,  the 
legendary  ancestor  of  the  House  of  Wessex, 
is  mythical.  But  when  we  have  reached  the 
second  half  of  the  sixth  century  we  find  a 
number  of  fairly  distinguishable  English 
states  definitely  in  being.  In  the  south  are 
the  kingdoms  of  Kent  and  Sussex,  while 
Hampshire  and  the  Isle  of  Wight,  like  Kent 
itself,  seem  to  have  been  occupied  by  Jutes. 
North  of  the  Thames  mouth  lay  the  East  y; 
Saxons,  to  the  west  of  them  the  Middle 
Saxons  (Middlesex)  ;  and  we  must  place  the 
nucleus  of  the  West  Saxon  kingdom  Wessex 
to  the  westward,  upon  the  Thames  valley,  in 
preference  to  supposing  that  their  advance 
was  made  from  Hampshire  or  Dorsetshire. 
North  as  far  as  the  Wash  was  East  Anglia 
with  the  Lindiswaras  (Lindsey)  between  the 
Wash  and  the  Humber,  and  inland  the 
Middle  Angles  and  the  Mercians.  And  north 
again  from  Humber  to  Tees  was  the  Angle 
kingdom  of  Deira,  and  from  Tees  to  Forth  that  of  Bernicia.  The  whole  of 
the  west  w^as  still  occupied  by  British  principalities  or,  beyond  the  Sohvay, 
by  Gaels,  Picts,  and  Scots  ;  while  between  Celts  and  English  lay  the  still 
debatable  land  which  half  a  century  before  had  been  devastated  but  not 
permanently  held  by  the  English. 

By  common  consent  of  all  the  old  authorities  it  w^as  the  practice  of  the 
English  to  extirpate  the  Britons  ;  that  is  to  say,  very  few  of  them  were 
spared  to  become  slaves,  though  doubtless  the  women  were  not  exterminated 
with  such  ruthlessness  as  the  men.  In  the  light  of  modern  inquiry  it  has 
been  maintained  that  sundry  characteristics  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  social 
system  point  not  to  extermination  but  to  the  establishment  of  a  servile 
population  retained  to  cultivate  the  soil  for  the  benefit  of  their  Teutonic 
masters.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  claimed  that  these  English  institutions 
can  reasonably  be  explained  as  developments  having  their  origin  in  a  free 
society.  Moreover,  the  indubitable  truth  remains  that  throughout  the 
English  kingdoms  practically  every  trace  of  the  Celtic  or  Latin  languages 
and  the  established  Christianity  disappeared  altogether  ;  and  the  conquerors 


Saxon  spear-heads. 


lo  NATION    MAKING 

were  influenced  by  them  no  more  tlian  Europeans  have  been  by  the 
language  or  religion  of  primitive  races  in  AustraHa,  Africa,  and  America. 
But  it  is  a  conspicuous  fact  that  in  every  other  portion  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  however  completely  overrun  by  Teutons,  the  language  and  religion 
of  the  conquered  dominated  those  of  the  conquerors.  Where  Goths  or 
Vandals,  Franks,  Burgundians,  or  Lombards  ruled  as  masters  over  Latinised 
Celtic  peoples  the  Celtic  and  Latin  elements  ultimately  predominated,  and 
France,  Spain,  and  Italy  have  remained  Latin 
nations.  Outside  of  the  British  Isles,  wherever 
the  Teuton  has  amalgamated  with  a  conquered  race 
in  historic  times,  he  has  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
ceased  to  be  a  Teuton  ;  and  it  is  a  commonplace 
that  even  in  Ireland  the  Norwegian  and  Norman 
conquerors  became  thoroughly  Hibernicised,  even 
as  the  Norsemen  became  Gaelicised  in  the  Hebrides. 
In  view  of  this  it  seems  incredible  that  any  large 
proportion  of  the  conquered  Britons  should  have 
survived  among  the  Teutonic  conquerors  during  the 
fifth  and  sixth  centuries  without  giving  them  even 
a  tincture  of  Latinity  or  Christianity,  even  though 
we  must  admit  that  the  Latinising  of  the  Britons 
had  only  been  of  a  very  superficial  character. 

It  will  be  seen  that  nothing  which  at  all  cor- 
responds to  what  is  called  the  Heptarchy  in  England 
— a  name  which  applies  to  the  division  of  the 
country  into  seven  substantial  states — was  the  out- 
come of  the  English  conquest.  The  varying  mutations  and  absorptions 
of  the  many  petty  kingdoms  did  result  in  a  sevenfold  division  in  the 
course  of  the  seventh  century,  at  the  time  when  Theodore  of  Tarsus 
organised  the  English  episcopate  ;  but  there  was  no  time  when  England 
could  be  regarded  as  being  made  up  definitely  of  seven  kingdoms  with 
permanently  recognised  boundaries. 

Even  more  vague  was  the  division  of  the  regions  still  held  by  the  Celts, 
who  were  either  already  Christians  at  the  time  of  the  English  invasion,  or 
became  very  generally  Christianised  during  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries. 
After  the  battles  of  Deorham  and  Chester  the  Celts  south  of  the  Solway 
were  in  three  separated  districts — the  south-western  peninsula  called 
Damnonia,  Wales,  and  Cumbria,  between  the  Mersey  and  the  Solway. 
This  last,  with  the  northern  district  west  of  the  Clyde,  later  formed  vaguely 
the  kingdom  of  Strathclyde.  The  Scots  were  established  in  Dalriada, 
which  is  roughly  Argyle  and  the  southern  isles,  and  the  Pictish  kingdom 
covered  the  rest  of  the  highlands.  It  is  probable  that  the  Celts  between 
the  wall  of  Hadrian  and  the  Forth,  who  had  never  been  Latinised,  held 
their  own  against,  or  combined  with,  the  Angle  invaders  to  a  much  greater 
extent  than  to  the  south  of  the  Tync. 


Saxon  arrow-heads. 


FROM    CiESAR   TO    ALFRED  ii 

III 

THE    RIVAL   KINGDOMS 

Gildas,  who  wrote  his  book  between  550  and  560,  had  very  Httle  know- 
ledge of  the  English  kingdoms,  though  he  has  much  to  say  of  the  anarchy  pre- 
vaiHng  among  the  Britons.  But  from  about  this  time  Bede  and  the  writers 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  had  more  substantial  records  to  deal  with. 
The  great  King  ^thelbert  of  Kent  succeeded  to  the  throne  in  565,  when 
Ceawlin,  the  first  definitely  historical  figure  in  the  Wessex  records,  was 
king  of  the  West  Saxons.  Deira  and  Bernicia  were  still  separate,  but  were 
to  be  united  as  Northumbria  in  588  under  ^thelric.  The  era  of  final 
conquest  was  now  setting  in.  Ceawlin  at  the  moment  was  the  most  powerful 
of  the  southern  kings  ;  and  after  giving  a  check  to  ^thelbert  of  Kent  and 
subjecting  some  of  the  Saxons  on  the  north  of  the  Thames  to  his  sway,  he 
turned  his  arms  against  the  Britons,  drove  his  way  westward  at  the  head  of 
a  force  not  so  much  of  subjects  as  of  confederates,  and  finally  separated 
Damnonia  from  Wales  by  his  great  victory  at  Deorham,  a  few  miles  from 
Bath.  Thenceforth  Saxons  and  Angles  occupied  the  whole  country  as  far 
west  as  the  Severn  valley,  though  the  power  was  already  departing  from 
the  crown  of  Wessex  before  Ceawlin  died  in  593.  ^thelbert  of  Kent 
waxed  great  as  Wessex  weakened,  and  the  eastern  kingdoms  acknowledged 
his  supremacy  as  far  north  as  the  Humber.  ^thelfrith,  King  of  United 
Northumbria  after  .^thelric,  extended  the  Northumbrian  dominion  in  the 
north,  and  in  613  shattered  the  allied  forces  of  the  Christian  Celts  at  the 
battle  of  Chester,  having  ten  years  earlier  utterly  routed  Aidan,  the  king 
of  the  Scots  of  Dalriada,  who  had  gathered  a  large  confederate  army  in  the 
hope  of  crushing  his  rising  power. 

But  Christianity  had  already  obtained  a  footing  among  the  southern 
English.  The  Britons  never  attempted  missionary  work  among  the  con- 
querors. The  Irish,  Christianised  in  the  fifth  century,  spread  Christianity 
among  the  Celts  of  Scotland,  and  the  contact  with  them  first  brought  Chris- 
tianity among  the  Angles  of  the  north  ;  but  it  was  the  mission  of  Augustine, 
organised  by  Gregory  the  Great  himself,  which  introduced  in  the  south  the 
Latin  Christianity  which,  in  the  course  of  the  seventh  century,  dominated 
all  England. 

Augustine  and  his  monks  were  well  received  by  ^thelbert  of  Kent  on 
their  landing  in  597  ;  for  ^thelbert's  wife  was  already  a  Christian,  being 
the  daughter  of  one  of  the  Merovingian  kings  of  the  Franks.  The  English 
seem  nowhere  to  have  had  any  very  fervid  attachment  to  their  old  paganism  ; 
there  was  never  anything  in  the  nature  of  a  persecution  of  Christians. 
Christianity  spread  steadily  and  unglorified  by  martyrdoms.      Unfortunately 


12  NATION    MAKING 

it  did  nothing  towards  reconciling  the  Britons  and  the  English,  because 
there  were  divergencies  on  what  seem  to  us  extremely  trivial  points  of 
practice  between  the  Welsh  and  the  Latin  churches,  and  both  sides  obstin- 
ately refused  to  make  any  concessions. 

As  supremacy  passed  from  Wessex  when  Ceawlin  grew  old,  so  it  passed 
from  Kent  when  -^thelbert  grew  old.  After  his  death  in  616  Redwald 
of  East  Anglia  enjoyed   a  temporary  leadership,  and  even  overthrew  the 

Northumbrian  conqueror,  ^thelfrith, 
four  years  after  the  battle  of  Chester. 
He  placed  on  the  throne  of  Northumbria 
Edwin,  the  cousin  of  yEthelfrith,  who 
had  been  ousted  by  ^thelric  from  the 
throne  of  Deira. 

Redwald  died  next  year,  and  Edwin, 
now  master  of  Northumbria,  became  the 
supreme  king.  Edwin  was  converted 
to  Christianity,  vanquished  the  kings 
who  ventured  to  resist  him,  and  appears 
to  have  enforced  law  and  order  to  an 
unprecedented  extent  throughout  the 
whole  of  his  dominion,  which  extended 
north  to  Edinburgh  or  Edwin's  borough. 
But  there  was  one  of  the  sub-kings 
in  the  midlands,  Penda  of  Mercia,  who 
was  staunch  to  paganism,  and  was 
ready  to  defy  the  Northumbrian  if 
opportunity  offered.  The  Christian 
Welsh  had  no  scruple  in  allying  them- 
selves with  the  old  heathen,  and  Edwin 
was  overthrown  by  Penda  at  the  great 
battle  of  Heathfield. 

Penda's  Welsh  allies  ravaged  Nor- 
thumbria more  mercilessly  than  Penda 
himself.  The  Northumbrians,  however,  rallied  under  Oswald,  a  son  of 
^thelfrith,  and  avenged  Heathfield  upon  the  Welsh  at  the  battle  of  Hexham. 
Oswald  partly  recovered  Edwin's  supremacy  over  the  island,  but  he  never 
brought  Penda  to  submission  ;  and  he,  like  his  predecessor,  was  overthrown 
by  the  Mercian  at  Mascrfeld  in  642.  After  that  the  effective  supremacy  ;ill 
over  the  island  belonged  to  Penda  until  his  death.  It  is  a  little  confusing 
to  find  Oswald's  brother  Oswy  ruling  in  Bernicia,  while  an  Oswin  of  Edwin's 
hne  ruled  in  Deira.  However,  at  last  Oswy  took  heart  of  grace,  defied 
Penda,  and  overthrew  him  at  the  battle  of  Winwaed,  recovered  the  crown  of 
Deira,  and  again  established  a  general  Northumbrian  overlordship,  though 
Penda  had  succeeded  in  consolidating  the  central  kingdom  of  Mercia  which 
remained  in  permanent  rivalry  with  Northumbria. 


Saxon  knives. 


FROM    CiESAR   TO    ALFRED 


3 


Penda  himself  was  very  nearly  the  last  of  the  pagans,  and  his  son 
Wulfhere  was  a  Christian.  Oswys  reign  in  Northumbria  is  especially  not- 
able on  account  of  the  synod  held  at  Whitby  in  664,  nine  years  after  the 


Saxon  England  from  the  7th  lo  the  loth  centuries. 

victory  of  Winwaed.  Both  Oswy  and  his  predecessor  Oswald  had  become 
Christians  when  they  were  dwelling  among  the  Scots  during  the  exile  of 
their  house.  Hence  Northumbrian  Christianity  was  under  the  influence  of 
the  Celtic  church.  The  outcome,  however,  of  the  open  discussion  held  at 
the  synod  at  Whitby  was  that  Oswy  resolved  to  conform  to  the  Latin  in 
preference  to  the  Celtic  practices  ;  and  this  very  much  simplified  the  process, 


14  NATION    MAKING 

carried  out  under  the  Archbishop  Theodore  of  Tarsus,  of  establishing  the 
Latin  ecclesiastical  organisation  under  one  primate  all  over  England.  The 
six  principal  kings  of  Northumbria,  Mercia,  East  Anglia,  Essex,  Wessex, 
and  Kent  had  at  first  a  bishop  apiece ;  though  Theodore  divided  each  of 
the  kingdoms  into  a  larger  number  of  dioceses,  and  Sussex,  which  had 
hitherto  remained  in  pagan  isolation,  was  brought  into  line  with  the  rest. 
There  is  no  sufficient  ground  for  the  tradition  which  attributes  to  Theodore 
the  introduction  of  the  ecclesiastical  parish  ;  but  it  is  notable  that  the  idea 
of  English  unity  as  one  church  preceded  and  helped  to  prepare  the  way  for 
the  idea  of  English  political  unity,  which  did  not  really  take  root  until  the 
days  of  Alfred. 

Oswy  had  extended  some  sort  of  ascendency  over  the  Celtic  dominion 
of  Strathclyde,  which  marched  with  the  western  border  of  Northumbria  from 
the  Forth  to  the  Mersey.  But  in  685,  fourteen  years  after  his  death, 
Ecgfrith  of  Northumbria  developed  a  too  ambitious  scheme  of  conquering 
the  Pictish  kingdom  beyond  the  Forth.  There  he  was  enticed  into  the 
mountains,  and  his  army  was  cut  to  pieces  at  the  battle  of  Nechtansmere, 
a  blow  from  which  Northumbria  never  recovered.  By  the  opening  of  the 
eighth  century  the  "centre  of  greatest  power  was  becoming  established  in 
Mercia. 

England  during  this  century  achieved  a  foremost  place  as  a  home  of 
learning  and  culture.  During  its  first  half  flourished  the  Venerable  Bede,  the 
most  learned  man  of  his  time,  historian,  scholar,  and  saint  ;  and  about  the 
year  of  his  death  was  born  Alcuin,  who  in  matters  intellectual  became  the 
chosen  counsellor  of  the  mighty  emperor  whom  we  call  Charlemagne. 
But  England  was  not  a  happy  realm  ;  because  nowhere  within  its  borders 
was  to  be  found  a  dominion  with  a  strong  central  government  organised 
on  a  permanent  basis.  The  different  kingdoms  were  in  rivalry  with  each 
other,  besides  being  perpetually  rent  by  civil  broils,  from  the  absence  of 
any  fixed  law  of  succession  except  that  which  required  that  the  king  should 
be  of  the  blood  royal.  There  was  occasionally  a  strong  and  capable  king 
in  one  or  other  of  the  greater  kingdoms  whose  reign  is  marked  by  the 
expansion  of  his  own  realm. 

Thus,  about  the  beginning  of  the  eighth  century,  Ine  of  Wessex  drove 
the  Celtic  boundary  in  the  southern  peninsula  fairly  back  into  Devon. 
This  king  is  also  celebrated  for  that  codification  of  the  customs  of  Wessex 
known  as  the  Dooms  or  Laws  of  Ine.  Mercia  had  remained  on  terms  of 
what  may  be  called  mutual  toleration  with  Northumbria,  but  after  Ine's 
death  .^thelbald  of  Mercia  challenged  the  temporary  Wessex  supremacy 
in  the  south,  and  made  himself  supreme  from  the  English  Channel  to  the 
Humber.  Turning  to  the  north  he  tried  but  failed  to  master  Northumbria, 
which  was  still  strong  enough  to  defend  itself,  though  not  to  retaliate  upon 
the  southern  dominion.  Then  Mercia  itself  began  to  fall  to  pieces  even 
before  the  old  king  /Ethelbald  was  himself  assassinated  ;  but  its  power  was 
restored  by  the  great  King  Offa,  who  shortly  afterwards  seized  the  throne. 


FROM    CtESAR   to   ALFRED  15 

and,  after  setting  the  affairs  of  Mercia  in  order,  proceeded  to  make  himself 
supreme  in  England. 

Offa's  reign  began  in  758  and  lasted  till  796.  He  drove  Wessex  back 
south  of  the  line  of  the  Thames  and  Severn  mouth  and  pressed  the  Welsh 
back  far  west  of  the  Severn,  marking  the  new  boundary  between  Britons 
and  English  by  the  great  line  of  Offa's  Dyke  from  Chester  to  the  Bristol 
Channel.  Europe  recognised  him  as  the  lord  of  England,  and  he  treated 
as  an  equal  with  Charles  the  Great,  King  of  the  Franks,  who  had  not  yet 
revived  the  Western  Empire  and  assumed  the  Imperial  crown.  But 
apparently  he  did  not  care  to  trouble  him- 
self with  the  subjection  of  Northumbria, 
which,  throughout  his  reign,  was  in  a  state 
of  miserable  chaos,  a  term  which  also  applies 
generally  to  the  Pictish  and  Scottishdominions 
and  to  Strathclyde  with  its  diverse  population 
of  Gaels  and  Britons. 

The  last  years  of  Offa  saw  the  first  attack 
upon  the  English  shores  by  a  new  enemy,  the  Danes  or  Northmen  from 
over  the  sea,  whose  appearance  marks  the  arrival  of  the  third  stage  of 
our  history  after  the  Roman  evacuation. 


Penny  of  Offa  of  Mercia,  A.D.  7S7-79^. 


IV 


WESSEX   AND   THE    DANES 


In  793  and  794  for  the  first  time  Danish  longships  swooped  down  upon 
the  monastery  of  Lindisfarne  and  the  monastery  of  Jarrow  to  slaughter 
and  plunder.  Somewhere  about  the  same  time  three  pirate  crews  landed 
in  Dorsetshire  and  slew  the  reeve  of  the  shire.  But  forty  years  passed 
before  their  raiding  began  in  earnest.  In  the  mterval  a  strong  man  had 
arisen  in  Wessex  ;  and  Ecgbert  had  wrested  from  Mercia  the  English  supre- 
macy which  was  to  remain  with  his  house  permanently,  or  at  least  with 
little  intermission,  until  the  Norman  seized  the  sceptre.  Ecgbert,  who 
claimed  kinship  with  both  the  royal  houses  of  Wessex  and  Kent,  had  only 
recently  returned  from  exile  in  the  land  of  the  Franks  when  the  Witan  or 
Council  of  Wessex  called  him  to  the  throne.  An  efficient  king,  Coenwulf, 
was  ruling  in  Mercia,  and  Ecgbert  made  no  attempt  to  challenge  his  over- 
lordship.  But  when  Coenwulf  was  succeeded  in  822  by  his  brother 
Ceolwulf  anarchy  once  more  began  to  set  in  in  Mercia,  and  the  crown  was 
usurped  by  Beornwulf. 

Still  Ecgbert  bided  his  time,  nor  was  he  himself  the  actual  aggressor. 
It  would  seem  that  Beornwulf,  who  had  secured  the  Mercian  kingship,  in- 
vaded Wessex  when  Ecgbert  was  engaged  on  a  campaign  in  Damnonia. 
Ecgbert,  returning,  inflicted  upon  him  an  overwhelming  defeat  at  Ellandune 


i6  NATION    MAKING 

in  Wiltshire.  Ecgbert  was  prompt  to  follow  up  his  victory.  Kent  joyfully 
hailed  him  as  overlord  in  place  of  the  alien  from  Mercia.  The  king  of 
Essex  submitted  to  him,  and  on  his  death  Essex  was  simply  absorbed  into 
Wessex.  The  same  fate  befell  Sussex.  East  Anglia  recovered  the  inde- 
pendence which  it  had  lost  to  the  Mercians,  killed  Beornwulf  in  battle,  and 
allied  itself  with  Ecgbert  ;  and  in  829  Ecgbert  appears  to  have  had  no 
difficulty  in  making  himself  master  of  Mercia.  The  alliance  with  East 
Anglia  was  soon  converted  into  the  subordination  of  that  kingdom,  and  even 
the  Northumbrian  king  made  formal  submission  to  Ecgbert  as  "  Bretwalda," 
the  supreme  lord  of  the  whole  land — a  title  applied  to  various  earlier  kings 
from  ^thelbert  to  Offa. 

Thus  when  the  Danes  reappeared  in  834,  having  left  the  land  in  peace 
for  forty  years,  Ecgbert  was  undisputed  lord  of  all  England,  with  probably 
a  firmer  grip  of  his  dominion  than  any  of  his  predecessors  in  the  supre- 
macy, with  the  possible  exception  of  Offa.  Let  us  turn  then  to  an  examina- 
tion of  the  new  invaders. 

Northmen  is  the  term  applied  inclusively  to  the  whole  group  which, 
at  a  later  stage,  separates  into  two  groups  of  Danes  and  Norsemen.  The 
Northmen  belonged  to  the  Scandinavian  division  of  the  Teutonic  race,  of 
which  the  Goths  were  the  first  representatives  who  had  come  into  touch 
with  Christendom.  They  occupied  Sweden,  Norway,  and  Denmark,  and 
parts  of  the  southern  and  eastern  Baltic  coast.  They  no  more  formed  a 
united  power  than  the  Angles  and  Saxons  of  the  fifth  century,  to  whose 
institutions  their  own  bore  a  marked  resemblance.  Until  the  close  of  the 
eighth  century  they  had  not  adopted  an  aggressive  line  ;  and  it  is  not  im- 
probable that  they  were  roused  into  doing  so  by  the  aggressive  movement 
of  the  Franks  under  Charles  the  Great  against  the  Saxon  nation  on  the 
continent.  From  fighting  each  other,  the  petty  chiefs  turned  to  raiding 
the  coasts  of  the  great  aggressor  on  the  west  ;  and  we  can  hardly  avoid 
seeing  a  resemblance  between  ineir  sudden  expansion  as  a  maritime  power 
and  the  English  maritime  expansion  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth.  They  began 
to  take  long  voyages  across  the  open  sea  instead  of  confining  themselves  to 
coasting  operations  ;  and  when  they  did  so  they  found  they  could  go  where 
they  liked,  because  with  their  improved  seamanship  they  developed  naval 
tactics  before  which  western  fleets  were  powerless. 

The  movement  began  with  the  Danes  at  the  end  of  the  eighth  century  ; 
and  it  appears  to  have  stopped,  so  far  as  they  were  concerned,  because 
they  fell  back  into  a  condition  of  prolonged  internal  warfare,  which  did  not 
come  to  an  end  till  their  comparative  consolidation  about  830.  Hence, 
during  this  time  they  left  the  English  and  Frankish  coasts  alone.  Mean- 
while, however,  their  Norwegian  kinsmen  followed  a  new  direction  ;  and, 
passing  round  the  north  of  the  British  Isles,  harried  the  coasts  of  Scotland 
and  Ireland,  the  latter  country  suffering  horribly  from  their  ravages  while 
England  was  still  enjoying  immunity.  But  about  830  the  Danes  were  at 
work  again,  and  from   this  time  Danes  and  Norsemen,  sometimes  but  not 


FROM    CiESAR   TO   ALFRED  17 

always  distinguished  by  their  victims,  swept  tlie   seas,  stormed  along  the 
coasts,  and  swarmed  up  the  estuaries  of  Western  Europe. 

The  Vikings,  as  they  were  called,  which  probably  means  "warriors,"  were 
at  first  merely  bands  of  adventurers  following  the  banner  of  some  famous 
warrior  or  high-born  leader,  and  their  object  was  simply  plunder.  Wor- 
shippers of  the  old  gods,  they  had  no  touch  of  Christianity.  When  we 
hear  of  the  "kings"  who  led  them  when  they  came,  not  in  small  companies 
but  in  great  fleets,  we  must  recognise  that  the  king  was  simply  a  war-lord  ; 
not  the  king  over  a  territory, 
but  only  over  the  warriors 
who  followed  his  banner. 

In    834    a    fleet    of    the 
Northmen  attacked  the  Rhine 


mouth,  and  a  detachment  of        ^..-^^^S^^^t'^  VJ^ 

them  ravaged  the   island    of   ^^^^^j(^S>Z7^^^''\'{^\~~V'^ 


Sheppey.    Two  or  three  years   ^^e^.t^^^^,^^-^^"^;^^  ..'^.  {:^^A^^^ 
later    the  operation    was    re-  The  gold  ring  of  .Eihelwulf. 

peated,  and  this  time  a  de- 
tachment landed  at  Charmouth  in  Dorsetshire,  where,  after  a  stubborn 
fight  with  Ecgbert,  they  remained  actually  masters  of  the  field,  but  had 
been  too  roughly  handled  to  attempt  to  hold  their  position.  In  838  they 
came  to  Cornwall,  and,  in  alliance  with  the  Cornishmen,  moved  upon 
Wessex,  but  were  put  to  utter  route  by  Ecgbert  at  Hengston  Down. 

Next  year  Ecgbert  died.  His  eldest  son  yEthelwulf  succeeded  him  as 
suzerain  of  England  and  king  of  Wessex,  a  younger  son,  ^2thelstan,  being 
made  sub-king  of  Essex  and  Kent  and  Sussex.  During  the  next  few  years 
the  Danes  made  perpetual  invasions  in  force  on  the  east  coast  and  the 
south  coast,  and  also  on  the  Prankish  dominion  beyond  the  English  Channel, 
passing  round  Finisterre,  and  in  848  capturing  and  sacking  Bordeaux. 
Sometimes  they  were  beaten  off  ;  but  usually  they  routed  the  levies  brought 
against  them,  and  only  retired  when  they  had  obtained  a  satisfactory  amount 
of  plunder.  By  this  time  they  were  habitually  working  not  in  small  detach- 
ments but  in  great  combined  fleets,  numbering  sometimes  as  many  as  six 
hundred  vessels.  In  851,  however,  they  met  with  an  overwhelming  repulse 
at  the  hands  of  .^^thelwulf  and  his  son  ^thelbald  at  Aclea,  either  Ockley 
in  Surrey  or  Oakley  near  Basingstoke.  Probably  it  was  not  till  855  that 
the  Danes  for  the  first  time  wintered  in  England,  the  first  step  to  a  Danish 
settlement;  the  Chronicle  refers  this  event  both  to  851  and  855,  but  the 
defeat  at  Aclea  makes  the  earlier  date  improbable. 

Two  years  later  ^thelwulf  died  and  was  followed  on  the  throne  by 
four  of  his  sons  in  succession — ^thelbald,  who  reigned  till  860  ;  .^^i^thelbert, 
who  reigned  for  the  next  six  years  ;  .^^ithelred  (866-871),  and,  finally,  Alfred 
the  Great. 

The  Danish  invasions  slackened,  and  we  only  hear  of  them  once  between 
856  and  865,  when  they  again  wintered  in  Thanet.      On  this  one  occasion 

B 


1 8  NATION    MAKING 

they  met  with  a  sharp  reverse.  But  865  was  the  opening  year  of  a  con- 
tinuous onslaught.  In  866  they  ravaged  East  AngHa,  and  in  867  fell  on 
Northumbria,  where  they  remained  permanently  and  before  long  were 
indisputable  masters  of  the  country.  In  868  they  struck  into  Mercia, 
though  they  made  terms  and  retired  again  ;  and  in  870  they  overwhelmed 
East  Anglia  and  killed  its  last  king,  St.  Edmund.  Then  in  871  opened  the 
great  attack  upon  Wessex,  led  by  two  kings,  Halfdan  and  Bagsceg,  and  five 
jarls  or  nobles.  Against  them  marched  ^thelred  and  his  younger  brother 
Alfred.  The  spring  and  summer  witnessed  a  series  of  desperate  battles, 
Danes  and  Saxons  alternately  getting  the  better  in  combats  which  were 
indecisive.  Even  the  great  Saxon  victory  of  Ashdown  only  meant  that  the 
Danes  were  forced  back  into  their  fortified  camp  at  Reading,  whence,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  one  of  the  kings  and  all  the  five  jarls  had  been  slain, 
they  were  strong  enough  to  issue  again  a  fortnight  later  and  defeat  .^thelred 
at  Basing.  This  success  was  repeated  two  months  later,  and  was  followed 
immediately  by  the  death  of  ^thelred  and  the  election  by  the  Witan  of 
Alfred  in  preference  to  the  very  youthful  son  of  the  dead  king. 


ALFRED   THE    GREAT 

Heavy  Danish  reinforcements  had  come  up  either  before  or  after  the  battle 
of  Basing,  and  the  king  was  defeated  in  his  first  engagement  with  them  at 
Wilton.  Both  sides  must  have  suffered  tremendous  losses  during  this  "year 
of  battles,"  and  Alfred  was  reduced  to  buying  a  short  respite — a  dangerous 
policy  but  one  at  the  moment  inevitable.  For  the  next  four  years  the 
Danes  devoted  their  attention  to  Mercia  and  Northumbria.  The  latter 
was  completely  subjugated  by  the  Northmen,  and  thenceforward  North- 
umbria  was  as  much  Danish  or  Norse  as  Anglian  ;  for  although  the  Danes 
did  not  exterminate  they  took  possession  of  as  much  of  the  land  as  they 
chose,  though  they  do  not  appear  to  have  settled  to  any  extent  in  the 
old  Bernicia. 

But  half  the  Danes  left  Northumbria  to  the  other  half  and  for  the 
time  being  dominated  East  Anglia  and  Mercia  ;  and  these,  recruited  by 
fresh  Viking  bands,  again  in  876  turned  to  the  invasion  of  Wessex. 

Meanwhile  Alfred  had  been  making  use  of  the  time  allowed  him. 
He  had  started  the  nucleus  of  a  navy  which  should  be  able  to  challenge 
the  invaders  on  the  element  which  they  regarded  as  their  own  ;  and  we 
may  presume  that  he  had  also  been  reorganising  the  military  forces  of 
Wessex  after  the  destructive  struggle  of  871.  When  the  Danes  struck 
they  struck  hard,  suddenly,  and  without  warning,  burst  across  Wessex,  and 
seized  and  fortified  a  strong  position  on  the  Dorsetshire  coast,  where  they 
could  be  joined  by  their  kinsmen  from  Ireland.     Alfred,  however,  blockaded 


Ecghcrt,  802. 
I 


I 
yEthehuulf. 


yEthelstan, 
sub-king  of  Essex. 


^ihelbald,  858. 


yEthelbert,  86o. 


yEthelred,  866.  Alfred,  87T, 


^thelwald. 


Edward 

the  Elder, 

901. 


^thelflaed, 
Lady  of  Mercia 


I 

.-Elflaed  in.  Bald- 
win II.  of  Flanders, 
ancestor  of  Matilda, 

wife  of  William  I. 


FROM    CiESAR   TO    ALFRED  19 

them  on  the  land  side  with  a  force  which  they  did  not  choose  to  engage. 
The  Danes  agreed  to  accept  what  may  be  called  a  ransom  as  before,  but 
did  not  keep  faith  ;  a  large  force,  being  well  mounted,  broke  through  the 
Enghsh  lines  by  night  and  hurried  to  Exeter,  where  they  fortified  them- 
selves. Alfred  could  carry  neither  of  the  Danish  posts,  nor  could  he 
concentrate  before  one  of  them,  since  that  would  have  left  Wessex  to  be 
devastated  by  the  other. 

In  the  spring,  however,  the  Vikings  in  Dorset  took  to  the  sea,  meaning  to 
join  the  force  at  Exeter; 

but  the   fleet   was   for-  THE  FAMILY   OF  ALFRED   THE   GREAT 

tunately  annihilated  by 
a  storm.  Hence  the 
army  at  Exeter,  a  suf- 
ficiently  formidable 
force  in  itself,  offered 
after  some  delay  to  re- 
tire, and  was  permitted 
to  do  so  without  reluc- 
tance. However  they 
only  withdrew  into 
Mercia,  where  they  had 

allowed  an  English  ealdorman  to  enjoy  the  title  of  a  sub-king.  They  now 
deprived  him  of  half  his  territory,  as  much,  that  is,  as  lay  beyond  Watling- 
street,  the  great  road  running  from  London  to  Chester  ;  and  just  as  the  army 
had  before  divided,  one  half  remaining  in  Northumbria  and  settling  it,  while 
the  other  half  abode  in  the  south  and  prepared  for  further  conquest,  so  now 
a  considerable  proportion  of  the  army  seems  to  have  turned  to  the  business 
of  settlement ;  while  the  balance,  led  by  Guthrum,  prepared  to  renew  the 
war  in  Wessex  in  conjunction  with  a  force  from  over  the  Irish  Sea. 

Again  the  move  was  made  suddenly  and  without  warning,  this  time  in 
the  dead  of  winter,  when  no  one  was  dreaming  of  military  movements. 
So  effective  was  it  that  Alfred  himself  had  to  take  refuge  in  the  marsh- 
surrounded  isle  of  Athelney ;  and  it  was  some  months  before  he  could 
concentrate  a  force  which  could  again  take  the  field  against  the  main  Danish 
army.  A  desperate  battle  followed  at  Ethandune  or  Edington,  when  Alfred's 
victory  was  decisive.  Guthrum  made  terms,  and  this  time  the  terms  were 
honourably  kept.  He  himself  embraced  Christianity  with  many  of  his 
followers,  and  withdrew  all  claim  to  that  part  of  Mercia  south-west  of 
Watling-street  ;  and  it  was  agreed  that  the  Danes  should  remain  undisturbed 
in  the  settled  district  beyond,  henceforth  known  as  the  Danelagh.  This  was 
the  Peace  of  Chippenham  or  Wedmore,  878,  which  left  Alfred  free  to 
organise  his  kingdom.  The  agreement,  with  some  modification,  was  con- 
firmed some  years  later  in  886,  when  the  Danes  had  broken  out  in  spite  of 
their  pledges  and  Alfred  had  struck  some  hard  blows  in  return,  including 
the  capture  of  London  and  its  transference  to  Wessex. 


20  NATION    MAKING 

still  Alfred  had  not  yet  done  with  the  Danes.  It  must  be  borne  in 
mind  tiiat  ever  since  the  middle  of  the  century  the  Danish  forces  in  England 
had  merely  formed  a  portion  of  the  organised  host  of  Northmen,  who  had 
ceased  to  be  mere  desultory  raiders  and  had  set  out  upon  a  career  of 
conquest  on  the  south  no  less  than  on  the  north  of  the  Channel.  Alfred's 
arrangements  with  Guthrum  effected  a  settlement  only  as  far  as  concerned 
the  Danes  in  England.  But  the  great  army  met  with  a  severe  check  on 
the  continent  at  the  hand  of  the  Emperor  Arnulf,  and,  as  a  consequence, 
it  again  turned  its  attention  to  England  in  892,  in  conjunction  with  the 
great  Viking  Hasting.  By  this  time,  hovrever,  Alfred's  organisation  of 
Wessex  had  been  completed.  The  Danes  of  the  Danelagh  gave  not  much 
active  help  to  their  kinsfolk  beyond  providing  them  a  friendly  reception  in 
their  own  territory.  Alfred's  newly  created  fleet  proved  a  satisfactory 
match  for  its  opponents,  and  most  of  the  hard  fighting  was  done  in  Mercia. 
In    fact,  the    Danish    host  now  found    that    the  king   of   Wessex   was    not 


w\  Minstrelsy  among  the  Snxons. 


fighting  desperately  at  bay,  but  was  consistently  the  victor.  At  any  rate 
they  were  fairly  beaten  out  of  Alfred's  own  dominion,  and  either  went  home 
or  joined  their  kinsmen  in  the  Danelagh. 

In  the  last  year  of  the  century,  900,  King  Alfred  died  ;  but  his  work  was 
accomplished.  He  had  saved  Wessex  from  the  Danes,  and  the  saving  of 
Wessex  was  the  saving  of  England.  No  monarch  has  left  a  name  more 
glorious  ;  perhaps  he  is  the  only  triumphant  ruler  of  whom  no  man  has 
ever  ventured  to  speak  a  word  in  dispraise. 

Whatsoever  can  be  accounted  the  work  of  a  king — as  a  leader  in  battle, 
as  an  organiser  of  victory,  as  an  administrator,  a  legislator,  a  judge,  as  a 
teacher,  as  an  exemplar,  in  a  word  as  the  father  of  his  people — that  work 
was  done  by  Alfred  in  the  face  of  tremendous  difficulties,  including  personal 
ill-health,  with  unsurpassed  wisdom  and  skill.  He  was  happy  in  successors, 
who  were  well  fitted  to  complete  what  he  perforce  left  unfinished.  He 
supplied  the  world  with  a  new  type,  because  the  pre-eminence  of  his  virtue 
was  only  the  counterpart  of  the  pre-eminence  of  his  genius.  No  other  man 
perhaps  has  been  at  once  so  good  and  so  great.  An  admirable  captain  in 
the  field,  lie  organised  the  military  system  and  the  military  methods  of  the 


FROM    C/ESAR   TO    ALFRED  21 

Saxons,  making  possible  the  triumphs  of  his  children  and  his  children's 
children.  He  created  a  navy,  the  only  one  which  successfully  challenged 
the  sea-rovers  on  their  own  element.  His  codification  of  the  Law  gave  it 
a  permanent  shape.  He  inspired  every  man  who  worked  under  him  with 
his  ou-n  enthusiasm  for  justice  and  mercy.  He  made  his  court  the  centre 
of  the  intellectual  light,  of  the  best  culture  and  learning  of  the  day,  in  order 
that  it  might  irradiate  his  people.  Charlemagne  himself  was  not  a  more 
zealous  educator.  Never,  perhaps,  have  there  been  combined  in  one  man 
such  lofty  idealism  and  such  practical  common-sense.  The  English  nation 
has  habitually  refrained  from  fastening  complimentary  titles  upon  its 
monarchs  ;  but  it  has  rightly  made  him  the  one  exception,  and  claimed  for 
him  the  name  of  the  Great. 

Before  passing  on  to  the  next  stage,  it  will  be  well  to  give  brief  attention 
to  the  North,  where  the  Danes  appear  not  to  have  settled  in  Bernicia — at 
least  north  of  the  Tyne  in  the  district  which  came  to  be  known  as  Lothian  ; 
but  the  Norsemen  constantly  threatened  to  make  permanent  settlements  on 
the  west — in  Cumbria  and  the  Isles — and  there  to  establish  a  Norwegian 
kingdom.  Of  the  Celtic  North  we  have  seen  that  there  were  three  main 
divisions — Pictland,  Dalriada  or  Scot-land,  and  Strathclyde.  Matters  so 
fell  out  that  about  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century  the  heir  to  the  kingdom^ 
of  the  Scots  was  also,  by  the  Pictish  law  of  succession  through  the  female, 
heir  to  the  kingdom  of  the  Picts.  Thus  very  much  as  some  seven  and  a 
half  centuries  later  the  crowns  of  England  and  Scotland  were  united  not 
by  conquest,  but  by  the  recognised  laws  of  succession,  so  at  this  time  were 
the  kingdoms  of  the  Scots  and  Picts  permanently  united.  As  a  natural 
consequence  the  king,  Kenneth  M'Alpine,  a  Scot  on  his  father's  side,  was 
regarded  as  a  Scot  by  the  world  at  large,  and  he  and  his  successors  were 
known  as  kings  of  Scotland.  It  was  not,  however,  till  some  time  later 
that  the  Strathclyde  kingdom  came  under  the  same  dominion. 


CHAPTER    II 

KINGS   OF   THE   ENGLISH 

I 

ALFRED'S   SUCCESSORS 

When  King  Alfred  died  England  south  of  the  Tyne  was  divided  into  two 
parts,  the  line  passing  diagonally  from  Chester  to  the  Thames  estuary  below 
London.  Alfred's  treaty  with  the  Danes  had  simply  recognised  the  facts. 
Where  the  Danes  were  already  masters  they  were  allowed  to  remain 
masters  ;  the  king  had  better  work  to  do  in  organising  his  half  of  the 
country  than  in  embarking  upon  an  impracticable  attempt  to  reconquer 
the  Danelagh.  For  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  north  and  east 
had  never  owned  the  overlordship  of  Wessex  till  forty  years  before  Alfred's 
accession.  In  East  Anglia  the  Saxon  dynasty  had  no  stronghold,  and  the 
last  sub-king,  St.  Edmund,  had  apparently  been  chosen  by  the  men  of  East 
Anglia  from  the  old  line,  not  appointed  by  the  king  of  Wessex  from 
Ecgbert's  line.  The  Angles  might  not  love  the  Danes,  but  after  all  the 
Danes  were  little  more  alien  than  the  Wessex  folk.  Finally,  if  there  was 
any  sort  of  submission  of  the  Danelagh  to  Alfred's  sovereignty  it  was  of 
a  merely  formal  character.  The  "  Frith  "  or  agreement  with  Guthrum 
manifestly  aimed  at  discouraging  intercourse  between  the  Saxon  kingdom 
and  the  Danelagh,  probably  because  such  intercourse  was  regarded  as  more 
likely  to  bring  about  hostilities  than  to  increase  amity. 

Alfred's  own  kingdom  included  a  large  part  of  Meicia  and  was  under 
the  government  of  an  ealdorman,  .<4i)thelred,  who  may  have  belonged  to  the 
house  of  Off  a,  and  who  had  to  wife  Alfred's  very  remarkable  daughter 
.^thelflaed,  who,  after  her  husband's  death,  was  known  as  the  Lady  of 
Mercia.  Alfred's  successor  on  the  throne  of  Wessex  was  Edward,  called  the 
Elder.  The  relations  between  Wessex  and  the  Danelagh  were  doomed  not 
to  be  permanent,  for  it  was  always  a  difficult  matter  to  keep  the  Danes 
from  aggressive  movement.  Hence  the  reign  of  Edward  was  largely  taken 
up  with  the  establishment  of  a  real  supremacy  over  the  greater  part  of  the 
Danelagh,  a  policy  which  was  practically  forced  upon  the  Saxon  king  and 
was  carried  out  with  great  efficiency  by  the  energetic  co-operation  of  the 
Lady  of  Mercia,  who,  like  Edward  himself,  must  have  inherited  her  father's 
military  talents  and  his  capacity  for  inspiring  enthusiastic  devotion.  The 
great    feature   of   the   campaigning   was  the   appropriation    of    the    system 


KINGS    OF   THE    ENGLISH  23 

borrowed  from  the  Danes  themselves — of  estabhshing  fortified  posts  or  burhs 
either  at  strategic  points  or  where  villages  had  already  begun  to  develop 
into  important  towns. 

The  conquest,  however,  did  not  mean  the  expulsion  of  the  Danes,  but 
little  more  than  their  effective  acceptance  of  the  supremacy  of  the  Saxon 
king.  Mercia,  like  Wessex,  was  parcelled  out  into  shires  ;  but  beyond 
Watling-street  the  shire  was  the  district  appertaining  to  a  Danish  military 
centre  such  as  Leicester  or  Derby  ;  and  it  would  appear  that  south  of 
Watling-street  the  shire  was  the  district 

appertaining    to    one   of    /Ethelflaed's         WESSEX   KINGS   OF   ENGLAND 
boroughs.       There  was  no  longer  an  Ai/rcd,  871. 

"  ealdorman  of  Mercia  " ;  but  the  shires  Edward  the  Eider,  901. 

did  not  get  an  ealdorman  apiece  ;  and  — — — .' — — 

in  the  Danelagh  the  name  of  earl  re-     Mtiiehtan,  924.      Edmund,  940.        Eadred,  947. 

placed  thatof  ealdorman, the  earl  being  , -. ■ 1 

apparently  in  most  cases  a  Danish  jarl.  Eduy,  955.  Ed^t^arxh^  Peaceful, 

About  the  3'ear  921,  when  ^thel-  Yl 

flaed  died,  the  absorption  of  Mercia        ^^,,,,^ ,L  Martyr.      .i7;;./..</tLRedeie.s. 
and  East  Anglia  was  completed ;  and                 975-  979- 

before   Edward's   death,   probably  in  j p 

024,    the    kings    of    Wales    and    of    the  Edmimd  lvons\d&,        Edward  iheCoukssor, 

-'      '  °  IOI6.  1042. 

North  had  "taken  him  to  father  and 

lord";  among  them  Constantine,  the  grandson  of  Kenneth  M'Alpine,  king 
of  the  Scots  and  Picts.  This  so-called  submission  was  put  forward  as  the 
starting-point  of  the  claim  to  the  suzerainty  of  Scotland  made  some  centuries 
later  by  Edward  I.  of  England.  There  is  no  really  adequate  ground  for 
doubting  that  it  actually  took  place,  though  the  technical  sufficienyy  of  the 
evidence  can  fairly  be  challenged,  since  the  only  real  authority  for  it,  the 
Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  attributes  the  event  to  the  year  924,  and  makes 
Ragnold  of  Northumbria  a  party  to  it,  whereas  Ragnold  died  in  921 
according  to  other  authorities.  However  the  chances  are  that  the  chronicler 
was  guilty  only  of  some  inaccuracy  of  detail ;  but  Professor  Freeman's 
view  that  from  this  time  forward  the  sovereignty  of  the  kings  of  England 
over  Scotland  was  "  an  essential  part  of  the  public  law  of  Britain  "  cannot 
hold  water.  There  was  no  more  permanence  in  such  a  submission,  if  sub- 
mission it  can  be  called,  than  in  the  submission  of  Wessex  to  Offa  of 
Mercia.  Public  law  was  not  crystallised,  and  no  one  at  the  time  would 
have  dreamed  of  supposing  that  Scotland  had  placed  itself  permanently 
under  the  supremacy  of  England. 

Edward  was  succeeded  in  924  by  ^thel  ;tan,  another  great  ruler  and 
soldier.  In  his  day  the  North  sought  to  throw  off  its  allegiance;  and  the 
Norsemen  from  Ireland,  under  a  leader  named  Anlaf  or  Olaf,  joined  with  the 
king  of  Scots  and  the  people  of  Strathclyde  to  challenge  the  monarch  who 
claimed  to  be  king  of  all  Britain.  The  forces  of  the  allies  were  put  to  utter 
rout  in  the  great  fight  at  Brunanburh,  which  is  probably  to  be  placed  some- 


24  NATION    MAKING 

where  to  the  north  of  the  Solway.     The  battle  is  commemorated  in  a  line 
Saxon  war-song — 

Clave  through  the  shield- wall  the  brood  of  King  Edward, 

Hewed  the  war-linden  with  blades  hammer-wrought  ; 

Low  lay  the  foe  there,  the  Scots  folk,  the  ship-folk, 

Death  doomed  they  fell. 

Thick  lay  the  heroes  there  scattered  by  javelines 

O'er  the  shield  smitten,  the  men  of  the  North, 

Folk  too  of  Scotland  weary,  war-sated. 

Forth  the  West  Saxons  in  warrior  bands 

The  live-long  day 

Followed  the  feet  of  the  folk  of  the  foemen  ; 

Hewed  they  the  flying  folk,  thrust  through  their  backs  amain j 

Sharp  were  their  swords. 

Hard  was  the  hand-play  the  Mercians  refused  not 

To  one  of  the  warriors  wending  with  Anlaf. 

i^thelstan's  victory  was  complete,  and  his  supremacy  was  not  again 
challenged.  Meagre  as  are  the  chroniclers,  we  can  see  how  mighty  a  king 
he  was  in  the  eyes  of  contemporaries.  One  of  his  sisters  married  the 
king  of  the  West  Franks ;  another  married  Hugh  the  Great,  the  father 
of  Hugh  Capet,  whose  dynasty  displaced  that  of  the  descendants  of 
Charlemagne.  Another  was  the  wife  of  Otto  the  Great,  the  restorer  of  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire,  and  two  more  were  wedded  to  kings.  It  may  be 
remarked  in  parenthesis  that  a  sister  of  Edward  the  Elder  and  of  the  Lady 
of  Mercia  was  the  wife  of  Baldwin  IL  of  Flanders  and  the  ancestress  of 
Matilda,  the  wife  of  William  the  Conqueror. 

yEthelstan's  successor  was  his  very  much  younger  half-brother  Edmund, 
called  the  "  Deed-doer,"  who,  boy  though  he  was,  had  shared  the  glories  of 
Brunanburh.  But  his  life,  ended  by  the  dagger  of  an  assassin,  was  too 
short  to  enable  him  to  fulfil  its  promise.  In  his  brief  reign  a  northern 
insurrection  necessitated  the  infliction  of  a  sharp  chastisement  ;  and  it  is 
recorded  that  he  gave  a  portion  of  Strathclyde  to  Malcolm,  King  of  Scots, 
"on  condition  that  he  should  be  his  fellow-worker  both  on  sea  and  on 
land,"  which  looks  much  more  like  an  alliance  than  a  submission  on  the 
part  of  the  Scottish  king.  It  is  exceedingly  probable  that  about  this  time 
the  Norsemen  from  the  West  (not  the  Danes  of  the  Danelagh)  had  made 
themselves  masters  of  Cumberland  and  Westmoreland,  which  are  crowded 
with  place-names  of  Norse  not  Danish  origin,  and  that  this  Scottish  alliance 
was  made  in  order  to  check  the  danger  from  the  Norsemen. 

Edmund  himself  was  not  five  and  twenty  when  he  was  assassinated  ; 
and  his  two  small  bovs  Edwy  and  Edgar  were  passed  by  in  favour  of  the 
last  of  the  sons  of  Edward  the  Elder,  Eadred,  who  displayed  the  family 
capacity  and  vigour,  and  at  last  succeeded  in  bringing  the  turbulent  Danes 
of  Norlhumbria  to  submission.  But  his  reign  was  little  longer  than  his 
brother's  ;  and  on  his  death  Edwy,  though  only  fifteen,  was  not  a  second 
time  passed  over.     Edwy's  story  is  obscure.     The  young  king  chose  to 


KINGS   OF   THE    ENGLISH 


25 


marry  his  cousin,  a  girl  named  ^l£lfgifu,  he  having  fallen  into  the  toils  of 
her  ambitions  mother  ^Ethelgifu,  though  the  pair  were  not  wedded  till 
some  time  after  Edwy's  accession.      Ugly  stories  were  canvassed  about  the 


counsellors,  lay  and  clerical,  in  whom  his  uncles  had  trusted  ;  as  a  boy 
very  well  might  do  who  had  fallen  under  the  influence  of  a  foolish  and 
designing  woman.  Edwy  played  the  prodigal,  while  his  mother-in-law 
struck  vindictively  at  her  enemies.  The  result  was  that  Northumbria  was 
in  a  very  short  time  in  revolt,  and  elected  the  younger  brother  Edgar  king. 


A  group  of  Saxon  soldiers  about  a.d.  iooo. 

Edwy  had  to  give  way  and  submit  to  a  division  of  Ihe  kingdom  which 
allowed  him  to  reign  in  Wessex.  But  five  years  after  his  accession  he  was 
dead  and  Edgar  was  lord  of  all  England. 

Both  Edmund  and  Eadred  had  reposed  much  confidence  in  Dunstan, 
Abbot  of  Glastonbury,  who  was  prominent  among  those  who  had  set  them- 
selves against  ^thelgifu.  The  chroniclers  are  all  on  the  side  of  the  clerics, 
and  it  is  likely  enough  that  the  other  party  have  not  received  fair  play  at  their 
hands.  But  there  is  no  warrant  for  assuming  that  their  tale  was  a  mere 
partisan  clerical  invention.  The  outcome  of  the  whole  disastrous  business 
was  that  Dunstan,  who  had  been  exiled  bv  Edwv,  became  Edj^ar's  principal 


26  NATION    MAKING 

Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  was  primate  and  first  minister  for  eighteen 
years. 

Edgar  himself  ruled  till  975,  and  his  reign  was  a  period  of  consistent 
prosperity  ;  he  had  no  opportunities  for  displaying  his  capacities  as  a  warrior. 
The  most  interesting  traditions  concerning  him  personally  are  that  of  his 
state  procession  on  the  river  Dee,  when  his  barge  was  rowed  by  eight  vassal 
kings,  and  that  which  ascribes  to  him  the  creation  of  a  great  fleet  of  six 
hundred  and  forty   sail  which   annually  patrolled  the  seas  from  corner  to 

corner  of  the  island. 
The  chroniclers  con- 
cerned themselvesrather 
with  the  ecclesiastical 
activities  of  Dunstan, 
who  was  an  energetic 
reformer,  and  set  him- 
self to  improving  the 
morals  of  the  clergy  on 
the  approved  Hnes  of 
enforcing  celibacy  and 
the  general  rigour  of 
monastic  aiscipline. 
Though  Edgar  hadruled 
all  England  for  sixteen 
years  he  was  but  thirty 
when  he  died  in  975. 
In  spite  of  sundry  im- 
putations against  his 
morals  the  quiet  which  prevailed  throughout  his  reign  bears  witness  to 
his  capacity  ;  for  those  were  not  days  in  which  a  feeble  monarch  had  much 
chance  of  peace  ;  even  his  exceedingly  capable  uncles  and  father  had  had 
to  fight  hard  to  enforce  their  dominion. 

No  sooner  was  Edgar  dead  than  troubles  began.  He  was  succeeded  by 
Edward,  his  son  by  his  first  wife,  a  boy  of  thirteen  ;  but  he  left  also  ^thel- 
red,  a  boy  of  seven,  the  son  of  his  second  wife  .^Ifthryth,  who  also  survived 
him  and  was  determined  to  place  her  boy  on  the  throne.  Within  three  years 
the  young  king  was  murdered  by  the  retainers  of  -^Ifthryth.  In  those  three 
years  dissension  and  disorganisation  among  the  magnates  had  reached 
such  a  pitch  that  no  attempt  was  made  to  avenge  Edward's  death,  and  his 
half-brother  was  immediately  crowned,  though  miraculous  properties  were 
attributed  to  the  body  of  the  murdered  king,  who  became  known  to  posterity 
as  Edward  the  Martyr. 

Little  enough  cause  had  ^thelred  to  thank  his  mother  for  the  crime 
which  placed  him  on  the  throne  and  secured  to  the  man  "  evil  of  counsel,"  the 
"  Redelcss,"  the  "  Unready,"  the  execration  of  his  contemporaries  and  the 
contempt  of  posterity.      But  it  was  not  until   he  was  grown  up  that  the 


Edgar  making  an  offering. 
[1  rom  3.  charter  granted  by  the  king  in  966.] 


ST.     DUXSTAX,     ARCHIJISHOP    OF    CAXTIiRIiUKV 
From  a  twelfth  century  MS.  in  the  British  Museum. 


KINGS    OF   THE   ENGLISH  27 

unhappy  king  proved  himself  the  evil  genius  of  his  country.  While  he  was 
a  boy  there  was  still  a  decent  semblance  of  government  ;  but  when  he  was 
old  enough  to  choose  his  own  advisers  he  always  collected  the  w^orst  avail- 
able. Of  Alfred  a  hundred  years  before  it  has  been  said  that  every  word 
and  every  act  of  his  seems  to  have  been  about  the  best  that  could  have  been 
said  or  done  at  the  time,  ^thelred  invariably  did  the  worst  things  that 
he  could  do.  When  the  time  demanded  action  he  was  passive  ;  but  if  an 
opportunity  occurred  for  being  destructively  active  he  never  missed  it.  Ouciii 
dens  vult  perdere,  pn'us  dcinentat ;  it  is  as  though  -^thelred  had  been  stricken 
with  mental  and  moral  blindness  as  the  penalty  for  the  crime  which  placed 
him  on  the  throne.  For  eight  and  thirty  years  he  was  more  or  less  king  of 
England,  and  most  of  those  years  are  a  sort  of  nightmare. 

For  after  leaving  England  in  peace  for  more  than  three-quarters  of  a 
century  the  Danes  from  overseas  again  began  to  trouble  the  land.  Vikings 
who  had  attempted  to  harry  England  since  the  days  of  the  Great  Alfred  had 
invariably  received  such  severe  lessons  that  they  were  in  no  haste  to  repeat 
their  experiments.  Now  in  980  and  the  two  following  years  raiders  ap- 
peared on  the  coasts.  Encouraged  by  success,  they  came  again  in  988. 
These  appear,  indeed,  to  have  been  merely  movements  as  much  Norse  as 
Danish,  emanating  from  Ireland.  But  enough  had  been  done  to  make  it 
known  among  the  rovers  that  organised  attack  would  no  longer  be  met  by 
organised  national  defence.  In  the  first  four  years  of  the  last  decade  of  the 
century  the  coasts  were  repeatedly  ravaged  by  the  great  Viking  Olaf  Trygg- 
vesen,  who  was  subsequently  converted  to  Christianity  and  became  king 
of  Norway.  When  the  Norsemen  landed  they  found  no  one  to  face  them 
but  the  militia  or  fyrd  of  the  shire  where  they  happened  to  make  their 
descent,  hastily  summoned  together,  who  fought  against  them  now  and 
again  stoutly  enough,  ^thelred  had  already  begun  the  disastrous  practice 
of  buying  the  raiders  off,  when  Olaf  found  an  ally  in  Sweyn,  the  son  of 
Harald  Bluetooth,  King  of  Denmark.  Their  onslaught  in  994  produced  the 
second  great  payment  of  ransom ;  and  although  there  was  now  a  brief 
interval,  the  story  from  997  onwards  is  practically  a  record  of  perpetual 
invasions  and  occasional  ransoms,  each  one  larger  than  the  last,  diversified 
here  and  there  by  a  stubborn  fight  and  more  frequently  by  ignominious 
disasters,  brought  about,  according  to  the  chronicler,  by  the  flagrant  treachery 
of  one  or  another  of  .^thelred's  favourites,  among  whom  looms  portentous 
the  arch-traitor,  Eadric  Streona. 

Perhaps  of  all  ^thelred's  performances  the  most  outrageous  was  the 
massacre  of  the  Danes  upon  St.  Brice's  Day  in  the  year  1002.  It  is 
certainly  impossible  to  accept  the  traditional  assertion  that  a  literal  massacre 
of  all  the  Danes  in  the  kingdom  was  carried  out  by  the  orders  of  the  king, 
but  something  of  the  kind  certainly  occurred  in  Wessex.  The  Danes  in  the 
Danelagh  seem  to  have  played  their  part  quite  as  energetically  as  their  neigh- 
bours in  fighting  the  raiders.  But  the  practical  effect  was  to  bring  down 
Sweyn  himself,  now   king  of  Denmark   and  of  Norway   as   well,  with  the 


28  NATION    MAKING 

whole  Danish  host,  Siill  it  was  not  till  some  years  later  that  Sweyn  seems 
to  have  made  up  his  mind  to  eject  or  slay  ^4ithelred  and  make  himself  king 
of  England. 

Meanwhile  u^i^thelred's  incompetence  had  been  made  more  manifest 
than  ever;  for  though  the  extortion  of  a  huge  ransom  in  1007  made  him 
turn  desperately  to  an  attempt  more  or  less  successful  to  construct  a  large 
fleet,  the  fleet,  when  built,  was  so  hopelessly  mismanaged  that  it  served 
no  useful  purpose  whatever.  At  last  in  1013,  wlien  Sweyn  again  came  into 
the  H umber  with  a  mighty  host,  the  Danes  of  the  Danelagh  made  up  their 
minds  to  offer  him  the  crown  of  England.  Sweyn  marched  through  the 
country,  ^thelred  fled  across  the  seas,  and  Sweyn  was  acknowedged  king. 
But  a  few  days  later  the  Dane  died  suddenly,  leaving  his  son  Knut, 
popularly  known  as  Canute,  to  claim  the  succession. 

Tiien    for   a    brief    moment   appeared   on   the   scene  a    national    hero, 


An  Anglo-Saxon  bed  and  its  appurtenances  (about  A.D.  looo). 
[From  ^Ifric's  paraphrase  of  Genesis.] 

Edmund  Ironside,  ^thelred's  son,  a  prince  who  seemed  fitted  to  revive  the 
older  glories  of  his  house.  While  the  young  Knut  was  making  ready  to 
enforce  his  claim,  ^dielred  returned,  showing  no  sign  of  any  intention  of 
changing  his  old  evil  courses.  Where  ^thelred's  direct  influence  could 
be  felt  Edmund  could  do  nothing  ;  but  the  North  was  ready  to  follow  a 
bold  leader,  having  before  yielded  in  sheer  despair  over  ^thelred's  incom- 
petence. The  South  v^^as  helpless,  ^thelred's  death  in  10 16  came  too 
late.  Edmund  made  a  splendid  stand  against  Knut  ;  but  sheer  treachery 
brought  about  his  defeat  at  the  battle  of  Assandun.  Even  then  Knut 
realised  that  with  such  an  antagonist  victory  was  by  no  means  certain, 
and  a  treaty  was  made  dividing  the  kingdom  on  the  old  lines  of  the  treaty  of 
Wedmore,  though  the  southern  portion  of  the  Danelagh  went  to  Edmund's 
share.  But  the  heroic  prince  was  not  destined  to  be  a  second  Alfred. 
The  treaty  had  hardly  been  concluded  when  he  died,  being  then  but 
hve   and   twenty,   while    his    rival    was    only    twenty-one.      It    was    perhaps 


KINGS    OF   THE    ENGLISH  29 

inevitable  that  Edmund's  death  should  have  been  attributed  to  foul  pl;iy 
on  the  part  of  Knut,  who  succeeded  to  the  entire  kingdom  without 
opposition. 


II 


FROM    KNUT   TO   THE    CONQUEST 

At  the  moment  when  Knut  made  himself  king  of  England  his  character 
appeared  to  be  that  of  a  bloodthirsty  and  treacherous  tyrant.      His  Christi- 
anity  was  exceedingly   fresh,   since   his    father,   Sweyn,  had  been   savagely 
hostile  to  a  faith  of  which  he  had 
some  superstitious  dread.    But  once 
on  the  throne  the  young  king  curbed 
his  barbaric  instincts  ;  only  once  in 
his  later  years  did  he  allow  anger  to 
lead  him  to  a  foul  crime,  the  sacri- 
legious murder  of  his  cousin,  Jarl 
Ulf.      We  may  be  in  doubt  how  far 
his  merits  were  due  to  policy  and 
how  far  to  a  regenerate  spirit,  but 
their   effect   was   entirely  beneficial 
to  England. 

At  the  first  Knut  found  an  excuse 
for  killing  Edwy,  the  full  brother 
of  Edmund  Ironside.  He  did  not 
venture  on  the  murder  of  Edmund's 
children  whom  he  sent  out  of  the 
country  to  Olaf,  King  of  Sweden, 
who  in  turn  passed  the  boys  on  to 
Stephen  of  Hungary,  who  brought 
them  up.  One  of  them  became 
the  father  of  Edgar  the  Atheling,  of  whom  we  shall  hear  again.  Next, 
Knut  married  Emma  of  Normandy,  the  second  wife  and  now  tlie  widow 
of  -^thelred,  although  she  was  several  years  older  than  he.  Possibly  she 
may  have  learnt  to  detest  ^thelred  so  thoroughly  that  she  was  willing 
to  have  the  two  sons  she  had  borne  to  him  overlooked;  at  any  rate  she 
left  them  to  be  bred  up  in  Normandy,  and  accepted  the  hand  of  the 
Danish  king  of  England  on  condition  that  if  she  had  a  son  by  him  that 
son  should  be  his  heir.  Knut  had  not  succeeded  to  the  Danish  throne, 
as  he  had  an  elder  brother,  Harald  ;  but  Harald's  early  death  made  him 
king  of  Denmark  as  well  as  of  England;  and  in  the  course  of  his  reign 
he  also  recovered  Norway,  which  his  father  had  won  from  Olaf  Tryggveson, 
but  which  had  broken  away  from  Harald,  and  was  ruled  by  another  not 
less  famous  Olaf  "  the  Thick,"  a  stout  warrior  and  energetic  Christian,  who 


Knut  and  Emma,  his  Queen. 
[From  Knut's  Book  of  Grants.] 


30  NATION    MAKING 

was  ultimately  canonised.  Thus  Knut  was  in  his  day  the  lord  of  a 
Scandinavian  empire — the  first  king  of  England  with  a  great  continental 
dominion,  though  there  were  many  after  him.  But,  as  happened  often 
enough  in  early  days,  the  empire  depended  upon  the  man  who  had  made  it, 
and  broke  up  as  soon  as  he  himself  was  gone. 

But  Knut  the  politic  meant  England  to  be  the  basis  of  his  empire  ;  and 
he  resolved  to  depend  not  on  a  tributary  state  but  on  a  loyal  nation. 
Therefore  after  he  had  once  made  the  weight  of  his  hand  and  the  firmness 
of  his  seat  to  be  thoroughly  felt,  he  set  himself  to  the  good  governance  of 
his  realm.  The  traitors  who  had  sought  to  curry  favour  with  him  by  false 
dealing  with  Edmund  met  the  stern  doom  they  deserved.  The  king  levied 
a  tremendous  ransom  from  the  country  in  his  first  year  ;  but  he  used  it  to 
pay  off  the  Danish  host  and  sent  it  home,  retaining  only  forty  ships,  whose 
crews  provided  his  own  huscarles  or  bodyguard.  Nor  did  he  rob  his 
English  subjects  to  provide  land  for  his  Danish  followers,  though  for  a 
very  few  of  them  he  found  sufficient  provision  in  the  forfeited  estates  of 
the  traitors:.  As,  in  later  days,  Norman  kings  pledged  themselves  to  observe 
the  "good  laws  of  King  Edward  the  Confessor,"  so  Knut  pledged  himself  to 
observe  the  good  laws  of  King  Edgar.  But  perhaps  the  most  important 
change  which  he  introduced  was  the  principle  of  dividing  the  country  into 
great  earldoms,  provinces  much  larger  than  the  old  ealdormanships. 
Although  the  smaller  earldoms  were  not  abolished,  the  four  or  five  great 
earls  were  magnates  with  much  more  power  than  had  even  been  possessed 
by  single  ealdorman.  Especially  notable  among  the  new  earls  was  Godwin, 
a  Saxon*  of  apparently  obscure  lineage,  whom  Knut  wedded  to  a  kins- 
woman of  his  own,  and  to  whom  he  presently  transferred  the  earldom  of 
Wessex,  which  at  first  he  had  retained  in  his  own  hands. 

Knut  is  the  subject  of  much  picturesque  anecdote  which  is  too  familiar 
for  repetition  here.  His  rule  was  strong,  firm,  and  just,  and  the  country 
prospered  ;  but  the  events  of  most  lasting  importance  connected  with  it 
belong  also  to  the  history  of  Scotland. 

The  Scots  king,  Kenneth,  together  with  his  kinsman,  the  king  of  Strath- 
clyde,  was  in  that  crew  of  kings  who  rowed  King  Edgar  on  the  Dee  ;  but 
his  successor,  Malcolm  II.,  recognised  no  allegiance  to  ^thelred  the  Redeless. 
In  one  great  raid  upon  Bernicia  he  had  been  beaten  off  with  heavy  loss,  in 
1006  ;  but  one  of  Knut's  early  misdeeds  was  the  slaying  of  Earl  Uhtred  of 
Northumbria,  who  had  been  the  victor  in  that  battle.  In  1018  Malcolm 
again  came  down  on  Bernicia  and  won  an  overwhelming  victory  at  Carham, 
the  result  of  which  was  that  Uhtred's  brother  Eadwulf  ceded  to  him  all 
Lothian  ;  that  is  to  say,  Bernicia  between  the  Tweed  and  the  Forth  ;  and 
from  this  time  the  Tweed  formed  the  Scottish  border.  That  fact  was  not 
altered  by  a  northern  expedition  of  Knut's,  on  which  occasion  Malcolm 
declined  to  fight  and  made  submission,  but  retained  Lothian.  The  sub- 
mission, of  course,  counted  precisely  as  long  as  a  king  of  England  was  able 
to  enforce  it. 


KINGS   OF   THE   ENGLISH  31 

When  Knut  died  in  1035,  being  even  then  not  more  than  forty  years 
of  age,  his  empire  went  to  pieces.  Harthacnut,  his  son  by  Emma,  became 
king  of  Denmark ;  two  illegitimate  sons,  Sweyn  and  Harold,  called  Hare- 
foot,  whose  mother  was  an  English  woman,  became  kings  of  Norway  and 
England  respectively,  though  Harold's  claim  was  disputed  by  Earl  Godwin 
in  favour  of  Harthacnut,  Alfred,  the  younger  son  of  Emma  and  ^Ethelred, 
came  from  Normandy  to  Wessex,  which  had  just  professed  allegiance  to 
Harthacnut  ;  but  there  he  was  treacherously  seized  and  blinded  and 
shortly  afterwards  died,  almost  cer- 
tainly with  the  connivance  of  Earl 
Godwin.  But  Harthacnut  was  too 
much  engaged  in  a  vain  attempt  to 
dispute  Sweyn's  position  in  Norway 
to  assert  his  title  in  England ;  and 
Wessex  presently  recognised  Harold. 

Harold,  of  whom  the  chroniclers 
have  nothing  good  to  relate,  died  in 
1040,  and  Harthacnut,  after  some 
negotiation,  was  accepted  as  king  of 
England.  But  he  lived  to  do  evil  for 
something  less  than  two  years.  His 
half-brother  Edward,  the  only  surviv- 
ing son  of  ^thelred  and  Emma,  was 
elected  king  immediately  upon  the 
death  of  Harthacnut,  while  Denmark 
passed  to  the  nephews  of  Knut. 

Edward  had  spent  nearly  the  whole 
of  his  life  in  Normandy,  and  he  loved 
all  things  Norman.  Also  he  was  a 
religious  devotee.  The  pious  endow- 
ment of  the  Church  supplied  his 
principal  conception  of  the  duties  of 
kingship,  the  things  of  the  world  and 
of  the  flesh  being  all  contemptible. 
Norman  parasites,  lay  and  ecclesiastical,  on  whom  he  bestowed  honours 
and  benefices  with  a  lavish  hand.  The  government  of  the  country  fell 
mainly  to  the  three  great  earls,  Godwin  of  Wessex,  Leofric  of  Mercia, 
and  the  Danish  Siw^ard  of  Northumbria,  who,  in  the  North,  stood  com- 
paratively remote  from  the  intrigues  and  rivalries  of  the  South.  Of  the 
three,  Godwin,  the  former  ally  of  the  king's  mother,  had  from  the  outset 
the  most  influence  with  the  king  himself,  whom  he  persuaded  to  marry  his 
daughter  Edith,  or,  more  correctly,  Ealdgyth  ;  who  accepted  the  situation, 
although  the  marriage  was  merely  nominal,  the  king  having  taken  a  vow 
of  chastity.  Also  he  obtained  considerable  though  minor  earldoms  for 
his  two   eldest  sons     Sweyn    and    Harold.       Had    Harold    been   Godwin's 


!R 

^ 

nr 

^^V^ 

m 

^m 

0iw 

^^wl 

Vi 

^^W 

LHo 

o((o([ollol|^ijl45§ifoj)ol)o)]olloj^^ 

y#^^fe.*\ 

fo||o((o((o 

W^  h^3  1  ^^  Vi^^^Vl)o)lo)lo)\o> 

a 

lim^JmLSm^   i   1 

An  English  monarch  of  the  I  ith  century. 


His   court    became    the    home    of 


32  NATION    MAKING 

only  son  the  great  earl  would  probably  soon  have  ruled  unchallenged  ; 
but  Sweyn  and  the  third  son  Tostig  were  lawless  ruffians,  and  Godwm 
would  not  cut  them  adrift.  Sweyn  got  himself  deservedly  outlawed  for 
carrying  off  the  fair  abbess  of  the  nunnery  at  Leominster.  He  was 
apparently  on  the  point  of  being  recalled  when  he  murdered  Earl 
Beorn,  who  had  opposed  his  inlawing  ;  to  the  intense  disgust  of  Earl 
Harold.  Even  then  Godwin  was  weak  enough  to  sue  for  and  obtain  his 
eldest  son's  pardon.      But  his  influence  broke  down  over  an  ecclesiastical 

quarrel   with   the  king,  when 

THE   LATER   LINE  OF  ALFRED  the  earl  persuaded  the  chapter 

^EtheirediheY<<idii\e9,s..  of  Canterbury  to  elect  a  kins- 

Marricd  m.?in  of  his  own  to  the  Arch- 

{.)J¥:^\.  [ITEmmaofNorraandy.  bishopric     without     Consulting 

I  I  the  king,  who  had  chosen  for 

that  office  the  Norman  Robert 


Edmund  Ironside. 


I  I  I  I         of  Tumief^es, 

Edmund.  Edward.  /i^/TiiariiT  the  Confessor.  Alfred.  .  * 

I While  the  quarrel  was  in 


I  I 

Edgar  the  ^theluig.  Margaret,  m. 


progress    Eustace,    Count    of 
Malcolm  Canmore.  Boulognc,  the  king's  brothcr- 

I 1  in-law,  came  to  Dover  on  his 

Line  of  Scots  Kings.  Edith  .^r^lWatilda,  ^^^y  ^O  visit  Ed  Ward.       A  brawl 

broke  out  between  the  count's 
retinue  and  the  Dover  folk,  with  the  result  that  after  some  sharp  fight- 
ing the  count  and  his  party  were  ejected,  Eustace  appealed  to  Edward, 
who  promptly  ordered  Godwin  to  inflict  condign  punishment  on  the  people 
of  Dover.  Edward's  predilection  for  foreigners  was  bitterly  resented, 
and  Godwin  refused  flatly.  Practically  he  defied  the  king,  but  he  soon 
found  that  defiance  was  premature  ;  that  the  North  was  against  him,  and 
even  Wessex  was  half-hearted.  The  result  was  that  he  and  his  sons,  who 
had  been  prepared  to  stand  by  their  father  at  all  costs,  took  to  flight  to 
Flanders  or  Ireland  and  were  outlawed. 

It  was  soon  evident  that  the  fall  of  Godwin  in  1051  meant  the  triumph 
of  the  king's  foreign  favourites,  though  Harold's  earldom  was  given  to 
^Ifgar,  son  of  Leofric.  It  was  at  this  time  that  the  young  Duke  William 
of  Normandy  visited  England  and,  according  to  his  own  statement,  was 
promised  the  succession  by  King  Edward.  But  Godwin's  eclipse  was  only 
temporary.  In  1052  he  and  his  sons  returned  to  the  coast  of  Wessex  and 
found  the  country  disposed  to  rise  in  their  support.  The  king  woidd  not 
fight,  though  he  might  have  done  so  ;  and  while  negotiations  were  pending 
there  was  a  rapid  and  somewhat  ignominious  exodus  of  the  aliens. 

It  was  no  part  of  Godwin's  policy  to  press  his  advantage  unduly.  His 
pose  was  that  of  tlie  true  patriot  ;  and  he  made  no  attempt  to  injure  his 
rivals.  He  did  not  even  seek  once  more  to  restore  Sweyn,  who  never  re- 
turned to  England.  l^>iit  fr(;m  this  time  forth  Godwin  himself,  and  after  him 
his  son  Harold,  held  supreme  influence  with  the  king.      In  fact  Godwin  sur- 


KINGS    OF   THE   ENGLISH 


33 


f  Edward  the  Confessor. 


vived  liis  success  only  a  few  montlis.  For  thirteen  years  Han^ld  was  tlie 
king's  chief  minister,  making  it  liis  aim  to  avoid  friction  with  the  two  great 
houses  of  Leofric  and  Siward.  On  succeeding  to  the  earldom  of  Wessexhe 
allowed  yElfgar  to  be  reinstated  in  his  own  previous  earldom  of  East  Anglia, 
which  had  been  transferred  to  Leofric's  son  during  the  eclipse  of  the  house 
of  Godwin. 

These  years  are  of  special  interest  in  Scotland,  because  it  was  about  this 
time  that  Malcolm  Canmore,  the  son  of  King  Duncan,  recovered  the  Scottish 
throne  by  overthrowing  INIacbeth.  All  the 
kings  of  Scotland  since  Malcolm  himself 
and  all  the  kings  of  England  since  the 
accession  of  Henry  II.  descend  from 
Malcolm  and  his  English  wife  Margaret, 
the  grandchild  of  Edmund  Ironside.  The 
historical  facts  do  not  bear  much  resem- 
blance to  the  story  which  Shakespeare  ex- 
tracted from  Holinshed.  King  Malcolm  II., 
the  victor  of  Carham,  was  a  vigorous  ruler, 
who  was  resolved  that  his  grandson  Duncan, 
who  had  already  succeeded  to  the  kingdom 
of  Strathclyde,  should  succeed  him  also  on 
the  Scottish  throne  in  accordance  with  the 

1  custom  of  most  civilised  nations ;  whereas, 
according  to  the  Pictish  custom,  Duncan  was  outside  the  Scottish  succes- 
sion, and  the  heir  of  the  Scottish  throne  was  the  infant  son  not  of  Macbeth 
himself,  but  of  his  v.'ife  Gruach,  who  was  a  widow  when  he  married  her. 
In  the  interests  of  the  infant,  Macbeth  challenged  Duncan's  succession, 
killed  him,  very  possibly  in  fair  fight,  and  then  held  the  throne  nominally 
on  behalf  of  his  step-child.  Duncan  himself  was  but  a  young  man  ;  his 
infant  children,  Malcolm  and  Donalbain,  were  carried  out  of  the  kingdom 
and  placed  in  charge  of  Earl  Siward  of  Northumbria,  whose  daughter 
had  been  Duncan's  queen.  Malcolm  abode  with  his  grandfather  for 
fourteen  years  ;  and  then  in  1054  Siward  and  his  sons  marched  into 
Scotland  with  the  youth  to  overthrow  Macbeth,  who  was  defeated  but  not 
overthrown  at  the  battle  of  Dunsinane.  It  was  not  till  three  years  later 
that  Malcolm  succeeded  in  killing  him  at  the  battle  of  Lumphanan. 

If  we  reckon  old  Siward  the  Dane  as  an  Englishman  we  may  say  that 
Malcolm  was  half  Celt  and  half  English  ;  in  fact  he  was  half  Celt  and  half 
Dane,  for  Siward  was  pure  Dane.  But  Malcolm,  owing  to  his  training,  was 
more  a  Northumbrian  than  a  Scot  ;  he  married  a  princess  of  the  house  of 
Wessex ;  and,  consequently,  hereafter  we  find  Scottish  Northumbria  or 
Lothian  becoming  the  real  seat  of  power  of  the  house  of  Malcolm,  while 
the  Anglo-Danish  element  in  the  northern  kingdom  is  politically  pre- 
dominant.     But  Malcolm  himself  left  to  posterity  a  nickname  which  was  not 

ISaxon  but  Gaelic,  Ceanmohr,  corrupted  into  Canmore,  "  Big-head." 


34  NATION    MAKING 

Shvard's  deatli  a  year  after  the  battle  of  Dunsinane  wrought  trouble 
in  England,  for  King  Edward  made  Harold's  brother  Tostig  Earl  of 
Northumbria  instead  of  Waltheof,  the  son  of  Siward's  old  age.  It  is 
fairly  obvious  that  Harold  himself  was  always  anxious  to  effect  a  reconcilia- 
tion between  his  own  house  and  that  of  Leofric  of  Mercia,  but  there  was 
no  love  lost  between  the  two  families  ;  and  ^Elfgar,  Earl  of  East  Anglia, 
Leofric's  son,  opposed  the  bestowal  of  Northumbria  on  Tostig.  For  no 
adequate  reason  assigned,  he  was  outlawed  immediately  afterwards,  though 

no  attack  was  made  on  Leofric  him- 
self, whose  wife  was  the  famous  Lady 
Godiva.  ^Elfgar  went  off  to  Ireland, 
whence  he  started  to  play  the  Viking, 
and  then  joined  forces  with  King 
Griffith  of  North  Wales ;  and  together 
they  proceeded  to  harry  the  marches. 
Harold  had  to  hurry  to  the  West, 
where  he  offered  peace  and  pardon 
to  ^Ifgar  ;  the  offer  was  accepted, 
so  there  was  once  more  peace  be- 
tween the  houses  of  Leofric  and 
Godwin.  After  that  Harold  and 
Leofric  between  them  brought  King 
Griffith  to  submission,  and  made  him 
take  an  oath  of  loyalty  as  Edward's 
Next  year  Leofric  died,  and  yElfgar 
succeeded  to  the  Mercian  earldom,  while  East  Anglia  with  a  portion  of 
Wessex,  surrendered  by  Harold  himself,  provided  earldoms  for  two  of 
Harold's  brothers. 

Then  came  a  new  quarrel  in  1058  between  ^Ifgar  and  Harold 
^Ifgar  was  again  outlawed,  returned  to  his  alliance  with  Griffith  of  Wales, 
and  gave  him  his  daughter  Ealdgyth  in  marriage.  Again  Harold  offered 
him  pardon  and  peace,  and  he  was  restored  to  his  earldom  ;  and  again 
Harold  turned  to  chastise  Griffith,  who  in  1063  was  killed  by  his  own 
people.  Two  years  later  Harold  endeavoured  to  cement  his  own  alliance 
with  the  house  of  Leofric,  then  represented  by  Edwin  and  ]\Iorkere,  the 
sons  of  Leofric,  by  marrying  their  sister  Ealdgyth,  the  widow  of  the  W^elsh 
king.  .^Ifgar  himself  had  died  in  the  interval  and  was  succeeded  in 
Mercia  by  his  elder  son  Edwin. 

In  the  interval  also,  probably  in  1064,  occurred  Harold's  involuntary 
and  disastrous  visit  to  Normandy.  For  some  reason  unknown  he  had  taken 
ship,  and  was  wrecked  on  the  territory  of  Guy  of  Ponthieu,  a  vassal  of 
William  Duke  of  Normandy.  William  made  Guy  hand  over  his  captive, 
and  then,  as  a  condition  of  release,  required  that  Harold  should  take  the 
oath  of  allegiance  to  him  and  should  swear  to  do  his  best  to  secure  him 
the  succession  to  the   English  throne.     With   death  or  permanent  captivity 


Taking  toll  for  merchandise. 
[From  a  Saxon  Psalter.] 

vassal,  which   had  the  usual  value. 


From  an  Anglo-Saxon  Psalter. 


KINGS    OF   THE    ENGLISH  35 

in  a  dungeon  as  the  probable  alternatives,  Harold  took  the  oath,  which, 
according  to  tradition,  was  made  the  more  awful  by  having  been  uncon- 
sciously sworn  upon  sundry  particularly  sacred  relics.  Seeing  that  the 
election  of  the  king  of  England  lay  entirely  with  the  Witan,  the  extent 
of  the  obligation  involved  is  problematical,  even  apart  from  the  question 
whether  oaths  taken  under  such  circumstances  are  to  be  held  binding.  At 
any  rate  William  or  his  supporters  felt  it  necessary  to  make  a  great  point 
of  the  peculiar  sanctity  which  had  been  im- 
parted to  the  oath  by  the  trick  of  concealing 
the  sacred  relics  from  Harold  when  he  took  it. 

Having  taken  the  oath,  whatever  it  was 
worth,  Harold  returned  to  England  to  find 
that  his  brother  Tostig  had  been  so  playing  the 
tyrant  in  Northumbria  that  the  folk  of  that 
earldom  drove  him  out  and  elected  in  his 
place  Morkere,  the  younger  son  of  .^Ifgar,  and  brother  of  Edwin  now 
Earl  of  Mercia.  Harold  refused  to  back  up  his  ill-conditioned  brother, 
as  he  had  refused  to  back  up  Sweyn  ;  Tostig  was  dismissed  into  exile,  and 
Morkere  was  confirmed  in  the  earldom  of  Northumbria.  Finally  Harold, 
as  already  noted,  married  Ealdgyth,  the  sister  of  the  two  Leofricsons. 
For  the  third  time  he  had  the  opportunity  of  crushing  the  rival  house, 
which,  technically  at  least,  was  guilty  of  fomenting  rebellion;  and  for  the 
third  time  he  chose  to  seek  instead  peace  and  recon- 
ciliation. 

But  now  King  Edward  himself  was  dying.  The 
one  Englishman  manifestly  fit  to  succeed  him  on  the 
English  throne  was  Earl  Harold.  The  sole  repre- 
sentative of  the  blood  royal  was  young  Edgar  the 
^theling,  whose  father,  Edward,  the  son  of  Edmund 
Ironside,  had  returned  with  him  from  Hungary  to 
England  some  years  before,  only  to  die  himself 
within  a  few  months.  The  whole  principle  of  suc- 
cession had  been  turned  upside  down  by  the  inter- 
lude of  the  Danish  kings  ;  and  the  Witan  no  longer 
felt  itself  bound  to  choose  the  one  representative  of 
the  house  of  Cerdic  when  it  was  obvious  that  a  strong 
man  was  needed  on  the  throne  and  the  yEtheling  was  a  mere  boy. 
Whatever  promises  Edward  the  Confessor  may  have  made  to  William,  he 
undoubtedly  himself  nominated  Harold  as  his  successor.  The  day  after 
Edward's  death  Harold  was  unanimously  elected  by  the  Witan,  and  was 
crowned  by  the  Archbishop  of  York,  because  there  were  doubts  as  to 
the  validity  of  the  position  of  Stigand,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

But,  if  there  was  no  direct  opposition  in  England,  Harold  had  to  reckon 
with  the  jealousy  of  the  young  earls  of  the  North,  and  with  at  least  three 
possible  claimants  on  the  continent.     There  was  no  doubt  at  all  that  the 


A  Saxon  sliiiger. 


36  NATION    MAKING 

Duke  of  Normandy  would  strike  for  the  crown  of  England,  although  he 
had  no  conceivable  title  except  the  alleged  promises  of  Edward  the 
Confessor  and  Harold,  neither  of  whom  had  any  power  of  bestowing  the 
crown  whatever.  Then  there  was  Sweyn  of  Denmark,  Knut's  nephew ; 
and  there  was  at  least  a  possibility  that  Harald  Hardraada  of  Norway  might 
grasp  at  a  crown  which  rested  so  insecurely  on  its  wearer's  head.  Harold 
himself  was  king  by  election  only,  without  any  hereditary  title  ;  and  he  had 
nothing  to  trust  to  but  his  own  abilities  and  the  loyalty  of  the  nation  to  his 

person.  The  Danelagh  was 
quite  as  likely  as  not  to 
declare  for  the  king  of 
Denmark  if  once  the  ques- 
tion were  seriously  raised  ; 
and  in  the  meantime  the 
exiled  Tostig  was  intriguing 
on  all  sides  against  the 
brother  who  had  allowed 
him  to  be  banished  for  his 
crimes. 

Harold  threw  himself 
vigorously  into  the  work 
of  organisation  in  right 
kingly  wise,  and  of  pre- 
parations for  naval  defence. 
No  less  energetic  was  the 
Duke  of  Normandy,  who 
gathered  to  his  standard  by 
degrees  not  only  all  his  own 
vassals,  but  every  adven- 
turous baron  and  knight  in 
Western  Europe  who  could  be  enticed  by  promises  of  land  and  loot.  Also 
he  took  care  to  obtain  the  blessing  of  the  Pope  on  an  expedition  directed 
against  the  perjured  blasphemer  who  occupied  the  throne  of  England,  and 
who  was,  moreover,  in  league  with  an  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  whose 
appointment  in  the  Pope's  eyes  had  been  uncanonical.  For  Stigand  had 
obtained  the  archiepiscopal  pallium  from  a  Pope  who  had  been  ejected 
from  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  and  was  not  recognised  by  his  successors. 
Sweyn  of  Denmark  looked  on,  but  hesitated  to  act.  Tostig  tried  some 
raiding  in  Nortlunnbria  on  his  own  account,  but  was  driven  off  by  Edwin 
and  Morkere  ;  whereupon  he  sailed  north  and  presently  joined  forces  with 
Harald  of  Norway,  who  had  taken  the  seas  with  a  great  ficet. 

Meanwhile  Harold  the  king  had  manned  his  fleet  in  the  South,  waiting 
and  watching  for  the  imminent  attack  of  the  Norman  duke.  But  the  winds 
blew  out  of  the  North  and  the  Norman  did  not  start.  The  supplies  of  the 
fleet  ran  short,  the  ships  were  becoming  damaged,  and  at  last  when  Harold 


The  King  upon  his  throne. 
[From  an  nth  century  Book  of  Prayers.] 


KINGS    OF   THE   ENGLISH  37 

had  to  send  them  round  to  the  Thames  to  refit,  they  were  caught  in  a  gale 
and  so  badly  battered  as  to  be  useless.  At  this  moment  came  news  from 
the  North  that  Harald  Hardraada  was  on  the  coast.  With  all  the  forces 
he  could  gather  on  the  way  and  the  best  of  his  Wessex  troops,  Harold 
dashed  to  York,  where  he  found  that  Hardraada  and  Tostig  had  already 
routed  Edwin  and  Morkere  and  the  levies  of  their  earldoms.  At  Stamford 
Bridge,  a  few  miles  from  York,  he  brought  the  Norsemen  to  bay  ;  and 
there  was  fought  a  desperate  battle,  in  which  Hardraada  and  Tostig  were 
both  slain  and  the  Norsemen  were  put  utterly  to  rout.  The  Norse  Chronicle 
is  magnificent  but  wildly  imaginative  in  its  account  of  the  great  fight ;  the 


^^-C'b-?>^e=^.5:t£t?,-^^/'K-)  -. 


Plan  of  the  battle  of  Senlac  and  the  surrounding  country. 
[From  Creasy's  "  Fifteen  Decisive  Batilcs  of  the  World."] 

Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  tells  how  at  the  last  a  single  mighty  Norseman 
held  the  bridge  while  his  comrades  retreated,  until  he  was  thrust  through 
from  a  boat  below. 

The  danger  from  Norway  was  over,  but  meanwhile  the  winds  had 
changed.  The  Norman  had  put  to  sea,  and  within  a  week  of  the  great 
fight  of  Stamford  Bridge  the  news  reached  Harold  of  his  landing  at 
Pevensey.  South  again  raced  Harold  at  full  speed,  reaching  London  upon 
the  tenth  day  after  the  fight,  far  faster  than  Edwin  and  Morkere  could 
move  with  the  Northern  levies,  whether  they  were  loyal  or  not,  considering 
how  they  had  already  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  Norsemen.  With  all 
speed  Harold  collected  whatever  troops  he  could  draw  together  and 
hurried  down  to  Sussex,  where  the  Norman  was  wasting  the  land  ;  resolved 
to  give  battle  rather  than  follow  the  more  prudent  policy  of  devastating 


38  NATION    MAKING 

the   land  before   him  and  forcing  William  to   pursue  him   and  fight  at   a 
disadvantage. 

He  took  his  stand  on  the  hill  of  Senlac,  lining  the  whole  ridge.  On 
the  morrow  William  attempted  to  storm  his  position  by  direct  frontal 
attack,  since  a  flank  movement  was  not  practicable.  The  foot  soldiers 
could  not  break  the  line  ;  then  William  hurled  his  mailed  horsemen  against 
the  English  shield  wall.  The  English  held  their  ground.  The  horsemen 
on  the  left  wing  broke  and  swept  back  down  the  slope,  the  half  drilled 
English  burst  from  their  lines  and  rushed  in  pursuit.  William  saw  his 
opportunity,  flung  another  detachment  of  cavalry  upon  the  pursuers,  and 
broke  in  upon  the  now  unguarded  flank.  But  still  the  English  held  their 
ground  against  charge  after  charge,  till  at  last  the  Normans  on  the  right 
fell    back   in   feigned  fliglit.     The    English    thought   the  victory  was  won, 


Senlac  :  Harold  receives  an  arrow  in  his  eye  and  dies. 
[From  the  Bayeux  Tapestry.] 

and  poured  down  upon  them,  except  the  valiant  disciplined  body  of 
Harold's  huscarles,  who  still  stood  in  their  ranks.  The  rest  had  no  chance 
when  the  Normans  turned  and  charged  again  upon  them.  The  huscarles 
fought  on  stubbornly  against  odds  now  overwhelming,  till  William  brought 
forward  his  archers,  bidding  them  shoot  so  that  their  arrows  should  drop 
from  above  upon  the  stubborn  Saxons.  Harold's  eye,  says  tradition,  was 
pierced  by  an  arrow  ;  but  he,  his  brothers,  and  the  huscarles  fought  and 
fell  to  the  last  man  round  the  royal  standard.  So  perished  the  last  English 
king  of  the  old  English. 

Ill 

THE   ANGLO-SAXON    SYSTEM 

In  reconstructing  the  early  social  and  political  system  of  the  English 
we  have  to  find  bridges  whereby  we  can  connect  what  we  know  of  the 
primitive  Germans  with  what  we  know  of  the  Saxons  from  the  legal  codes 


KINGS   OF   THE   ENGLISH  39 

which  have  been  preserved  and  by  historical  references  from  wliich  definite 
inferences  can  be  drawn. 

Now,  at  the  stage  when  we  have  clear  and  trustworthy  indications  of 
an  established  system  in  England,  which  is  not  until  after  the  establishment 
of  Christianity,  we  find  in  the  first  place  that  kingship  is  universal,  that  the 
kingly  office  is  hereditary,  but  that  the  succession  invariably  leaves  a 
certain  right  of  choice  exercised  by  a  council  known  as  the  Witan  or 
Witenagemot.  Usually  the  choice  lies  among  sons  and  brothers  of  the 
deceased  king  ;  but  it  appears  to  have  been  considered  legitimate  on  suffi- 
cient grounds  to  go  further  afield  among  those  who  could  claim  to  represent 
the  blood  royal.  It  was  a  matter  of  primary  necessity  that  the  king  should 
be  himself  a  reasonably  competent  person,  and  obviously  inefficient  candi- 
dates were  necessarily  excluded.  Thus  Alfred  succeeded  yEthelred  in  Essex, 
although  ^thelred  left  two  young  sons,  and  Eadred  was  preferred  before 
the  sons  of  Edmund. 

In  the  next  place  we  find  a  nobility,  not  limited  to  a  few  families  of 
high  descent,  though  these  appear  to  have  formed  an  element  in  it,  but 
entered  primarily  as  a  reward  of  service  ;  though  rank  once  attained  tended 
to  remain  with  the  descendants.  This  aristocracy  falls  into  two  ranks,  in 
which,  theoretically,  descent,  except  in  the  royal  family,  is  not  concerned — 
the  king's  lieutenants  or  ealdormen,  along  with  the  bishops,  and  the  thegn- 
hoody  who  may  be  called  the  gentry.  Below  these  were  the  great  mass  of  the 
free  ceorls,  who  held  the  greater  part  of  the  soil  ;  and  at  the  bottom  of  the 
scale  were  the  actual  theows  or  slaves,  few  in  number  in  the  East,  but  com- 
paratively numerous  on  the  Welsh  marches,  from  which,  incidentally,  it 
may  be  inferred  that  in  the  later  stages  of  conquest,  immediately  preced- 
ing the  introduction  of  Christianity  or  accompanying  it,  the  Britons  were 
enslaved  rather  than  extirpated. 

The  constitution  of  the  King's  Council  or  Witan  is  much  debated,  as 
also  are  its  powers.  It  is  quite  clear  that  the  Witan,  whatever  its  constitu- 
tion, did  control  the  succession  and  choose  the  new  ruler  on  the  demise  of 
the  king.  It  is  also  clear  that  whenever  a  king  promulgated  laws  the  code 
was  prefaced  by  statement  that  it  was  issued  after  consultation  with  and 
approval  of  the  Witan.  We  may  be  confident  that  no  king  would  venture 
to  introduce  marked  innovations  without  first  securing  the  acquiescence  of 
that  body.  The  W^itan,  which  was  thus  formally  consulted,  seems  generally 
to  have  consisted  of  the  bishops  and  ealdormen  ex  officio^  and  some  other 
nominated  members.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  Witan  assembled  to 
make  choice  of  a  king  it  would  appear  that  the  freemen  at  large  were 
entitled  to  put  in  an  appearance  and  take  their  share  in  the  proceedings. 
In  fact  it  looks  as  if  the  king  under  ordinary  circumstances  acted  on  his 
own  responsibility,  but  in  questionable  matters  disarmed  possible  opposition 
by  taking  the  council,  so  to  speak,  into  partnership  and  securing  the  agree- 
ment of  the  magnates  of  the  realm  ;  while  the  magnates,  w^hen  the  king 
died,  in  their  turn  took  the  freemen  into  partnership  by  admitting  them 


40  NATION    MAKING 

to  ratify  the  choice  of  the  new  monarch.  On  these  occasions  the  Witan 
stands  as  a  survival  of  the  ancient  assembly  of  the  tribe  in  arms;  though,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  it  had  degenerated  into  an  assembly  of  the  magnates  and 
the  free  population  in  the  neighbourhood  where  the  assembly  was  held. 

In  all  this  we  can  see  an  absolutely  plain  evolution  from  the  ancient 
tribal  system  as  depicted  by  Tacitus.  When  joint  action  v.-as  undertaken 
by  the  tribes,  the  war-lord  was  chosen  by  the  tribal  assembly  ;  and  the 
elected  war-lord  developed  by  degrees  into  the  hereditary  monarch.  The 
war-lord  had  his  council  of  the  heads  of  the  clans  or  great  family  groups 
within  the  tribe,  v/ho,  in  the  later  stage,  were  displaced  by  the  ealdormen, 
who  were  the  heads  not  of  clans  but  of  districts,  as  clan  organisation  yielded 
to  district  organisation  ;   and  tlie  organisation  of  the  Church  involved  the 


admission  of  the  ecclesiastical  heads  to  this  group.  Schemes  of  primary 
importance  were  submitted  for  ratification  to  the  tribal  assembly,  which 
normally  merely  signified  its  acquiescence  by  the  clashing  of  arms,  but  was 
capable  of  expressing  a  disapprobation  of  which  judicious  leaders  would 
take  due  heed.  But  expansion  meant  that  the  tribal  assembly  expanded 
also  into  a  national  assembly,  which  was  unwieldy  and  impracticable.  It 
was  entirely  undesirable  that  the  freemen  should  be  expected  or  indeed 
should  be  willing  to  gather  from  all  parts  of  the  country  to  attend  such 
an  assembly  ;  so  for  ordinary  purposes  the  national  assembly  ceased  to 
exist,  because  no  one  except  the  magnates  would  take  the  trouble  to  attend 
it,  and  it  survived  only  in  a  very  mutilated  form  for  royal  elections  and 
not  much  besides. 

Now  the  primitive  organisation  was  definitely  tribal,  resting  on  kinship, 
having  as  its  basis  the  family,  rising  to  the  group  of  families  forming  the 
clan,  the  group  of  clans  forming  the  tribe,  and  the  group  of  tribes  forming 
what  for  want  of  a   better  term  we  must  call  the  nation.      Where  a  tribe 


KINGS    OF   THE   ENGLISH  41 

migrated  bodily  the  tribal  system  would  remain  in  full  force.  When  it 
took  possession  of  its  new  territory  it  occupied  the  soil  in  groups  of  house- 
holds who  were  all  closely  akin  to  each  other  ;  and  the  aristocracy — those, 
that  is,  who  enjoyed  a  general  prestige,  formed  the  inner  council,  and 
provided  the  war-lords — were  the  chief  families  of  the  clans,  the  families 
which  were  regarded  as  most  directly  representing  the  real  or  hypothetical 
common  ancestor.  But  migration  was  not  necessarily  a  tribal  act.  It 
might  be  merely  the  movement  of  a  restless  group  of  adventurers  who,  as 
volunteers,  joined  the  standard  of  a  leader  bent  on  roving  exploits.  In  such 
cases  the  tribal  or  clan  system  would  break  down,  and  kinship  would  be 
only  the  occasional,  not  the  invariable,  basis  of  the  settlements  of  the  con- 
quered country  ;  while  prestige  would  attach  not  to  the  hereditary  clan 
chiefs,  but  to  the  warriors  who  achieved  distinction  and  who  were  admitted 
to  the  personal  companionship  of  the  war-lord,  his  "comrades"  {gcsitlis) 
and  ''servants"  {thegns).  The  English  invasion  partook  of  both  characters. 
The  hosts  were  sometimes  mixed  bands  of  adventurers,  and  were  sometimes 
tribal ;  while  even  the  mixed  bands  might  sometimes  comprise  whole  clans 
or  substantial  groups  of  kinsfolk. 

Consequently  on  the  new  soil  it  would  be  natural  to  find  both  principles 
at  work,  and  that  expectation  seems  to  be  in  full  accordance  with  the  state 
of  things  which  emerges  when  the  conquest  is  completed.  Place  names 
repeatedly  mark  obvious  groups  of  kinsfolk,  family  names,  as  in  practically 
all  cases  such  as  Billington,  Wellington,  and  the  like,  where  the  suffix  mg 
is  to  be  found  ;  but  in  other  places  the  haw,  tun,  or  wick  has  a  personal 
name  which  rather  implies  that  the  settlement  was  not  that  of  a  family 
group. 

And  in  like  manner  the  local  magnates,  though  occasionally  claiming 
high  descent,  had  generally  lost  the  character  of  clan-chiefs.  The  clan- 
chiefs  had  been  displaced  by  the  king's  thegns,  the  men  whom  the  war-lord 
had  honoured,  or  their  descendants.  The  ealdorman  appointed  by  the 
king  to  represent  him  in  the  provinces  as  his  territory  expanded  was  no 
longer  an  ealdorman  in  right  of  his  position  in  the  clan  but  in  right  of 
appointment  as  a  minister  of  the  state  ;  and  his  position  was  not  hereditary, 
though  there  was  an  inevitable  tendency  to  the  retention  of  the  office  in 
the  same  family  whenever  it  was  capable  of  providing  a  competent  successor. 
As  kingdoms  grew  they  were  parcelled  out  into  districts  which,  in  Wessex, 
weie  called  shires,  each  under  the  king's  representative,  the  ealdorman, 
and  the  king's  shire-reeve  or  bailiff,  who  was  primarily  concerned  with  the 
king's  financial  business.  There  is  good  ground  for  holding  that  the 
Wessex  shires  corresponded  to  the  minor  principalities  which  were  absorbed 
by  the  king  of  Wessex.  The  ealdorman  was  a  sort  of  lieutenant-governor 
and  commander  of  the  military  forces  of  the  shire,  while  the  reeve  was 
the  king's  financial  agent  and  at  the  same  time  a  sort  of  vice-lieutenant- 
governor.  At  a  later  stage,  when  the  ealdorman  became  the  earl  and  in 
Latin  the  comes,  the  sheriff  was  in  Latin  the  vice-comes. 


42  NATION    MAKING 

State  policy,  war,  peace,  and  legislation  belonged  to  the  king  and  the 
council.  Legislation,  however,  was  not,  as  in  modern  times,  a  matter 
habitually  engaging  the  central  government.  The  law  meant  established 
customs,  conditions,  and  conventions.  Conditions  changed  slowly,  and 
legislation  meant  merely  the  adaptation  of  customs  to  changed  conditions  ; 
therefore  it  was  very  rarely  required.  When  Christianity  was  introduced 
^thelbert  of  Kent  had  to  modify  the  existing  code  so  that  it  might  square 
with  Christian  ideas.  Again  variations  of  custom  were  introduced  locally, 
so  that  from  time  to  time  it  became  necessary  to  codify  customs  and  impose 
a  degree  of  uniformity.  Hence  come  the  codes  or  "dooms"  of  successive 
kings  ;  and  when  such  codes  were  issued  the  kings  took  the  opportunity  of 


The  King  and  his  Thegns. 
[From  a  MS.  in  the  Bodleian  Library,  Oxford.] 


introducing  such  modifications  of  their  own  as  were  likely  to  be  generally 
approved.  Such  almost  exclusively  was  the  character  of  legislation  under 
the  Saxon  kings. 

Apart  from  high  policy  and  legislation  the  business  of  government  lay 
with  the  local  authority,  and  the  local  authority  was  the  local  assembly  of 
freemen.  The  local  unit  was  the  tun  or  township,  the  village,  the  group  of 
households  whose  members  occupied  the  surrounding  land,  and  settled  such 
of  their  affairs  as  required  settlement  in  the  town's  meeting.  The  townships 
were  grouped  in  hundreds,  a  term  which  probably  originated  in  days  when 
the  normal  village  contained  ten  households  or  thereabouts,  and  ten  villages 
or  thereabouts,  making  up  approximately  a  hundred  households,  were 
grouped  together  for  military  purposes  and  for  the  common  settlement  of 
their  affairs.  So  the  freemen  of  the  hundred  assembled  periodically  in  the 
hundred-moot  to  arrange  common  action  and  administer  justice.  Similarly, 
to  deal   with  the  larger  matters  whereby  the  whole  district  or  shire  was 


KINGS   OF   THE   ENGLISH  43 

affected,  the  freemen  of  the  shire  gathered  periodically  to  the  shiremoot 
to  perform  functions  which  had  originally  been  discharged  by  the  tribal 
assembly. 

Justice  was  administered  in  these  "folk-moots"  or  popular  meetings, 
each  under  the  presidency  of  its  reeve — town-reeve,  hundred-reeve,  or  shire- 
reeve.  Primarily  it  appears  that  the  whole  body  were  judges.  At  a  later 
stage,  when  the  number  of  households  in  the  hundred  had  very  much  in- 
creased, a  kind  of  representation  took  the  place  of  the  general  assembly  of 
all  freemen.  The  princi- 
pal landholders  were  ex- 
pected to  attend,  and  from 
each  township  the  parish 
priest,  the  reeve,  and  the 
four  "best  men,"  as  well  as 
those  who  were  personally 
concerned  in  any  questions 
arising.  Further,  it  seems 
to  have  become  customary 
for  a  sort  of  committee  of 
twelve  to  act  as  judges  in 
place  of  the  whole  body  ; 
and  probably  it  is  to  this 
custom,  already  established 
by  the  time  of  Alfred,  that 
we  must  attribute  the  tradi- 
tion that  Alfred  himself  in- 
vented Trial  by  Jury.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  also 
likely,  though  not  certain, 
that  the  prestige  attaching  to  the  person  of  the  reeve  of  the  court  gave  him 
a  practical  authority,  which  gradually  made  him  in  effect  a  superior  magis- 
trate ;  and  that  out  of  the  jurisdiction  thus  acquired  by  him  grew  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  lord  of  the  manor. 

The  "  dooms "  of  the  kings  are  mainly  concerned  with  crimes  of 
violence,  or  at  least  injury  to  person  or  property.  The  penalty  was 
habitually  in  the  form  of  a  fine — the  weregild  payable  as  compensation  to 
the  injured  person  or  his  relations  by  the  wrong-doer  or  his  kinsmen,  and 
the  voite  payable  to  the  crown.  By  the  end  of  the  ninth  century  the  am^ount 
of  the  fine  was  assessed  precisely  according  to  the  rank  of  the  injured 
person,  and  there  was  an  elaborate  scale  of  payments  according  to  the 
injury.  Thus  the  ordinary  free  ceorl  got  more  compensation  for  the  loss  of 
an  eye  than  for  an  injury  to  his  hand  ;  but  the  thegn  got  bigger  compensa- 
tion than  the  ceorl  for  a  like  injury.  As  a  general  principle  the  wrong- 
doer was  personally  responsible  for  paying  a  proportion  of  the  fine,  and  his 
kinsmen  were  responsible  for  seeing  that  the  balance  was  paid,  the  Saxon 


Saxon  tower  of  Soinpling  Chufch,  Sussex. 


44  NATION    MAKING 

system,  as  already  noted,  being  primarily  based  on  the  idea  of  kinship.  But 
the  system  of  kinship  did  not  apply  universally  to  all  settlements  even  at  the 
outset,  and  did  so  less  and  less  as  time  went  on  ;  hence,  at  a  later  stage,  the 
joint  responsibility  of  the  kinsfolk  gave  place  to  the  joint  responsibility  of 
the  district  or  group  of  householders  which  formed  a  tithing.  The  whole 
system  of  the  weregild  appears  to  have  been  invented  in  order  to  get  rid  of 
the  old  system  of  the  blood  feud.  When,  under  primitive  conditions,  one 
member  of  a  kinship,  called  a  niaegth,  was  injured,  the  whole  family  took 
the  matter  up  and  avenged  it  on  the  maegth  to  which  the  injurer  belonged, 
and  so  retaliation  was  endless.  The  point  of  the  weregild  was  that,  when 
the  fine  had  been  paid,  the  feud  was  ended  and  further  retaliation  was  not 
regarded  as  justifiable,  but  became,  as  it  were,  a  breach  of  the  king's  peace. 
Here,  again,  what  Alfred  and  his  successors  did  was  to  systematise  the  con- 
flicring  practices  which  had  grown  up  in  different  parts  of  their  realm. 

There  is  perhaps  nothing  in  which  our  modern  ideas  stand  in  more 
marked  contrast  to  those  of  early  times  than  the  administration  of  justice. 
For  us  the  point  of  first  importance  is  that  no  man  shall  suffer  if  there  is 
any  reasonable  shadow  of  a  doubt  of  his  guilt.  In  the  medieval  view  it  was 
more  important  that  the  crime  should  somehow  be  punished  than  that  the 
innocent  should  escape  ;  hence  the  doctrines  of  common  local  or  family  re- 
sponsibility. But  still  more  curious  is  the  change  in  the  conception  of 
evidence  ;  our  insistence  on  positive  proof  is  so  marked  that  merely  cir- 
cumstantial evidence  has  to  be  extraordinarily  strong  before  it  is  allowed 
to  carry  weight.  But  apart  from  cases  where  the  criminal  was  taken 
practically  red-handed,  the  evidence  which  satisfied  our  forefathers  was  hard 
swearing  not  so  much  to  facts  as  to  character.  The  accused,  when  the 
evidence  as  to  facts  was  not  obviously  conclusive,  was  held  guilty  unless 
he  could  support  his  own  oath  of  innocence  by  producing  substantial 
'<  witnesses  "  to  his  character  ;  and  the  value  of  their  oaths  was  assessed 
according  to  their  social  position.  The  final  appeal  of  the  accused  was  to 
the  justice  of  Heaven,  the  ''  ordeal  "  which  found  its  later  counterpart  among 
the  Normans  in  the  Wager  of  Battle  on  the  hypothesis  that  God  would 
defend  the  right  and  give  victory  to  the  innocent.  For  anything  like  our 
modern  sifting  of  evidence  there  was  no  machinery  whatever. 

The  whole  system  of  land  settlement  and  land  tenure  is  a  matter  of 
much  controversy.  The  primary  type  of  settlement  with  which  we  must 
start  is  that  of  the  group  of  households  planted  together  and  forming  a  ///;/ 
or  township.  To  the  township  was  allotted  a  sufficient  area  of  land,  of  which 
only  a  part  was  at  once  taken  up  for  cultivation  and  meadow  land,  while 
the  remainder  was  waste  land  and  common  property.  The  land  brought 
under  cultivation  was  allotted  to  the  different  households  in  strips  of  an  acre 
or  half  an  acre,  each  household  originally  receiving  altogether  a  hide  of  a 
hundred  and  twenty  acres  ;  that  is  usually  one  hundred  and  twenty  strips, 
for  the  half  acre  was  probably  a  later  subdivision.  But  tlie  strips  of  each 
household    were   not  contiguous.      Supposing  there   were   ten   households, 


KINGS    OF   THE   ENGLISH  45 

each  household  had  one  strip  in  each  group  of  ten  strips,  the  strips  being 
separated  merely  by  balks  or  ridges.  They  were  worked  in  common  by  the 
labour  and  the  plough-teams  of  the  whole  community,  though  each  household 
took  the  produce  of  its  own  strips.  This  is  what  is  called  the  Open  Field 
System. 

As  far  as  this  system  is  concerned,  the  expansion  of  the  population 
would  find  its  needs  met  partly  by  taking  in  more  of  the  waste  land  and 
partly  by  the  planting  of  new  settlements,  since  for  some  centuries  there  was 
much  more  land  available  than  could  be  brought  under  the  plough.  But 
individuals  were  also  allotted  more  than  a  single  equal  share — more  than  the 
individual  household  could  work.  In  the  later  stages  the  possession  of 
five  hides  of  land  entitled  a  man  to  claim  rank  as  a  thecn.     Moreover,  whole 


A  Saxon  banquet  at  a  round  tablet 

estates  were  allotted  to  the  king,  which  he,  in  his  turn,  could  bestow  upon 
others,  or  could  apply  to  ecclesiastical  endowment.  How  were  these  larger 
estates  worked,  unless  a  large  subject  population  had  been  preserved 
which  was  set  to  labour  upon  them  in  a  more  or  less  servile  character  ? 
The  difficulty  of  believing  that  any  large  proportion  of  Britons  was  thus 
preserved,  except  on  the  Welsh  marches,  has  already  been  dwelt  upon  ; 
although  there  is  strong  reason  for  supposing  that  the  class  in  Kent  called 
laets  did  fall  under  this  category.  The  riddle  in  fact  is  not  solved. 
But  it  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that  where  a  large  estate  was  granted 
there  would  be  many  members  of  large  households  who  would  be  willing  to 
become  in  a  way  tenants  of  the  great  landholder  in  preference  to  accumu- 
lating upon  their  own  houshold  "hide."  The  thegn,  therefore,  would  plant 
hfs  estate  with  workers,  dividing  it  up  among  them  in  the  same  way  as  in 
the  free-land  community,  but  reserving  to  himself  a  share  of  the  strips,  the 
occupiers  of  the  rest  holding  their  strips  on  condition  of  cultivating  his 
strips  for  him. 


46  NATION    MAKING 

Whether  or  no  this  be  on  the  whole  a  correct  account  of  the  course  of 
development,  what  we  do  find  in  the  later  times  is  that  in  most  villages, 
though  not  in  all,  the  villagers  were  bound,  according  to  the  size  of  their 
holdings,  to  render  a  fixed  amount  of  service  in  cultivating  the  lands  of  the 
lord,  the  tenure  of  their  own  holdings  being  conditional  only  on  the  rendering 
of  this  service.  The  enormous  majority  of  these  occupiers  of  the  soil  did 
not  forfeit  their  political  freedom  and  their  political  rights  merely  because 
they  held  their  land  on  condition  of  service  ;  and  they  remained  in  their 
own  eyes  and  in  those  of  every  one  else  free  ceorls. 
The  expansion  of  households  and  the  movements  of 
population  also  led  to  the  subdivision  of  the  original 
hide,  so  that  by  the  eleventh  century  at  least  the  ceorl's 
normal  holding  was  thirty  acres.  It  must  be  added  that 
there  was  also  an  actually  servile  population — to  be 
accounted  for  partly  by  slaves  originally  brought  with 
them  by  the  invaders,  partly  by  descent  from  the  Briton 
women  who  were  spared,  and  partly  by  captives  taken 
in  early  wars  between  the  English  themselves  and  be- 
tween English  and  Britons.  Actual  slaves,  however,  never 
formed  more  than  a  small  proportion  of  the  population. 

Broadly  speaking,  then,  we  have  these  divisions  :  thegns 
and  great  landowners  who  held  estates  which  were  partly 
demesne  lands — that  is,  reserved  to  themselves — and  were 
partly  occupied  by  tenants  who  had  to  cultivate  the 
demesne  land  and  also,  as  a  rule,  to  make  some  sort  of  payment  in  kind — 
fowls  or  pigs  or  grain.  Next  there  were  the  free  ceorls  who  had  no  great 
estates,  but  occupied  their  holdings  under  the  original  free  tenure,  owing 
service  to  no  man.  Next  there  were  the  free  ceorls  who  occupied  their 
holdings  on  condition  of  service  to  the  lord — holdings  which  might  be 
anything  from  five  acres  or  even  less  up  to  one  hundred  and  twenty,  but 
were  most  commonly  either  thirty  or  fifteen  acres.  And  last  there  were 
the  theows  or  the  serfs  who,  if  they  had  a  plot  of  land  at  all,  held  it  merely 
by  grace  of  their  owner.  Land  which  any  one  had  acquired  by  grant  or 
written  agreement  was  known  as  hoc-land;  while  land  which  was  held 
simply  by  customary  tenure  was  known  as  folc-laud. 

The  village  aimed  at  being  self-sufficing — at  producing  for  itself  all 
that  its  inhabitants  required.  Commerce  consisted  practically  in  the 
exchange  of  superfluities  for  goods  of  which  there  happened  to  be  a 
deficiency.  Each  village  supplied  its  own  necessary  artisans — the  smith, 
the  thatcher,  or  the  carpenter — who  was  paid  primarily  not  for  the  job,  but 
for  doing  whatever  turned  up  to  be  done  in  the  village,  by  having  a 
holding  allotted  to  him,  or  being  freed  from  his  share  in  the  common  work 
of  tillage,  a  system  which  gradually  gave  way  to  payment  by  the  job. 
Payment  was  ordinarily  made  in  kind,  since  there  was  very  little  money 
available,  just  as  commerce  was  conducted  by  barter,  not  by  money  pay- 


A  Saxon  gleeman 
century. 


KINGS   OF   THE   ENGLISH  47 

ments.  In  the  same  way  when  the  lord  wanted  extra  work  done  which 
was  not  in  the  bargain  he  made  payments  in  kind  to  the  workmen,  which 
were  only  beginning  to  be  to  a  small  extent  replaced  by  payments  in  cash 
in  the  eleventh  century.  Towns  in  the  modern  sense,  large  aggregates  of 
populations  mainly  taken  up  with  the  business  of  making  and  exchanging 
goods,  had  hardly  come  into  existence,  though  there  were  a  few  places 
like  London  which  formed  exceptions  to  the  rule.  Here  and  there  where 
traffic  accumulated,  as  at  bridges  and  fords,  cross  roads  and  shrines  to 
which  pilgrims  congregated,  there  w^ere  larger  communities;  and  when  m 
the  days  of  Alfred  and  his  sons  fortified  points  were  established  either  for 
strategic  reasons  or  for  the  protection  of  places  which  had  already  acquired 
some  importance,  there  the  population  tended  to  increase,  attracted  by  the 


The  old  English  burh,  or  forlified  place. 
[From  a  MS.  in  the  Bodleis^n  Library.] 

greater  security.  Hence  the  borough  of  later  days  got  its  name  from 
having  been  at  first  a  burh  or  fortified  place.  But  the  population  even  of 
the  borough  was  mainly  occupied  with  agriculture  ;  and  in  the  days  of 
the  English  conquest  the  mere  idea  of  a  town  was  so  foreign  to  English 
conceptions  that  practically  all  the  towns  which  had  grown  up  during  the 
Roman  occupation  were  not  preserved  by  the  conquerors,  but  were 
destroyed  and  not  rebuilt. 

The  English  had  the  character  of  sea-rovers  like  the  Northmen  after 
them,  when  they  first  invaded  Britain.  But  they  ceased  to  pay  attention 
to  the  sea.  Not  being  in  any  sense  commercially  minded,  they  sought  no 
intercourse  with  the  peoples  across  the  channel  ;  and  they  only  began  to 
be  seamen  again  when  King  Alfred  perceived  that  a  strong  navy  provides 
the  most  effective  defence  for  an  island.  In  fact,  until  the  Danish  incursions, 
the  idea  of  national  defence  hardly  presented  itself.  When  a  king  went 
to  war  with  his  neighbour  he  called  the  freemen  in  general  to  arms,  all 


48  NATION    MAKING 

freemen  being  liable  to  serve  in  the  fyrd^  the  fyrd  being  summoned  by 
shires  which,  probably  in  Wessex  where  the  system  arose,  originally 
corresponded  to  sub-kingdoms.  When  the  fyrd  was  summoned,  the  ceorl 
put  on  his  armour  and  marched  to  the  field  with  his  sword  on  his  thigh, 
and  probably  with  his  scythe  fixed  endwise  on  a  pole.  Hence  the  bill  of 
later  days  was  merely  an  adaptation  of  the  scythe  transformed  into  a  spear. 
When  the  fighting  was  over  he  went  home  and  turned  his  bill  into  a  scythe 
again.     And  he  always  objected  to  being  summoned  anywhere  outside  his 

own  shire.  Alfred  reorganised  the  fyrd,  so 
that  only  a  portion  of  the  freemen  were 
summoned  at  one  time,  and  the  ordinary 
agricultural  operations  could  still  be  carried 
on  while  the  force  was  in  the  field. 

Saxon  and  Dane  alike  fought  on  foot ; 
but  the  Danes  taught  the  English  the  ad- 
vantage of  preparing  entrenched  and  palisaded 
positions.  In  871,  the  "year  of  battles," 
the  Danes  saved  themselves  from  destruction 
by  falling  back  to  their  entrenchments  when 
defeated  in  the  field,  and  against  their  palisades 
the  Saxon  hurled  himself  in  vain.  It  was  in 
imitation  of  the  Danes  that  Alfred  and  his 
offspring  created  the  fortified  posts  into  which 
garrisons  could  be  thrown,  as  it  was  from 
the  Danes  that  Alfred  learned  to  build  im- 
proved ships  of  war.  The  Danes  were  also 
made  formidable  through  their  appreciation 
of  the  usefulness  of  rapid  movement.  They 
made  it  their  first  business  on  landing  to  sweep 
in  every  horse  they  could  lay  hands  on.  But  they  used  horses  for  transit 
not  for  fighting  ;  possibly  for  pursuit  and  flight,  but  not  for  charging  in 
the  field.  The  incapacity  of  the  English  in  general  for  grasping  the  uses  of 
cavalry  were  largely  responsible  for  tlie  overthrow  at  Hastings.  They  had 
no  cavalry,  and  the  only  way  to  pursue  a  fiying  foe  was  to  break  their  own 
line  and  rush  forward  from  behind  their  shield-wall  or  palisade  ; — authorities 
are  not  in  agreement  as  to  whether  their  position  at  Hastings  was  actually 
palisaded.  William  the  Norman  finally  won  the  day  by  anticipating  the 
methods  of  Edward  I.  in  attacking  an  infantry  which  proved  impenetrable 
to  unaided  cavalry  charges.  He  combined  artillery  with  cavalry,  and  his 
bowmen  made  breaches  in  the  enemy's  ranks  into  which  his  horsemen  could 
penetrate.  But  the  might  of  the  bow  was  only  perfected  after  more  than 
two  centuries,  and  even  then  the  English,  and  the  English  alone,  possessed 
it  in  perfection.  At  Hastings  the  Norman  used  only  the  short  bow,  an 
instrument  infinitely  less  powerful  than  the  later  long-bow,  though  it  served 
its   purpose   against   troops  which    had    no   cavalry   to   drive   the   archers 


Anglo-Saxon  spears,  &c. 


KINGS    OF   THE   ENGLISH  49 

out  of  range,  and  no  archers  of  their  own.  For  two  hundred  years 
after  Hastings  no  foot-soldiery  seem  again  to  liave  stood  against  the  charge 
of  mailclad  horsemen. 

Of  the  early  English  literature  little  needs  to  he  said,  for  little  enough 
has  been  preserved.  Early  writers  wrote  for 
the  most  part  in  Latin  ;  in  the  vernacular 
there  is  practically  nothing  before  Alfred  ex- 
cept the  ancient  song  of  Beowulf,  which  dates 
from  pagan  times,  and  the  poem  of  Caedmon, 
written  about  670,  based  upon  the  Book 
of  Genesis.  Under  Alfred's  direction  began 
the  compilation  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle, 
a  work  of  much  historical  value,  which  has 
also  the  credit  of  preserving  the  fine  lay  of 
the  battle  of  Brunanburh,  of  which  some  lines 
have  been  quoted.  Alfred  also  deserves  gratitude  for  translating  and 
editing  standard  historical  and  philosophical  works  of  his  own  time.  But 
the  great  king's  owm  high  ideals  of  education  scarcely  took  any  very  deep 
root  ;  and  perhaps  the  early  eighth  century,  when  Bede  flourished  at 
Jarrow,  was  the  only  time  at  which  the  English  stood  in  the  front  rank  of 
their  contemporaries  as  a  nation  among  whom  culture  and  learning 
flourished. 


In  the  stocks,  nth  century. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE   NORMANS 

I 

THE   CONQUEROR 

Harold's  efforts  had  failed  to  make  a  united  nation  of  the  English. 
Wessex  and  East  Anglia,  which  had  known  Harold  himself  as  earl,  were 
loyal  to  him  ;  Mercia  and  Northumbria  were  ill-disposed  to  the  house  of 
Godwin,  and  the  young  earls,  both  of  them  of  the  house  of  Leofric,  were 
either  jealous  of  Harold  or  too  lacking  in  vigour  and  decision  to  throw 
themselves  whole-heartedly  into  a  struggle  against  the  Norman.  It  was 
Harold,  not  they,  who  saved  the  North  from  Hardraada,  but  they  left  him  to 
defend  the  South  from  the  Norman  entirely  with  the  levies  from  Wessex 
and  East  Anglia.  It  was  not  the  national  army  which  William  had  beaten 
at  Senlac.  Nor  would  even  a  national  army  have  been  likely  to  prove 
successful  against  the  invader,  because  the  English  nation  refused  to 
recognise  that  the  conduct  of  war  was  a  scientific  operation.  It  relied 
entirely  on  hard  hitting,  and  declined  to  adopt  new  methods.  Nor  were 
the  men  who  formed  the  fyrd  adequately  trained  even  in  their  own 
methods  ;  Harold's  disciplined  huscarles  alone  stood  in  their  ranks  when 
the  temptation  to  charge  became  strong.  It  seems  as  if  Harold  was  the 
one  man  in  England  with  a  head  on  his  shoulders,  and  that  he  came  to 
grief  through  not  realising  the  extreme  stupidity  of  his  countrymen. 

After  Hastings  a  solid  party  of  those  who  knew  that  they  had  forfeited 
all  prospect  of  favour  at  the  hands  of  the  Norman  were  eager  to  maintain 
resistance,  and  they  succeeded  in  persuading  the  Witan  at  London  to  elect 
young  Edgar  the  -^thehng  king.  But  neither  the  boy  himself  nor  any  one 
near  him  was  competent  to  organise  a  fresh  defence.  And  there  was 
another  section  who  had  already  despaired  of  offering  any  effective  re- 
sistance to  the  Conqueror,  and  were  resolved  to  try  and  make  their  peace 
with  him  at  any  price.  Sickness  prevented  the  Conqueror  and  his  army 
from  moving  at  once ;  but  the  delay  that  a  strong  man  might  have  used 
for  vigorous  reorganisation  only  gave  the  English  time  to  grow  more 
jealous  and  suspicious  of  each  other.  When  William  did  move  he  did  not 
march  straight  upon  London,  but  struck  across  the  Thames  at  Wallingford, 
thus  interposing  his  army  between  the  South  and  any  possible  succours 
from  the  North.      Edgar,  sundry  bishops,  the  Londoners,  and  all  the  leading 

i 


THE   NORMANS  51 

men  who  were  still  in  the  South,  came  in  and  made  submission,  offering 
William  the  crown,  which  was  duly  set  on  his  head  at  Westminster  on 
Christmas  Day. 

William  intended  to  reign  not  as  conqueror  but  as  lawfully  elected 
king,  though  he  had  to  satisfy  his  followers.  He  would  act  according  to 
law  himself  and  would  compel  his  followers  to  do  so  ;  but  that  did  not 
prevent  him  from  interpreting  the  law  as  best  suited  him.  And  it  suited 
him  to  claim  that  Wessex  and  East  Anglia  had  been  in  rebellion  against  him 
as  their  lawful  sovereign,  and  that 
there  was  merely  a  difference  of 
degree  between  those  who  had 
fought  against  him  in  arms  and 
those  who  had  failed  to  fight  for 
him.  Consequently  all  lands  in 
Wessex  and  East  Anglia  were  for- 
feited ;  the  less  "guilty"  of  the 
English  were  then  permitted  to  re- 
cover possession  at  a  price,  receiving 
their  lands  back  as  tenants  from  the 
king ;  but  most  of  the  land  was  not 
restored  to  the  English  proprietors, 
but  was  distributed  among  the  ad- 
venturers and  barons  in  William's 
train,  always  as  property  of  his  own 
granted  to  them  on  feudal  tenure. 
The  royal  estates  William  appropri- 
ated. Edwin  and  Morkere  and  Waltheof,  the  son  of  Siward  of  Northumbria, 
who  held  the  earldom  of  Huntingdon,  were  not  deprived  of  their  earldoms, 
but  were  kept  by  William  in  attendance  on  himself;  and  he  now  considered 
the  position  sufficiently  secure  to  warrant  his  withdrawal  to  Normandy, 
there  to  set  matters  in  order.  He  left  his  half-brother  Odo,  Bishop  of 
Bayeux,  in  charge  south  of  the  Thames,  and  William  Fitz-Osbern  in 
charge  of  the  country  north  of  the  Thames  up  to  the  Tees. 

But  the  Frenchmen,  as  William's  followers  were  inclusively  termed, 
behaved  after  the  fashion  of  the  time  as  masters  of  a  conquered  country  ; 
insurrection  flamed  up  in  the  West.  Within  the  year  William  was  back 
again.  Submission  was  prompt  when  William  marched  upon  Exeter,  but 
Northumbria  and  Mercia  chose  to  declare  for  the  ^theling.  Again 
William's  approach  was  met  by  submission.  He  bestowed  a  contemptuous 
pardon  on  Edwin  and  Morkere,  while  the  .^theling  took  flight  to  Malcolm 
Canmore  in  Scotland,  where  that  long-headed  ruler  gave  him  an  asylum, 
but  at  the  same  time  was  at  pains  to  secure  what  would  now  be  called  an 
entente  between  himself  and  the  Conqueror,  to  whom  it  is  also  possible  that 
he  rendered  some  very  indefinite  homage. 

But  as  soon  as  William's  back  was  turned  Northumbria  again  broke 


Great  seal  of  William  I. 


52  NATION    MAKING 

into  revolt  and  was  again  reduced  to  immediate  submission  by  the  rapidity 
with  which  WiUiam  reappeared  in  the  North.  Then  in  the  late  summer 
Sweyn  of  Denmark  took  his  turn  and  sent  a  great  mixed  fleet  to  the 
Humber,  whereupon    Northumbria  and  the  Fen  country  again    rose   and 


England  and  the  Lowlands  under  Normans  and  Plantagenets. 


cut  up  the  garrisons  which  William  had  left.  This  new  northern  insurrec- 
tion and  invasion  gave  the  signal  for  sporadic  insurrections  all  over  the 
country.  Again  William  sped  to  the  North,  drove  the  Danes  into  the  district 
of  Holderness,  where  he  could  not  attack  them  without  a  fleet,  and  then 
proceeded  to  lay  Yorkshire  desolate.  Twenty  years  afterwards,  if  the  case 
of  one  district  may  be  regarded  as  a  fair  sample,  three-fourths  of  the  York- 
sliire  villages  were  uninhabited,  and  the  remainder  Jiad  only  a  fraction  of 


THE    NORMANS  S2 

their  fonner  population.  In  the  winter — we  are  stih  in  the  year  1069 — 
William  ravaged  westwards  to  Chester  and  Shrewsbury,  and  in  the  mean- 
while the  Danes  came  out  of  Holderness  and  sacked  Peterborough,  after 
which  they  made  up  their  minds  that  there  was  no  hope  of  a  conquest 
and  took  their  departure. 

The  last  struggle  of  resistance  was  left  to  the  half  mythical  hero, 
Hereward  the  Wake,  who  formed  his  "  camp  of  refuge  "  at  Ely,  whence  he 
struck  right  and  left  at  the  Normans,  and  where  he  held  out  until  the  end 
of  1071.  The  traditions  con- 
cerning him  are  faithfully  em-  "^p^ 
bodied  in  Charles  Kingsley's 
novel  which  bears  his  name. 
The  conquest  may  be  said  to 
have  been  completed  in  1072, 
when  William  marched  into 
Scotland  and  again  obtained  a 
submission  from  Malcolm  Can- 
more,  whose  recent  marriage  to 
the  ^theling's  sister  Margaret 
was  a  somewhat  serious  menace 
to  the  peace  at  least  of  Nor- 
thumbria.  The  astute  Scot  dis- 
missed Edgar  himself  from 
Scotland,  at  the  same  time  counselling  him  to  make  his  peace  with  William 
and  become  his  man — advice  which  the  ^Etheling  subsequently  took  and 
never  had  reason  to  repent.  But  Malcolm  at  the  same  time  got  for  him- 
self a  grant  of  lands  in  England  for  which  he  did  homage ;  and  Scottish 
historians  have  always  claimed  that  whatever  homage  was  thenceforth 
rendered  by  a  king  of  Scots  to  the  English  king,  with  one  exception,  was 
rendered  not  for  the  Scottish  crown  but  for  those  lands  south  of  the  Tweed. 

The  long  series  of  insurrections  and  their  suppression  meant  the  exten- 
sion to  all  England  of  the  principles  which  had  been  adopted  in  Wessex. 


Normans  at  dinner. 

[From  the  Bayeux  Tapestry.] 


Frenchmen,  while  only  a  few  of  the  English  were  reinstated.  Confiscations 
did  not  apply  to  the  holdings  of  the  ceorls,  who  remained  in  occupation, 
holding  from  the  new  French  lord  or  the  reinstated  Saxon  lord  theoretically 
on  the  same  terms  as  before.  The  new  lords  were  not  permitted  to  build 
castles  at  large  ;  the  Norman  "  keeps  "  were  constructed  by  licence  of  the 
king.  The  effect  of  the  piecemeal  process  of  conquest  and  confiscation  was 
that  in  each  new  region  the  lands  were  distributed  among  a  number  of 
Frenchmen  ;  so  that,  although  one  man  might  be  lord  of  a  great  amount 
of  territory,  his  several  domains  were  scattered  up  and  down  the  country 
instead  of  forming  one  large  unit.  Single  estates  in  many  cases  corre- 
sponded to  shires  and  formed  earldoms  ;  but  no  earldom  was  great  enough 
to  give  the  earl  a  chance  of  standing  to  the  king  in  any  such  relation  as  the 


54  NATION    MAKING 

great  feudatories  of  France,  such  as  the  Duke  of  Normandy  himself,  bore  to 
the  French  king. 

The  fact  may  or  may  not  have  been  due  to  dehberate  pohcy  on  the  part 
of  the  Conqueror ;  it  is  quite  sufficiently  accounted  for  as  the  natural 
outcome  of  the  way  in  which  the  confiscations  were  carried  out ;  but  the 
practical  effect  was  to  secure  the  crown  against  the  absorption  of  excessive 
power  by  any  one  vassal.  The  position  of  the  crown  was  further  fortified 
by  its  right  of  control  over  the  marriages  of  vassals,  so  that  the  king  could 
prevent  a  dangerous  accumulation  of  estates  by  the  marriage  of  a  great 
baron  to  a  neighbouring  heiress.  The  earls  on  the  Welsh  and  Scottish 
marches  were  necessarily  granted  large  powers  because  those  regions  were 
open  to  attack  from  Scotch  and  Welsh  ;  but  they  would  have  had  to  act 
together  in  order  to  have  any  chance  of  resisting  the  Crown  ;  and  the  power 
of  every  earl  was  checked  by  the  power  of  the  sheriff  who,  though  fre- 
quently he  was  a  great  baron,  held  his  office  entirely  at  the  king's  pleasure. 

This  situation  was  not  altogether  pleasing  to  the  great  Norman  barons ; 
and  when  there  was  a  rising  in  1075  it  was  an  insurrection  not  of  the 
English  but  of  the  Norman  barons,  the  Earls  of  Hereford  and  Norfolk,  who 
inveigled  Waltheof  into  their  conspiracy.  Their  grievances,  as  might  have 
been  expected,  were  connected  with  the  prohibition  of  a  marriage  between 
the  two  families  and  the  interference  of  sheriffs  with  what  the  earls  regarded 
as  their  rights.  But  Waltheof  was  an  incompetent  conspirator  ;  his 
conscience  got  the  better  of  him,  and  he  revealed  the  plot  to  Lanfranc,  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  then  acting  as  justiciar  while  the  king  was 
abroad.  The  attempted  insurrection  collapsed,  the  English  shire  levies 
obeying  the  call  of  the  government ;  as  they  habitually  did  when  the  Crown 
appealed  to  them  against  the  barons,  who  were  their  immediate  oppressors. 
The  execution  of  Waltheof  removed  the  last  of  the  Saxon  earls,  since 
Edwin  and  Morkere  had  blotted  themselves  out  in  the  days  when  Hereward 
was  holding  his  camp  of  refuge  at  Ely  ;  and  there  was  no  other  attempt  on 
the  part  of  the  barons  to  set  William  al  defiance.  When  in  1082  the 
king's  half  brother,  Odo  of  Bayeux,  began  to  form  ambitious  projects  of  his 
own,  even  although  they  were  not  ostensibly  directed  against  the  king, 
William  threw  him  into  prison  and  no  one  ventured  to  espouse  the  cause  of 
the  bishop. 

Once  again  danger  threatened  the  realm  in  1086,  when  Knut  of  Den- 
mark, Sweyn's  successor,  designed  a  great  invasion.  The  assassination  of 
Knut  completely  exploded  the  project ;  but  the  danger  had  forced  unusual 
preparations  on  William,  who  gathered  a  great  folc-moot  at  Salisbury,  where 
all  the  landowners  were  required  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  king, 
whether  they  were  tenants-in-chief  holding  directly  from  him  or  held  land 
from  other  overlords.  The  principle  was  implied  that  allegiance  to  the 
king  overrides  allegiance  to  a  vassal  of  the  king. 

It  is  of  fundamental  importance  to  realise  that  in  theory  the  system  of 
the  government  of  England  was  continuous  and  was  not  changed  by  the 


THE   NORMANS  ^^ 

Norman  Conquest.  The  old  institutions  remained.  The  Wilan  and  the 
various  folc-moots  remained.  The  fyrd  remained.  The  ceorls  occupied 
the  land  on  the  same  tenure  as  before.  The  relations  of  the  Church  to  the 
Crown  and  the  Papacy  were  theoretically  unchanged.  But  it  is  no  less 
necessary  to  realise  that 
in  actual  practice  the 
changes  brought  about 
by  the  conquest  were 
enormous. 

At  the  root  of  these 
was  the  fact  that  the 
native  magnates  in 
Church  and  State  were 
entirely  displaced  by 
foreigners.  Nearly 
every  great  landowner 
or  ecclesiastic  was  a 
foreigner,  who  inter- 
preted his  position  and 
his  powers  in  accord- 
ance with  the  ideas  to 
w^hich  he  \vas  accus- 
tomed. They  were 
foreigners,  moreover, 
who  looked  upon  the 
English  as  a  conquered 
and  inferior  population  ; 
and  the  conquered  popu- 
lation had  no  practical 
means  of  redress,  what- 
ever brutalities  might  be 
inflicted  upon  them. 
Commonly  enough  they 
sought  redress  by  taking 
the  law  into  their  own 
hands,  thereby  bringing 
down  upon  themselves 
increased  brutality  at  the 
hands  of  the  lawless,  and  inviting  severity  at  the  hands  of  the  government 
and  of  those  officials  whose  business  it  was  to  enforce  the  law.  Hence 
arose  the  one  piece  of  legislation  which  formally  distinguished  between  Saxon 
and  Norman.  An  especially  heavy  penalty  was  imposed  for  the  slaying  of  a 
Norman  ;  and  if  the  slayer  were  not  discovered  the  hundred  was  liable  foi 
the  whole  fine.  A  hundred  years  later  Richard  P'itz-Neal  explained  in  his 
Dialogue    on    the   Exchequer   that   a    murdered    man   was  assumed    to    be    a 


Arches  in  the  nave  of  St.  Alban's  Abbey  Church. 
[Built  by  Abbot  Paul  between  1077  and  1093.] 


56  NATION    MAKING 

Norman  unless  proof  was  forthcoming  that  he  was  not;  and  by  that  time 
the  presumption  was  that  any  one  outside  the  class  of  villeins  had  some 
Norman  blood  in  his  veins,  because  inter-marriage  had  become  the  general 
practice,  and  the  two  races  outside  the  villein  class  were  indistinguishable. 
But  at  the  outset  the  effect  must  have  been  to  intensify  the  sense  of  race 
antagonism. 

Otherwise  the  legislative  mnovation  felt  most  grievously  by  the  English 
was  the  Forest  Law,  which  introduced  unheard-of  penalties,  especially  that 
of  blinding  for  the  slaying  of  deer.  William  "  loved  the  tall  deer  as  he  had 
been  their  father."  Great  tracts,  notably  the  New  Forest,  were  converted 
into  game  preserves,  and  villages  and  churches  were  desolated  if  they  fell 
within  the  regions  appropriated  by  the  Crown  to  hunting.  Domesday 
Book  shows  clearly  enough  that  the  actual  desolation  was  much  less  than 
later  tradition  made  it  out  to  have  been  ;  the  real  popular  grievance  was 
that  hunting  was  forbidden  where  before  it  had  been  free,  and  poaching 
was  savagely  penalised.  It  is  rather  curious  to  observe  by  the  way  that 
William  all  but  abolished  tlie  death  penalty,  though,  on  the  other  hand,  a 
repulsive  system  of  mutilation  was  substituted  for  it. 

The  last  flame  of  the  English  resistance  to  the  Conqueror  was  stamped 
out  five  years  after  he  seized  the  throne.  No  long  time  elapsed  before  the 
insurrection  of  Roger  Fitz-Osbern  of  Hereford  and  Ralph  Guader  of  Norfolk 
— the  latter  apparently  of  mixed  English  and  Breton  descent,  though  he 
fought  on  William's  side  at  Hastings — taught  the  barons  once  for  all  the 
futility  of  defying  King  William,  the  more  emphatically  because  his  own 
presence  was  not  required  for  their  suppression.  Administration  during 
his  absence  was  largely  in  the  hands  of  Archbishop  Lanfranc,  for  William 
himself  was  frequently  occupied  in  Normandy,  owing  partly  to  dissensions 
with  his  eldest  son  Robert  and  with  his  nominal  suzerain,  the  king  of 
France. 

It  was  while  engaged  in  a  war  in  Maine  that  the  Conquerer  met  his 
death  from  internal  injuries  caused  by  the  stumble  of  his  horse.  Normandy 
he  left  to  Robert  with  whom  he  had  become  reconciled.  To  the  English 
succession  he  commended  his  second  son  William.  To  the  third  son 
Henry,  the  only  one  born  after  his  accession  in  England,  he  left  only  five 
thousand  pounds,  in  the  confident  conviction  that  he  could  take  very 
good  care  of  himself.  "  A  very  wise  man  was  King  W^illiam,"  says  the  con- 
temporary English  chronicler,  "and  very  mighty  ;  of  a  power  and  dignity 
greater  than  any  that  went  before  him.  Mild  he  was  to  the  good  men  who 
loved  God,  and  beyond  measure  harsh  to  the  men  who  gainsaid  his  will. 
Thrice  every  year  he  wore  his  crown  as  often  as  he  was  in  England  ;  and 
then  were  with  him  all  the  great  men  all  over  England,  archbishops  and 
bishops,  abbots  and  earls,  thegns  and  knights.  Also  he  was  a  very  stark 
man  and  cruel,  so  that  none  durst  do  anything  against  his  will.  Nc)t  to  be 
forgotten  is  the  good  peace  that  he  made  in  this  land  ;  so  that  a  man  who 
in  himself  was  aught  might  go  over  his  realm  with  his  bosom  full  of  gold 


THE    NORMANS  ^^ 

unhurt.  Nor  durst  any  rnan  slay  another,  had  he  done  ever  so  great  evil 
to  the  other.  Surely  in  his  time  men  had  great  hardships  and  many 
injuries.  Castles  he  caused  to  be  made  and  poor  men  to  be  greatly 
oppressed.  He  fell  into  covetousness  and  altogether  loved  greediness.  The 
great  men  bewailed  and  the  poor  men  murmured  thereat;  but  so  stark  was 
he  that  he  recked  not  of  the  hatred  of  them  all ;  but  they  must  wholly 
follov/  the  king's  will  if  they  would  live  or  have  land  or  property  or  even 
his  peace." 

II 

WILLIAM   AND    THE    CHURCH 

When  the  Duke  of  Normandy  claimed  the  crown  of  England  he 
obtained  the  papal  blessing  for  his  enterprise  from  Pope  Alexander  II., 
under  the  guiding  influence  of  Hildebrand,  who  himself  succeeded  to  the 
papacy  as  Gregory  VII.  in  1073.  Hildebrand  was  the  incarnation  of  that 
papal  policy  which  claimed  for  the  Vicar  of  Christ  a  supremacy  over  all 
temporal  rulers  ;  for  the  voice  of  Christ's  Church  an  authority  to  which 
all  merely  temporal  authority  must  submit ;  and  for  the  whole  clerical 
order,  Christ's  ordained  ministers,  a  position  independent  of  the  secular 
state  and  separated  from  its  jurisdiction.  The  remoteness  of  England  had 
at  all  times  kept  the  clergy  of  England  from  feeling  themselves  practically 
amenable  to  the  discipline  of  Rome  ;  and  the  Conqueror  secured  the  papal 
favour  partly  because  it  was  certain  that  the  insular  separateness  of  the 
Church  of  England  would  be  broken  down  by  the  infusion  of  a  large 
Latin  element,  and  by  the  introduction  in  high  places  of  French  and  Italian 
clergy  bred  within  the  sphere  of  the  Roman  influence. 

This  was  one  practical  effect  of  the  Conquest.  Vacant  bishoprics  and 
abbacies  were  filled  up  with  the  foreign  clergy,  who  enforced  the  stricter 
discipline  on  which  Hildebrand  and  the  whole  of  his  school  insisted.  The 
uncanonical  Archbishop  Stigand  was  deposed  from  the  see  of  Canterbury, 
and  the  reorganisation  of  the  Church  was  entrusted  to  his  successor, 
Lanfranc  of  Pavia,  whom  William  had  made  abbot  of  Caen  eight  years 
before.  William  and  Lanfranc  understood  each  other  thoroughly ;  and 
neither  the  king  nor  the  archbishop  had  the  slightest  intention  of  sur- 
rendering to  Rome  a  jot  of  their  own  authority  in  England.  Whatever 
Hildebrand  may  have  expected,  the  papal  demand  that  William  should 
acknowledge  himself  as  holding  England  as  a  fief  of  Rome  met  with 
courteous  but  unqualified  rejection.  William  would  admit  of  no  question 
that  the  king  was  supreme  in  his  own  dominion,  and  that  no  man,  lay 
or  clerical,  should  appeal  against  his  authority  to  any  other  authority 
whatever.  Such  duty  as  his  predecessors  on  the  English  throne  owed 
to  the  Pope  he  too  would  pay,  but  nothing  more. 

Gregory  launched  thunderbolts  against  every  one  who  should  be  con- 


58 


NATION    MAKING 


cerned  in  what  was  called  Lay  Investiture,  a  subject  which  continued  to  be 
a  burning  question  until  well  into  the  twelfth  century ;  but  William  was 
supported  by  Lanfranc  in  maintaining  the  right  of  the  king  of  England 
to  control  important  ecclesiastical  appointments.  Gregory  insisted  on  the 
celibacy  of  the  clergy,  secular  as  well  as  monastic.     But  whereas  all  monks 

were  under  an  express  vow 
of  celibacy,  the  clergy  outside 
the  ''regulars"  or  monastic 
orders  w^ere  under  no  such 
vow,  and  their  marriage  was 
merely  forbidden  as  a  matter 
of  discipline.  Hence  the 
prohibition  had  been  very 
commonly  disregarded. 
Therefore,in  spiteof  Gregory, 
all  marriages  already  con- 
tracted by  the  clergy  were 
in  England  recognised  as 
valid,  though  no  marriages 
contracted  after  the  papal 
decree  were  to  be  recognised. 
One  substantial  change,  how- 
ever, was  made  by  William 
and  Lanfranc,  in  the  complete 
separation  of  the  ecclesiastical 
from  the  secular  courts  of 
justice,  probably  in  1076  ; 
and  in  the  same  w-ay  some- 
what earlier  was  instituted 
the  practice  that  the  clergy 
assembled  at  the  Great 
Council  should  deliberate 
apart  for  the  framing  of 
ecclesiastical  legislation.  In 
other  words,  the  principle  of 
differentiation  between  clergy 
and  laity,  of  emphasising  the 
distinction  between  them,  which  was  an  essential  part  of  Hildebrand's 
policy,  was  accepted  and  acted  upon  by  William  and  Lanfranc  without 
setting  Church  and  State  in  antagonism,  but  with  the  effect  in  later  years 
of  bringing  whatever  antagonism  there  was  between  Church  and  State  into 
more  marked  relief. 


An  aulc  in  the  Chapel  of  St.  John,  Tower  of  London. 
[Built  by  William  the  Conqueror.] 


THE   NORMANS  59 

III 

ENGLAND   AND   THE   CONQUEST 

In  point  of  law  the  Norman  conquest  was  supposed  to  have  made  no 
change  in  the  government  of  England.  The  old  institutions  remained  in  force. 
The  king  ruled,  taking  counsel  with  his  Witan.  The  freemen  still  assembled 
in  the  shire-moot  and  the  hundred-moot  for  the  conduct  of  local  affairs. 
The  ealdorman  of  early  days,  the  earl,  by  his  Latin  title  the  comes,  was  still  the 
chief  man  of  his  earldom,  which  was  again  reduced  to  the  proportions  of  a 
shire.  The  king's  financial  officer,  shire-reeve,  or  sheriff  was  still  the  Crown's 
principal  agent  in  the  shire,  discharging  also  certain  administrative  functions 
which  justified  his  Latin  title  of  vice-comes.  The  Crown  still  descended  by 
election  of  the  Witan  from  among  the  royal  family,  though  it  was  a  new 
dynasty  which  occupied  that  position,  since  throughout  the  eleventh  century 
the^  exclusive  title  of  the  house  of  Wessex  had  been  persistently  ignored. 
Still  as  of  old  the  freeman  was  bound  at  the  summons  of  the  sheriff  to 
attend  the  gathering  of  the  fyrd  in  arms,  and  still  the  thegn,  the  holder  of 
comparatively  extensive  lands,  was  bound  to  bring  to  the  fi-eld  a  following 
in  due  proportion.  Still,  as  before,  the  soil  was  tilled  on  the  Open  Field 
System  mainly  by  occupiers  bound  to  render  some  sort  of  agricultural 
service  to  a  large  landholder  to  whose  demesne  or  private  holding  their  hold- 
ings were  in  some  sort  attached  ;  and  still  for  a  time  most  of  these  occupiers 
were  politically  free  men,  though  they  did  not  hold  their  land  by  a  free 
tenure. 

But  in  substance  a  very  great  change  had  been  effected,  which  is  illus- 
trated by  the  character  of  the  Witan.  We  have  seen  that  under  the  Saxon 
kings  tne  name  of  the  Witan  appears  to  have  been  applied  both  to  a  sort  of 
inner  council  consisting  of  the  chief  officers  of  the  realm,  lay  and  ecclesi- 
astical, together  with  some  other  persons  called  in  by  the  king;  and  also 
to  a  general  assembly,  the  relic  of  the  old  tribal  or  national  assembly,  at 
which  all  freemen  were  entitled  to  appear,  although  very  few  thought  it 
worth  while  to  do  so.  It  appears,  though  it  is  by  no  means  clear,  that  this 
double  character  of  the  Witan  was  reproduced  in  two  forms  of  council — the 
magmiui  conciliumy  great  council  or  council  of  magnates,  and  the  commune 
concilium,  or  general  assembly  of  tenants-in-chief,  a  term  which  we  shall  exa- 
mine later.  But  in  less  than  ten  years  after  the  battle  of  Hastings  practically 
every  one  of  the  magnates  was  a  Norman,  not  an  Englishman,  interested  in 
strengthening  his  own  class  against  the  hostility  of  the  natives  ;  and  the  same 
principle  applied  to  the  assembly  of  the  tenants-in-chief,  although  these  in- 
cluded a  proportion  of  English.  The  magnum  concilium  was  summoned  for 
general  purposes  of  deliberation,  while  the  commune  concilium  was  called 
together  only  when  it  was  desirable  that  a  particular  operation  or  a  parti- 


6o  NATION    MAKING 

cular  policy  should  be  ratified  ostensibly  by  the  nation.      Such  an  occasion 
was  the  moot  of  Salisbury  in  1086. 

Now,  not  only  were  the  old  native  magnates  replaced  by  magnates  who 
were  foreigners,  brought  up  in  different  traditions  and  wholly  out  of  sympathy 
with  the  native  population,  but  the  actual  powers  of  the  magnates  were 
greatly  extended.  Under  the  new  system  they  exercised  a  much  larger 
personal  jurisdiction  than  before.  How  far  this  was  conscious  innovation, 
the  deliberate  introduction  of  Norman  practices,  and  how  far  it  was  an  un- 
conscious interpretation  of  English  customs 
in  the  light  of  Norman  practices,  it  is  im- 
possible to  say  with  certainty.  In  practice 
it  is  probable  that  the  official  presidents 
of  the  folc-moots  of  the  hundred  and  the 
shire  had  exercised  an  authority  which 
could  without  any  great  difficulty  be  trans- 
lated into  an  independent  jurisdiction  ;  but 
the  actual  result  now  was  that  a  vast  amount 
of  actual  jurisdiction  was  transferred  from 
the  folc-moots  to  the  local  magnates,  the 
A  Noni.an  bed.  lords   of    the    manor,   who,    in    the    great 

majority  of  cases,  were  Normans.  The 
law  previously  referred  to  concerning  the  murder  of  Normans  shows 
how  the  conquering  race,  a  handful  planted  among  a  hostile  population,  felt 
it  necessary  to  make  special  regulations  for  their  own  protection,  and  it  is 
natural  that  they  should  have  found  means  to  evade  the  jurisdiction  of 
native  popular  tribunals,  more  or  less  as  the  British  in  India  insist  on  a 
similar  security  for  themselves.  But  consciously  or  unconsciously  the 
innovation  was  enormous,  while  it  pretended  to  be  at  the  most  an  adap- 
tation of  the  existing  system. 

It  used  to  be  assumed  as  a  commonplace  of  history  that  the  Normans 
introduced  feudalism  into  England.  At  last  there  came  a  reaction,  and  we 
were  taught  that  feudalism  in  England  was  already  so  far  advanced  that  the 
Normans  merely  gave  a  slight  extra  impetus  to  its  complete  development. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  advocates  of  these  contradictory  doctrines  did  not 
mean  quite  the  same  thing  by  feudalism,  or  at  least  they  concentrated 
their  attention  on  different  aspects  of  it.  The  basis  of  feudalism  was  the 
doctrine  that  the  whole  land  was  the  property  of  the  king  and  that  the  indi- 
vidual landowner  was  not  in  the  full  sense  an  owner,  but  held  his  land  as 
a  tenant  of  the  king,  by  the  grant  of  the  king,  on  recognised  conditions  of 
military  service.  Where  this  had  not  been  the  case  originally,  when  the 
landowner  had  been  there  before  the  king,  before  the  land  had  formed  apart 
of  the  king's  dominion,  the  same  position  had  been  arrived  at  by  the  process 
of  Connnendation  ;  that  is,  the  landowner  had  done  homage  to  the  king  and 
become  the  king's  man,  himself  surrendering  his  land  to  the  king  and  then 
receiving  it  back  on    condition   of  military    service.     In   either    case    the 


{ 


Tending  the  sheep. 


m  A 


Cutting  timber. 


Cutting  grass  for  hay. 


Throwing  the  hawk. 

Scenes  in  English  out-door  life  in  the  iilh  century. 

[From  a  Saxon  Calendar  in  the  Tiriilsh  Museum.] 

6i 


62  NATION    MAKING 

practical  result  was  the  same.  Every  inch  of  the  land  within  the  king's 
dominion  was  the  king's  property,  and  was  held  from  him  by  the  landowner 
as  his  vassal  on  the  recognised  conditions  of  military  service,  carrying  with 
them  corresponding  obligations  on  the  king  of  protecting  his  vassal. 

The  same  thing  applied  to  the  minor  landholder  who  had  either  received 
his  land  by  a  grant  from  the  greater  landowner  originally  or  had  become 
his  vassal  by  commendation.  Finally,  the  small  occupiers  held  their  land 
not  on  conditions  of  military  service,  but  of  agricultural  service  or  some 
equivalent,  still  with  the  corresponding  obligation  of  protection  ;  either  by 
grants  from  the  owner,  or  by  commendation.  Thus  every  inch  of  the  soil 
was  held  on  condition  of  military  or  other  service  either  by  a  vassal  of  the 
king  or  a  vassal's  vassal,  except  what  v^^as  retained  by  the  king  as  his  own 
estate. 

Now,  after  the  Norman  conquest  all  this  was  literally  true  in  England. 
The  king  had  assumed  the  ownership  of  the  entire  soil.  He  assumed  that 
it  was  forfeited  to  him  by  rebellion  ;  and  whether  he  distributed  it  among 
his  Norman  followers  or  graciously  reinstated  the  English  occupiers,  it  was 
on  condition  of  homage  and  under  feudal  tenure.  But  before  the  con- 
quest it  had  not  been  true.  There  was  no  theory  that  all  the  land  was  the 
king's  land  and  had  been  granted  by  him  on  conditions  of  military  tenure. 
Under  the  feudal  system  when  the  king  wanted  an  army  to  take  the  field 
he  summoned  his  vassals  to  attend  his  standard  in  accordance  with  their 
feudal  obligation.  Under  the  Saxon  system  he  summoned  the  freemen  of 
the  shire  to  attend  the  fyrd.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  process  of  com- 
mendation had  long  been  active.  Although  the  larger  landholders  did  not 
hold  from  the  king  theoretically,  except  where  the  king  had  granted  part  of 
his  estates  as  bocland,  the  small  occupier  habitually  became  the  man  of 
some  bigger  man  than  himself,  rendering  him  service  in  order  to  enjoy  his 
protection.  But  the  theory  that  the  whole  of  the  land  was  the  king's  land 
held  by  the  landowner  as  his  vassal  on  feudal  tenure  did  not  as  a  legal 
theory  exist  before  the  conquest. 

Of  this  there  is  one  consequence  of  great  importance.  When  the  Norman 
wanted  an  army  in  the  field  he  could  raise  one  by  summoning  the  feudal 
levies.  But  he  could  also  attain  his  purpose  by  summoning  the  fyrd  of  the 
shires,  and  calling  the  freemen  to  arms  without  the  peculiar  limitations  on 
the  terms  of  service  recognised  under  the  law  of  feudal  tenure,  of  which  the 
elaborate  details  had  hitherto  been  practically  unknown  in  England. 

If  the  feudalism  introduced  by  the  Norman  conquest  was  something 
exceedingly  different  from  feudalism  so  far  as  it  had  already  developed  in 
England,  it  differed  also  from  the  feudalism  of  the  continent  in  a  manner 
which  had  very  important  political  results.  On  the  continent  a  king's 
personal  vassals  or  feudatories  were  few  ;  each  of  them  had  an  estate  which 
might  be  called  a  province.  The  province  was  parcelled  out  among  the 
vassals  of  the  feudatory  and  his  vassal's  vassals  ;  and  in  each  case  the 
vassal   did  homage  and  owed  allegiance  to  his  own    immediate  overlord, 


THE    NORMANS  63 

but  not  necessarily  to  his  overlord's  overlord  ;  therefore  the  feudatory  who 
defied  his  overlord  or  "  suzerain  "  could  take  the  field  with  an  army  of  his 
own  vassals,  who  were  sworn  to  serve  him  even  against  his  suzerain.  But 
in  England,  as  we  have  seen,  the  country  was  not  parcelled  out  into  a  few 
great  provinces  but  into  many  comparatively  small  earldoms  and  lesser 
estates  ;  and,  further,  the  smaller  landowners  for  the  most  part  held  direct 
from  the  king.  They  were  tenants-in-chief,  i.e.  with  no  overlord  intervening 
between  them  and  the  king  himself.  The  result  was  that  there  was  no 
feudatory  who  could  bring  a  large  army  of  his  own  into  the  field  under 
any  circumstances  ;  and  beyond  this,  from  the  Moot  of  Salisbury  onward 
the  king  always  required  that  his  vassal's  vassals  should  pay  direct  homage 
to  him  as  well  as  to  his  overlord,  the  obligation  to  him  overriding  that 
to  the  immediate  overlord. 

Thus  on  the  continent  the  moral  responsibility  for  rebeUion  lay  upon 
the  great  feudatory  himself  alone  ;  the  oath  of  his  vassals  required  them  to 
follow  him.  But  in  England  the  moral  responsibility  rested  on  each  indi- 
vidual ;  his  oath  bound  him  to  the  king's  service  in  priority  to  that  of  his 
overlord.  The  moral  justification  on  the  continent  for  the  individual  was 
that  he  had  obeyed  his  overlord's  summons  as  in  duty  bound ;  the  only 
possible  justification  for  the  individual  in  England  was  that  the  king  had 
forfeited  his  allegiance  by  breaking  the  feudal  compact  on  his  own  side  ; 
whether  negatively  by  failure  to  do  right  by  his  vassal  or  positively  by 
making  illegal  demands  upon  him.  Hence  the  central  government  in  Eng- 
land was  at  all  times  very  much  stronger  than  in  the  continental  states. 

Both  before  and  after  the  Norman  conquest  the  king  was  expected  under 
ordinary  circumstances  to  live  "  of  his  own  "  ;  that  is  to  say,  to  pay  all  the 
expenses  of  government  as  well  as  what  we  should  call  his  personal  expenses 
out  of  his  own  regular  revenues.  Those  revenues  were  drawn  partly  from 
his  personal  estates.  These  estates  were  always  being  reduced  by  grants 
to  individuals,  by  way  of  reward,  or  to  the  Church.  On  the  other  hand, 
they  were  increased  by  forfeitures  when  a  vassal  indulged  in  open  treason 
or  persisently  refused  to  carry  out  his  feudal  obligations.  Also  they  were 
increased  by  ''escheat"  ;  that  is,  w^hen  a  vassal  died  leaving  no  heir  with 
a  legal  claim  to  inherit,  his  estates  reverted  to  the  Crown.  The  next  source 
of  royal  revenue  was  in  the  fees  or  dues  payable  by  vassals  upon  various 
occasions.  Thus,  when  death  caused  an  estate  to  change  hands  the  heir 
had  to  pay  fees  to  his  overlord  upon  taking  up  his  inheritance  ;  and  there 
were  further  dues  payable  while  the  heir  was  a  minor  and  in  connection 
with  the  marriage  of  heiresses.  These  were  always  payable  by  the  vassal 
to  his  overlord,  and,  consequently,  to  the  king  in  connection  with  the  estate 
of  every  tenant-in-chief.  The  terms  tenant-in-chief  and  baron  appear  prim- 
arily to  have  been  practically  interchangeable  ;  and  in  this  wide  sense  of  the 
term  baron  the  old  thegnhood  was  in  effect  absorbed,  since  the  thegns 
or  those  who  took  their  places  and  lands  were  all  tenants-in-chief,  holding 
from  the  king.     Finally,  as  regular  revenue,  the  Crown  claimed  judicial 


64  NATION    MAKING 

fines  and  various  local  dues  in  the  shape  of  tolls,  the  price  paid  for 
local  privileges. 

But  beyond  these  the  Crown  had  a  special  claim  to  what  was  in  theory 
a  war  tax,  the  tax  on  land  called  the  danegeld.  This  was  the  name  origin- 
ally given  to  the  tax  which  ^thelred  raised  by  the  advice  of  his  Witan  in 
order  to  pay  his  ever-increasing  ransoms  to  the  Danes.  As  ransom  it  was 
raised  for  the  last  time  by  Knut  in  his  first  year,  when  he  doubled  the 
greatest  of  the  previous  exactions  and  finally  paid  off  the  Danish  host. 
But  from  that  time  the  danegeld  was  levied  by  the  kings,  nominally  as  a 
war  tax  and  apparently  at  their  pleasure  ;  and  in  it  the  Conqueror  and  his 
son  William  II.  found  an  exceedingly  productive  source  of  revenue.  But 
however  mercilessly  the  Conqueror  might  exact  every  penny  which  could 
be  got  out  of  the  land,  he  wished  to  do  it  scientifically  and  with  an  even 
hand  ;  and  it  was  with  this  object  in  view  that  he  instituted  that  great 
survey  of  the  country  which  was  recorded  in  Domesday  Book  and  the  docu- 
ments connected  therewith  in  1086,  being  the  report  of  the  commission 
which  had  been  employed  upon  the  work  for  some  time  previously. 

Domesday  Book  was  compiled  with  the  object  of  ascertaining  precisely 
the  taxable  value  of  the  land  all  over  the  country.  It  does  not  include  the 
northern  counties,  partly  because  of  the  greater  difficulty  of  dealing  with 
those  wilder  regions,  and  partly  because  William  himself  had  so  harried 
them  that  their  taxable  value  was  of  very  little  account.  Having  this 
object  in  view,  it  took  account  of  everything  which  affected  either  taxable 
value  or  the  means  of  collecting  taxes.  Although,  unfortunately,  what  was 
perfectly  clear  to  contemporaries  is  not  always  equally  clear  to  later  ages, 
Domesday  Book  is  a  valuable  and  unique  authority  as  to  the  condition 
of  the  country,  in  spite  of  the  difficulties  of  interpretation. 

In  Domesday  we  first  come  across  a  very  important  and  very  contro- 
versial term,  the  manor.  In  actual  practice  the  manor  very  frequently 
corresponds  to  the  individual  settlement — few,  township,  ham,  or  village — 
which  was  the  unit  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  system,  a  unit  which  in  the 
Norman  terminology  becomes  the  vill  or  villa.  Hence  came  the  idea  long 
prevalent  that  the  manor  and  the  vill  were  originally  identical  ;  that  each 
vill  had  its  lord  of  the  manor  with  his  private  demesne,  while  the  rest  of 
the  soil  was  occupied  chiefly  by  the  villeins,  villani,  vill-people,  who  owed 
him  service.  But  this  is  not  the  actual  fact,  though  it  approximates  to  it. 
The  manor  is  not  necessarily  identical  with  a  vill  ;  it  may  extend  over 
many  vills.  The  vill  is  not  necessarily  identical  with  a  manor  ;  its  occupiers 
may  own  half-a-dozen  different  lords  or  no  lord  at  all.  The  manorial 
arrangement,  therefore,  cannot  have  been  part  of  the  original  settlement, 
but  was  a  subsequent  development  or  extension  of  what  was  at  first  only 
occasional  ;  when  the  free  ceorl  found  it  advisable  to  commend  himself 
to  some  lord,  even  then  the  ceorls  of  one  community  did  not  necessarily 
elect  to  commend  themselves  to  the  same  lord,  though  it  was  more  often 
convenient  to   do  so   than   otherwise.      Thus   we  find  quite  small   holdings 


THE 


as    "  held    for    a 


NORMANS 

lor "    without    havuii 


any    lord    of 


65 

the 


described 
manor. 

In  fact  it  would  appear  that  the  Domesday  manor  is  a  term  meaning  a 
taxable  unit.  The  lord  of  the  manor  is  responsible  for  the  taxes  of  all 
holdings  within  his  manor,  whether  it  forms  one  vill  or  many  vills  or  in- 
cludes holdings  in  several  vills.  The  man  who  holds  his  "  virgate "  or 
thirty  acres  without  a  lord  at  all  holds  it  "  for  a  manor  "  ;  while  the  men 
who  hold  of  a  lord  are  divided 
into  two  classes — the  freemen, 
liberi  homines,  and  "  socmen,"  who 
normally  pay  their  taxes  direct, 
but  for  whom  their  lord  is 
ultimately  responsible ;  and  the 
villeins,  bordars,  and  cottars 
whose  taxes  are  paid  by  the  lord 
himself.  To  these  last  are  to  be 
added  the  actual  scrvi  or  slaves. 
It  does  not  appear  that  at  this 
stage  there  was  any  political  dis- 
tinction between  these  two  classes; 
they  were  nearly  all  free  ceorls. 
Nor  is  there  any  definite  distinc- 
tion between  the  methods  of 
tenure.  In  both  classes  there 
are  men  who  pay  a  rent  in  kind 
but  render  no  agricultural  service, 
and  in  both  classes  there  are  men 
who  do  render  agricultural  ser- 
vice ;  though  there  are  compara- 
tively few  of  the  former  among 
the  villani  and  comparatively  few 
of  the  latter  among  the  socmen. 
It  is  further  to  be  observed  that  a    m    1   1       cm  .1 

An  ideal  plan  of  a  Norman  castle. 

socmen  and  freedom  from  agri- 
cultural service  were  much  commoner  in  the  districts  where  there 
was  a  substantial  Danish  population,  where  also  slaves  were  practically 
non-existent,  while  slaves  were  comparatively  numerous  on  the  Welsh 
marches.  But  it  is  also  easy  to  see  that  while  there  was  nothing  in 
itself  servile  in  the  payment  of  taxes  through  the  lord  any  more  than 
there  is  anything  servile  in  "  compounding "  for  rates  at  the  present 
day,  the  man  who  did  so  could  be  much  more  readily  reduced  to  a 
servile  condition  ;  and  consequently  a  hundred  years  later  we  find  that 
the  villein  has  degenerated  into  a  serf  bound  to  the  soil,  whereas  the 
socman  has  not.  Also  the  villein  has  come  to  be  more  and  more 
identified  with  the  man  who  has  to  submit  to  particularly  obnoxious  forms 

E 


66  NATION    MAKING 

of  service  from  which  the  socmen  and  the  successors  of  the  socmen  are 
free. 

Domesday,  then,  was  not  occupied  with  the  classification  of  the  occupiers 
of  the  soil  according  to  the  amount  of  freedom  which  they  possessed,  but 
with  the  taxable  value  of  their  holdings  and  with  the  question  who  was 
responsible  for  paying  the  taxes  ;  and  hence  we  derive  from  it  no  light  on 
the  amount  of  control  possessed  by  the  lord  of  the  manor  over  the  socmen 
or  villeins  on  his  estate.  What  we  do  have  recorded  is  the  nature  of  the 
service  or  rent  which  they  were  liable  to  render,  and  the  most  minute 
details  as  to  the  value  and  productive  uses  of  the  land. 

The  record  also  shows   that  during  the   first  year  after  the  conquest 


A  manor-house  of  the  nth  century. 

[From  a  Harleian  MS.,  British  Museum.] 

large  numbers  passed  out  of  the  class  of  socmen  into  the  class  of  villeins  ; 
although  at  a  later  stage  the  double  tendency  developed  to  commute 
services  for  rent,  and  to  treat  freedom  from  services  as  a  prima  facie  proof 
of  freedom  as  opposed  to  serfdom,  the  essential  feature  of  the  later 
serfdom  being  that  the  villein  was  bound  to  the  soil  and  could  not  leave 
his  holding  without  his  lord's  consent.  It  is  not,  however,  at  all  clear 
that  at  the  time  of  the  conquest  the  villein  was  in  this  sense  a  serf ; 
the  idea  of  serfdom  may  have  become  attached  to  villeinage  through  the 
interpretation  of  customs  ])y  Norman  lawyers  trained  in  the  theories  of 
Roman  law. 

Norman  castles  sprang  up  as  we  have  noted  all  over  the  country  ;  but 
we  must  not  imagine  that  the  ordinary  Norman  baron  habitually  lived 
in  one  of  those  stone  fortresses.     William's  followers  were  endowed  with 


THE    NORMANS 


67 


few  manors  or  with  many ;  the  baron  or  tenant-in-chief  who  got  one 
manor  hved  in  his  manor-house,  which  was  no  more  than  a  substantial 
farm-house  ;  if  he  had  more  than  one  manor  he  might  move  from  one 
manor-house  to  another,  or  he  might  fix  his  own  residence  in  one  or  two 
and  plant  his  bailiffs  in  others.  But  the  manor-houses  were  not  supple- 
mented by  castles  except  with  the  king's  leave,  and  with  the  intention  of 
making  them  serve  as  military  centres  for  holding  the  country  down. 


IV 


RUFUS 


Of  the  Conqueror's  sons,  Robert  the  eldest  was  a  valiant  soldier,  the 
only  man  of  his  time  who  got  the  better  of  the  old  Duke  in  single  combat. 
He  was  good-natured,  indolent,  and  irresolute.  The  Conqueror  held  him 
in  complete  9ontempt, 

THE    NORMAN    LINE 


William  /. ,  tlie  Conqueror,  1066. 

I 


Robert  of  Normandy. 

I 

William  le  Clito. 


William  II. 
Rufus,  1087. 


I 
Hairy  I. ,  1100. 


Adela,  m. 

Stephen  of 

Blois. 


William 
(drowned) 


Maud,  m. 
(i)  Emperor 

Henry. 
(2)  Geoffrey 

of  Anjou. 

Henry  II.,  Plantagenet, 
"54- 


Theobald 
of  Blois. 


I 

Stephen 

of  Boulogne 

II3S- 

I 

Eustace. 


Ifenry, 

Bishop  of 

Winchester. 


and  only  allowed  him 
the  succession  in  Nor- 
mandy because  he 
could  not  help  himself. 
Whereat  the  barons 
rejoiced,  since  they 
knew  that  Duke  Robert 
was  wholly  incapable 
of  controlling  them. 
Richard,  the  most  pro- 
mising of  the  family, 
died  before  his  father, 
who    commended    the 

third  son  William  the  Red  to  the  English  succession,  William  Rufus 
was  as  fiercely  energetic  as  his  father,  a  typical  headstrong,  self-willed, 
fighting  man,  who  regarded  not  man  nor  feared  God  except  when  the 
terror  of  death  came  upon  him.  His  energy  took  him  in  fits,  and  while 
the  fit  was  on  him  he  pursued  his  immediate  purpose  with  vigour 
and  determination  ;  but  he  lacked  his  father's  dogged  patience ;  and 
while  he  was  capable  of  forming  vast  designs,  he  was  not  capable  of 
planning  them  out  and  developing  them  systematically.  And  between 
the  fits  of  energy  he  surrendered  himself  entirely  to  the  pursuit  of  pleasure 
and  the  gratification  of  his  passions  ;  while  his  sole  virtue  besides  physical 
courage  was  his  appreciation  of  courage  in  others. 

Such  was  the  man  whom  William  I.  commended  to  Lanfranc  and 
Lanfranc  commended  to  the  magnates  of  England  as  his  successor.  William 
hurried  over  from  Normandy  while  his  elder  brother  was  far  away.  On 
his  promise  to  be  guided  by  Lanfranc  he  was  immediately  accepted  as  king. 


68  NATION    MAKING 

Within  six  months  came  the  first  revolt  in  favour  of  Robert,  A  large 
proportion  of  the  barons  of  England  were  barons  of  Normandy  also, 
whom  it  suited  much  better  to  owe  allegiance  only  to  the  incompetent 
Robert  than  to  owe  it  to  Robert  for  their  Norman  possessions  and  to  the 
fierce  Red  King  for  their  lands  in  England.  William  promptly  appealed 
to  his  English  subjects,  who  joyfully  answered  the  summons  to  the  fyrd 
and  the  chance  of  striking  a  blow  against  their  oppressors;  while  William 
made  them  large  promises  of  good  government.     The  revolt  was  crushed 

and  the  promises  were  cynically 

S^--::::;;;^  ignored.      Lanfranc    died,     and 

^x-^    ^^^^^ ~-C^>^^  William  took  for  his  chief  coun- 

y/'\y^^C^ C^<i^^^r^^^^  sellor  Ranulf  Flambard,  a  fit  in- 

^//ir^)        r.n  ^^/aV  strument  for  his  purposes. 

Ranulf's  primary  object  was 
to  enrich  the  king  and  himself 
more  or  less  under  cover  of  law, 
and  he  set  himself  to  systematic 
business  of  extortion  and  robbery. 
Fortunately  for  the  people  of 
England  the  extortionand  robbery 
were  directed  against  WiUiam's 
feudal  tenants  ;  that  is  to  say, 
Normans  rather  than  English, 
partly  because  there  was  more  to 
be  got  out  of  them,  and  partly 
because  it  was  more  necessary  for 
the  king  to  keep  them  under  his 
heel.  And  for  this  latter  reason 
also  William's  hand  fell  heavily 
upon  them  when  they  in  turn 
applied  robbery  and  extortion 
to  the  English  ;  it  suited  him  to  have  the  English  on  his  side.  But 
where  he  himself  or  his  own  chosen  companions  were  concerned  a  like 
protection  was  not  extended  to  the  people. 

In  one  of  its  aspects  the  story  of  the  reign  appears  to  be  a  mere  welter 
of  wars  and  compositions  with  Robert  of  Normandy,  and  of  conspiracies 
and  revolts  on  the  part  of  one  baronial  group  or  another,  ferociously 
stamped  out,  which  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  disentangle.  William  was 
an  able  soldier,  who  nearly  always  struck  swiftly  and  fiercely,  and  nearly 
always  with  success.  The  outstanding  fact  of  importance  was  that  the 
supremacy  of  the  Crown  was  in  every  case  triumphantly  asserted.  Perhaps 
the  episode  of  the  reign  most  characteristic  of  the  man  and  his  time  was 
that  which  concerns  tiie  relations  of  William  with  the  Church.  One  of 
Ranulf's  devices  for  obtaining  revenue  was  that  whenever  one  of  the  higher 
ecclesiastical   appointments  fell  vacant  it  was  allowed  to   remain  so,  and 


Seal  of  Archbishop  Anselm,  1093. 

[From  Ducarel,  "Anglo-Norman  Antiquities."] 


THE   NORMANS  69 

William  seized  the  revenues  for  himself  instead  of  putting  in  a  financial 
administrator  during  the  period  of  vacancy.  It  was  not  till  four  years 
after  the  death  of  Lanfranc  that  a  new  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  was 
appointed  ;  and  then  it  was  only  because  William  was  stricken  with  a  severe 
illness,  and  in  the  fear  of  death  endeavoured  to  square  his  account  with 
Heaven  by  naming  the  saintly  Anselm  of  Bee  for  the  archbishopric. 
When  William  recovered  he  returned  to  his  old  courses;  but  he  found 
that  Anselm's  apparent  meekness  cloaked  immovable  resolution  whensoever 
questions  of  right  and  wrong  were  involved.  He  was  not  in  the  least 
afraid  of  rebuking  the  king  to  his  face,  nor  could  he  be  terrorised  into 
submission  to  the  king's  will  when  the  king  required  him  to  do  what  he 
thought  wrong.  It  was  not  long  before  the  position  became  unendurable, 
when,  curiously  enough  at  first  sight,  the  bishops  took  the  king's  side  and 
the  barons  with  grim  unanimity  supported  the  Archbishop.  But  Anselm 
took  the  only  dignified  course  and  withdrew  from  the  country. 

Of  less  importance  to  England  than  to  Europe  was  the  beginning  in 
William's  reign  of  the  crusading  m.ovement.  The  recovery  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre  and  its  retention  under  Christian  dominion  for  two  hundred 
years  carried  off  to  the  East  occasionally  great  hosts  of  crusaders  and, 
besides  these  great  expeditions,  a  constant  stream  of  military  pilgrims. 
English  crusaders,  however,  belonged  chiefly  to  the  latter  group.  The  only 
crusade  which  takes  a  prominent  place  in  our  own  history  is  that  which 
took  Richard  I.  to  Palestine.  England  was  touched  only  by  the  fringe  of 
the  crusading  movement,  and  was  affected  by  the  first  crusade  only  because 
it  took  Duke  Robert  of  Normandy  away,  and  thereby  stopped  for  a  time 
the  quarrels  between  him  and  his  brother  in  England,  and  afterwards  enabled 
his  younger  brother  Henry  to  secure  the  English  throne  without  difficulty. 

The  years  when  Rufus  was  reigning  in  England  were  of  considerable 
importance  in  the  history  of  Scotland.  On  his  accession  Malcolm  Canmore 
was  still  reigning  in  the  northern  kingdom  with  his  English  Queen  Margaret 
at  his  side.  His  own  English  predilections  have  been  noted,  and  his  whole 
reign  was  marked  by  the  Anglicising  movement  and  the  transfer  of  the 
political  centre  of  gravity  from  the  Celtic  highlands  to  the  Teutonised 
lowlands;  a  change,  however,  which,  instead  of  tending  to  a  fusion  of 
the  English  and  Scottish  nations,  made  the  once  English  Bernicia,  or  so 
much  of  it  as  was  comprised  in  Lothian,  more  intensely  antagonistic  to 
the  southern  English  of  the  English  kingdom  than  had  been  the  Celts  of 
the  kingdoms  of  the  Scots  and  Picts.  The  Celts  of  the  highlands  retained 
for  the  Saxons,  the  "  Sassenachs,"  of  Scotland,  very  much  of  the  sentiment 
which  they  had  formerly  felt  towards  the  English,  and  resented  their 
political  supremacy  more  than  they  feared  an  English  domination.  Malcolm 
himself  had  no  friendly  feeling  for  the  Normans,  who  had  ousted  his  wife's 
family  from  the  English  throne  ;  and  he  found  various  excuses  for  raiding 
across  the  Tweed,  though,  when  either  William  I.  or  William  II.  marched 
against  him,  he  generally  succeeded  in  making  terms  satisfactory  to  himself. 


70  NATION    MAKING 

But  on  one  of  these  raids  he  was  killed,  in  the  fourth  year  of  the  Red  King's 
reign. 

Margaret  had  taken  care  that  Malcohn's  children  should  be  extremely 
English,  and  the  Scots,  jealous  of  southern  influence,  made  Malcolm's 
brother,  Donalbane,  king  instead  of  one  of  the  sons  of  Malcolm  and 
Margaret.  In  this  temporary  revolution  Donalbane  was  also  supported  by 
alliance  with  the  Norsemen,  by  whom  the  Hebrides  were  to  a  great  extent 
occupied,  and  with  the  king  of  Norway.  It  is  not  improbable  that  the 
ultimate  success  of  Donalbane  would  have  meant  the  partition  of  Scotland 
into  a  Celtic  and  a  Norwegian  kingdom,  with  further  results  which  offer 
ample  room  for  interesting  speculation.  But  after  sundry  vicissitudes 
Edgar,  one  of  Malcolm's  sons,  recovered  the  throne  of  Scotland  largely  by 
the  help  of  volunteers  from  England,  who  were  permitted  to  join  him  on 
condition  of  his  promising  allegiance  to  Rufus.  Norway  was  bought  off 
by  what  was  practically  the  cession  of  the  Hebrides.  Edgar  personally 
remained  loyal  to  his  pact  with  the  king  of  England,  though  his  successors 
did  not  hold  themselves  bound  by  it  ;  and  Malcolm's  house  was  permanently 
established  on  the  Scottish  throne. 

The  evil  days  of  William  Rufus  were  brought  to  a  sudden  conclusion. 
In  the  year  iioo,  before  Robert  of  Normandy  had  returned  from  the  first 
crusade,  William  went  a-hunting  in  the  New  Forest,  and  an  arrow  from  the 
bow  of  one  of  his  companions  killed  not  a  stag  but  the  king.  The  body 
was  left  lying  where  it  fell,  while  those  who  had  seen  the  accident  galloped 
off  with  the  tidings  to  Prince  Henry,  who  was  one  of  the  hunting  party, 
and  Henry,  without  a  moment's  delay,  made  straight  for  Winchester  to  secure 
the  royal  treasure,  and,  having  done  so,  to  secure  his  own  succession  to  the 
throne  of  England. 


THE    LION    OF   JUSTICE 

Henry  had  over  his  brother  Robert  the  practical  advantage  of  being  on 
the  spot.  He  claimed  a  prior  right  to  the  succession  on  the  ground  that 
he  was  born  on  English  soil,  son  of  the  king  of  England,  whereas  Robert 
was  born  a  foreigner  before  his  father  won  a  kingdom.  The  blood  of 
Alfred  ran  in  his  veins,  since  his  mother  Matilda  was  descended  from  that 
daughter  of  Alfred  who  married  Baldwin  II.  of  Flanders.  Robert's  advocates 
were  outnumbered  among  the  barons  and  clergy,  who  were  at  the  moment 
assembled  in  sufficient  numbers  to  claim  the  character  of  a  Witan  or 
National  Assembly.  The  absent  Robert  was  set  aside  ;  Henry  was  elected, 
and  proceeded  to  strengthen  his  position  by  issuing  a  charter  which  was 
accepted  in  all  good  faith,  wherein  he  promised  to  observe  "the  good  laws 
of  King  Edward"  as  modified  by  jiis  father,  and  to  abolish  the  innovations 
introduced   by   his    brother.     Another    popular    move    was    the    arrest    of 


«       o 


THE    NORMANS  71 

Raniilf  Flambard.  Moreover,  Henry  was  shrewd  enough  to  select  strong 
and  capable  advisers  and  at  once  to  recall  Anselm.  The  support  of  the 
English  population  was  made  certain  by  his  politic  marriage  with  Edith, 
otherwise  called  Matilda,  the  daughter  of  Malcolm  Canmore  and  of 
Margaret,  and  therefore  a  princess  of  the  royal  house  of  Wessex.  The 
prevailing  brutality  of  the  period  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  Edith  had 
apparently  actually  taken  the  veil  as  a  nun  as  the  only  way  of  protecting 
herself  from  some  more  cruel  fate.  Anselm  himself  had  no  qualms  in 
accepting  a  declaration  that  though  she  had  professedly  taken  the  veil 
she  had  not  technically  "  entered  religion." 

Henry  was  not  to  remain  in  possession  for  long  undisturbed.  In  iioi 
Robert  was  back  and  succeeded  in  effecting  a  landing  in  England.  The 
exceedingly  uncertain  attitude  of  the  baronage  made  the  issue  of  a  fight 
doubtful ;  but  Robert  was  contented  to  sell  his  claims  for  a  pension  and 
an  agreement  for  mutual  assistance  in  the  punishment  of  traitors.  Henry 
was  prompt  to  strike  one  after  another  at  the  great  barons  whose  loyalty 
was  dubious  or  more  than  dubious.  The  group  of  Montgomerie  brothers, 
headed  by  Robert  of  Belleme,  prepared  to  resist,  but  others  hesitated  to 
support  them  ;  the  English  gladly  answered  the  summons  to  the  fyrd,  and 
the  rebels  took  flight  to  Normandy.  During  the  next  few  years  Robert 
demonstrated  his  incapacity  for  restraining  the  plots  of  the  barons  who  had 
taken  refuge  in  his  dominions  ;  and  Henry  took  the  view  that  he  himself 
had  no  alternative  but  to  appropriate  the  control  of  Normandy  to  himself. 
The  result  was  a  campaign  in  Normandy  in  which  Robert  was  decisively 
defeated  and  taken  prisoner  at  the  battle  of  Tenchebrai,  a  victory  which  the 
English  foot  soldiery,  fighting  for  Henry,  regarded  as  compensation  for 
Hastings.  Robert  was  held  in  custody  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  though  the 
tradition  that  his  eyes  were  put  out  was  probably  a  fiction  of  later  date. 

But  troubles  were  not  ended,  because  Henry  did  not  detain  Robert's 
young  son  William,  called  the  Clito,  in  his  own  hands  ;  and  the  boy  was 
afterwards  made  the  figiu'ehead  for  rebellions  in  Normandy  and  Maine 
which  were  fostered  by  the  French  king.  The  total  result  of  the  conse- 
quent fighting  which  went  on  at  intervals  from  mi  to  1119  was  the 
recognition  of  Henry  as  Lord  of  Normandy,  Maine,  and  Brittany.  Henry's 
daughter  Matilda  or  Maud  was  wedded  to  the  German  emperor,  Henry  V., 
while  his  son  and  heir,  William,  was  betrothed  to  the  daughter  of  Fulk  of 
Anjou.  With  these  alliances  Henry's  power  threatened  to  become  over- 
whelming ;  but  his  designs  received  a  check  when  his  son  William  was 
drowned  at  sea  in  the  disaster  of  the  White  Ship.  The  Count  of  Anjou 
then  married  his  daughter  to  the  Clito,  who  had  been  restored  by  his 
cousin's  death  to  the  position  of  claimant  to  the  English  succession,  and 
now  found  new  support  for  his  immediate  claim  to  the  Duchy  of  Normandy. 
Henry's  arms,  however,  were  again  successful,  and  then  the  emperor  died. 
While  Matilda  was  the  emperor's  wife  there  would  have  been  no  chance  of  her 
succession  to  the  English  throne  ;  but  although  there  was  no  precedent  for  a 


72  NATION   MAKING 

queen  regnant  of  England,  Henry  now  succeeded  in  persuading  the  Great 
Council  to  do  homage  to  her  as  his  heir.  Those  who  took  the  oath  inchided 
her  uncle  David,  the  last  of  Malcolm  Canmore's  sons,  and  now  king  of 
Scotland,  and  also  Stephen  of  Boulogne,  son  of  the  Conqueror's  daughter 
Adela. 

Two  years  later  the  Empress  Maud,  as  she  is  generally  called,  was 
wedded  to  Geoffrey,  son  of  Fulk  of  Anjou  ;  and  the  offspring  of  this 
marriage,    Henry,  born  in  1133,  was  destined  to  establish  the  Plantagenet 

line  on  the  throne  of  Eng- 
land. The  marriage,  how- 
ever, was  unpopular,  smce 
Normandy  had  no  inclina- 
tion to  lind  itself  annexed 
as  a  province  of  Anjou,  and 
the  barons  of  England  were 
no  better  disposed.  Thus 
in  spite  of  the  death  of  the 
Clito,  and  the  renewal  by 
the  baronage  of  their  oath 
of  allegiance  to  Matilda, 
Henry  was  painfully  aware 


^^SN^^U^-U^ 


A  Norman  school  about  1 1 30-1 140, 


sion  might  be  disputed.  For 
there  were  two  grandsons  of 
the  Conqueror,  Stephen  of  Boulogne  and  his  elder  brother  Theobald  of 
Blois,  either  of  whom  might  put  in  a  claim,  although  Stephen  could  not 
do  so  without  breaking  the  oath  of  allegiance  which  he  had  already  taken. 

In  one  aspect  of  his  reign,  then,  a  vast  amount  of  Henry's  time  was 
taken  up  with  the  wars  and  the  diplomacy  which  first  established  him  on 
the  throne  of  England,  then  secured  his  grip  on  Normandy  and  Brittany, 
and  finally  was  intended  to  secure  the  English  succession  to  his  daughter. 
We  can  now  give  brief  attention  to  his  relations  with  the  Church.  One  of 
his  first  acts  was  the  recall  of  Anselm  with  whom  he  was  on  friendly  terms 
to  the  end  of  the  archbishop's  life.  Nevertheless  there  was  no  such  co- 
operation between  Anselm  and  the  king  as  there  had  been  between  Lanfranc 
and  the  Conqueror.  Though  Lanfranc  was  a  great  ecclesiastic,  he  had 
supported  William  in  his  determination  to  surrender  no  tittle  of  the  in- 
dependence hitherto  enjoyed  by  the  kings  of  England.  But  Anselm  owed 
allegiance  first  to  the  Pope.  In  the  last  years  of  the  Red  King  a  papal 
decree  had  claimed  new  authority,  and  that  claim  Anselm  felt  bound  to 
support  so  long  as  it  was  maintained  by  the  Pope  himself.  Henry,  however, 
was  as  definite  as  the  Conqueror  himself  in  his  refusal  to  surrender  rights 
which  the  Conqueror  had  claimed.  Ultimately  a  compromise  was  arrived 
at  which  practically  recognised  the  king's  power  of  making  ecclesiastical 
appointments,   and    required   the    higher    clergy   to    do    homage   for   their 


THE    NORMANS  73 

temporalities — in  other  words  their  estates- — hke  the  lay  baronage.  But 
Henry  surrendered  the  right  of  actually  investing  his  nominees  with  the 
insignia  of  their  spiritual  offtce.  For  the  rest,  the  king  was  as  firm  as  his 
predecessor  in  refusing  admission  of  papal  legates  or  papal  letters  to  the 
kingdom  without  his  leave  or  the  carrying  of  appeals  out  of  his  kingdom 
to  Rome. 

The  great  importance  of  Henry's  reign,  however,  lies  in  his  organisation 
of  the  system  of  government,  which  provided  the  foundations  upon  which 
Henry    U.  was  afterwards  to 

build.       Henry  was   perhaps  oc^^w^ocacix^o 

not  a  genius,  certainly  no 
idealist  and  no  hero  ;  but  he 
was  shrewd,  far-sighted,  deter- 
mined, and  in  things  political 
master  of  himself.  Two 
underlying  principles  may  be 
observed  in  his  policy — the 
disintegration  of  the  forces 
adverse  to  the  power  of  the 
Crown,  and  the  consolidation 
of  the  forces  making  for  the 
power    of    the    Crown.       Externally 


An  organ  about  the  middle  of  the  1 2th  century. 


that  power  was  threatened  first  by 
rebellion  which  made  Normandy  its  base,  and  secondly  by  the  pretensions 
of  the  papacy.  How  he  dealt  with  these  dangers  we  have  seen.  Internally 
the  danger  arose  from  the  power  of  the  barons.  Here  he  was  helped  by 
the  extensive  opportunities  for  confiscation  which  followed  on  the  various 
rebellions.  The  greater  estates  the  king  retained  in  his  own  hand,  while 
the  lesser  he  distributed  so  as  to  avoid  a  material  increase  in  the  power  of 
those  who  were  already  strong.  Further,  he  used  his  rights  as  suzerain  to 
divide  inheritances  which  fell  vacant  among  the  sons,  so  as  to  separate  the 
holders  of  fiefs  in  Normandy  and  fiefs  in  England,  and  generally  to  prevent 
the  accumulation  of  great  estates  in  the  hands  of  single  feudatories.  In  all 
this  he  simply  applied  the  precedents  set  by  his  father. 

For  strengthening  the  Crown  the  method  upon  which  Rufus  had  relied 
was  the  merciless  application  of  sheer  brute  force.  Henry's  method  was 
the  resolute  administration  of  the  law  without  fear  or  favour,  unless  it  were 
fear  of  and  favour  to  the  king  by  ministers  dependent  on  the  Crown.  And 
even  here  there  was  no  encouragement  to  wrest  the  law  in  the  king's  favour, 
though  he  might  and  did  exact  his  legal  rights  to  the  uttermost  farthing. 
It  does  not  appear  that  Henry  was  moved  by  any  strong  desire  to  strengthen 
the  courts  of  the  shire  and  the  hundred  as  against  the  extensive  jurisdiction 
which  had  already  been  appropriated  by  the  landowners.  All  that  he  did 
in  this  direction  was  to  check  the  process  under  which  all  their  functions 
were  gradually  departing  from  them,  by  requiring  that  they  should  meet  at 
regular  intervals.     Of  great  importance,  however,  was  the  development  of 


74  NATION    MAKING 

the  practice  of  sending  supervising  justices  on  occasional  visits  to  different 
parts  of  the  country,  who  took  in  charge  the  trial  of  the  more  important 
cases,  and  uniformly  applied  the  law  in  the  shire  courts  as  it  was  recognised 
in  the  king's  own  court,  the  Curia  Regis.  Their  registered  judgments  were 
established  as  precedents,  and  thus  a  comparative  uniformity  was  given  to 
the  law  at  the  same  time  that  the  capricious  activity  of  the  sheriffs  was 
kept  in  check.  These  justices,  or  commissions  of  justices,  with  the  king 
behind  them,  had  nothing  to  fear  from  local  magnates,  but  were  rather 
feared  by  them  ;  and  their  exact  and  even-handed  administration  of  the  law 
won  for  Henry  the  title  of  the  Lion  of  Justice.  "A  good  man  he  was," 
said  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicler,  "and  there  was  great  awe  of  him.  No 
man  durst  misdo  against  another  in  his  time.      He  made  peace  for  man 


Officers  of  the  Royal  Treasury  about  1 140  weighi 
[From  a  contemporary  Psalter.] 


'  and  receiving  coin. 


and  beast.  Whoso  bore  his  burden  of  gold  and  silver,  no  man  durst  say 
to  him  aught  but  good." 

The  Curia  Regis,  the  central  court  of  justice,  was  always  in  attendance 
on  the  king's  person.  It  comprised  the  great  officers  of  state  and  law 
officers  appointed  by  the  Crown.  It  was  practically  the  same  body  which,  as 
the  Court  of  the  Exchequer,  took  charge  of  the  national  finance  and  examined 
the  accounts  of  the  sheriffs  who  were  responsible  for  collecting  and  handing 
in  the  revenue.  For  portions  of  the  revenue  the  sheriff  paid  a  fixed  amount, 
and  made  his  own  profits  off  the  difference  between  this  agreed  sum  and  the 
amount  collected.  For  the  danegeld,  however,  and  the  fees  and  fines 
collected  under  feudal  law,  he  had  to  render  a  precise  account.  It  is  to 
be  noted  that  in  this  reign  many  payments  which  had  hitherto  been  made 
in  kind  were  required  to  be  in  silver  ;  a  fact  which  points  to  a  considerable 
increase  in  the  circulation  of  the  precious  metals  as  a  medium  of  exchange. 

Henry  was  not  far  short  of  seventy  when  he  died,  a  ripe  age  for  a 
medieval  monarcii.     Tlicre    was    no   sign   of   enfceblement   of  his  powers 


THE    NORMANS  j^ 

when  his  end  came.  His  contemporaries  regarded  him  with  an  admiration 
which  his  success  as  a  ruler  entirely  deserved.  In  spite  of  his  wars  on  the 
continent  and  the  rebellions  in  England  which  marked  his  first  years,  he 
gave  the  country  order  and  peace  in  marked  contrast  to  the  two  reigns 
which  preceded  and  followed  his  own.  The  measure  of  his  success  is 
shown  by  the  ease  with  which  Henry  II.  restored  and  developed  the  system 
which  he  had  organised,  although  nineteen  years  passed  between  the  death 
of  the  grandfather  and  the  accession  of  the  grandson — years  which  re- 
present a  period  of  wild  anarchy,  in  which  there  was  no  supreme 
controlling  force  whatever,  and  the  one  institution  which  succeeded 
in  maintaining  something  of  its  own  dignity,  some  fragment  even  of  a 
higher  idealism,  was  the  Church. 


VI 

STEPHEN 

Henry   died   in   Normandy.     With  all  his  shrewdness   and  anxiety   to 

secure  the  succession  to  his  daughter  he  had  omitted  to  take  the  somewhat 

obvious  step  of  making  sure  that  she  should   be  present  in   England  at  the 

time  of  his  death,  though  he  knew  well  enough  that  her  succession  would 

be  unpopular  with  every  class  of  his  subjects.      Perhaps  the  one  time  in  his 

life  when  Stephen  of  Boulogne  showed  signs  of  intelligence  was  when  he 

hurried  over  to  England  to  capture  the  support  of  the  great  officers  of  state 

and  the  clergy  in  claiming  the  inheritance.      The  great  bulk  of  the  barons, 

who  assumed  that  the  election  of  a  king  would  remain  with  them,  were  in 

Normandy.     After  due  deliberation   they    offered    the   dukedom    and   the 

:  crown  to  Theobald  of  Blois,  while   Geoffrey  of  Anjou,  who   cared  much 

;  more  about  Normandy  than  about  England,  was  collecting  a  force  on  the 

,  Maine  frontier  in  order  to  make  good   his  own  claims.     The  election  of 

\  Theobald  was  interrupted  by  the  arrival  of  a   messenger,  who   announced 

that  his  younger  brother  Stephen  had  already  been  elected  and  crowned  by 

the  English  Witan.     The  cautious  and  unambitious  Theobald  accepted  the 

situation  and  refused  to  stand  in  his  brother's  way. 

Stephen,  however,  was  no  sooner  crowned  than  his  inefficiency  became 
obvious.  A  very  valiant  knight  in  single  combat  or  against  any  odds,  he 
had  no  vices  and  no  brains,  lacking  the  most  elementary  notions  whether  of 
strategy,  of  diplomacy,  or  of  statesmanship.  Therefore,  from  the  very  out- 
set all  over  the  country  every  man  began  doing  that  which  may  have  been 
right  in  his  own  eyes  but  was  very  seldom  so  in  the  sight  of  any  one  else. 
Robert,  Earl  of  Gloucester,  the  Empress  Maud's  illegitimate  brother,  was  very 
soon  plotting  to  place  her  on  the  throne.  David  of  Scotland,  who,  as  Earl 
of  Huntingdon,  had  sworn  allegiance  to  her,  demanded  as  the  price  of 
peace  the  succession  to  the  earldom  of  Northumberland  for  his  own  son 


76  NATION    MAKING 

Henry,  basing  the  claim  on  the  fact  that  his  own  wife   was  the  daughter  of 
Waltheof. 

In  1 1  38  the  country  was  ablaze  with  miscellaneous  insurrections,  more 
particularly  in  the  west  country.  In  that  year  David,  whose  demands  had 
not  been  satisfied,  having  already  harried  the  border,  led  a  considerable 
host  of  invaders  across  the  Tweed,  and  advanced  over  the  Tees.  A  Scottish 
incursion  was  more  than  the  Yorkshiremen  would  endure,  and  the  stout 
old  Archbishop  Thurstan  got  together  a  considerable  force  to  meet  them, 
who  marched  out  with  sundry  sacred  banners  at 
their  head,  which  gave  their  name  to  the  Battle  of 
the  Standard  fought  at  Northallerton.  It  is  curious 
to  note  that  the  Englishmen,  instead  of  employing 
the  usually  successful  cavalry  tactics  of  the  day, 
dismounted  and  fought  as  heavy  infantry  ;  also  that 
they  fought  having  clumps  of  archers  intermixed 
with  them,  which  looks  very  much  like  a  foretaste 
of  tactics  applied  nearly  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
afterwards  in  the  Welsh  wars  of  Edward  I.  and 
developed  in  the  French  campaigns  of  Edward  III. 
At  any  rate  the  Scots,  though  in  superior  numbers, 
met  with  an  overwhelming  defeat,  due  largely  to 
the  slaughter  inflicted  by  the  archers.  Nevertheless, 
the  victory  led  to  nothing  beyond  the  immediate 
expulsion  of  the  invaders ;  and  very  soon  after- 
wards David  made  peace  with  Stephen  on  terms 
rather  better  for  himself  than  he  had  demanded 
before  the  invasion. 

Stephen  himself  proceeded  to  quarrel  with  the 
ecclesiastical  party,  including  his  own  brother  Henry,  Bishop  of  Winchester, 
who  had  the  Pope  at  his  back  since  he  was  himself  authorised  papal  legate. 
Nothing  could  better  have  suited  the  empress  and  her  party,  who  at  this 
juncture  succeeded  in  landing  in  England.  The  king  on  the  one  side  and 
the  empress  on  the  other  began  to  purchase  support  by  lavishing  rights  and 
privileges,  lands,  and  titles  on  every  one  who  asked  for  them.  With  the 
exception  of  Robert  of  Gloucester,  whose  interests  were  bound  up  with 
those  of  his  sister,  no  one  could  be  relied  upon  to  remain  on  one  side  or 
other  for  any  continuous  period  ;  the  civil  war  was  not  so  much  a  battle  of 
parties  as  a  welter  of  private  wars.  Says  the  English  Chronicler  :  "  Every 
powerful  man  made  his  castles  and  held  them  against  him  ;  and  they  filled 
the  land  full  of  castles.  They  cruelly  oppressed  the  wretched  men  of  the 
land  with  castle  works.  When  the  castles  were  made  they  filled  them  with 
devils  and  evil  men.  Then  they  took  those  men  they  imagined  had  any 
property,  both  by  night  and  by  day,  peasant  men  and  women,  and  put  them 
in  prison  for  their  gold  and  silver,  and  tortured  them  with  unutterable  torture  ; 
never  were  martyrs  so  tortured  as  they  were.  .  .  .  They  laid  imposts  on  the 


I 


Tlie  English  Standard, 
A.D.  1 138. 


I 


THE   NORMANS  j-j 

towns  continually  and  called  it  teuserie ;  when  the  wretched  men  had  no 
more  to  give  they  robbed  and  burned  all  the  towns,  so  that  thou  mightest 
well  go  all  a  day's  journey,  and  thou  shouldst  never  find  a  man  sitting  in 
a  town  [that  is  township  or  village]  or  the  land  tilled."  So  goes  on  the 
hideous  record  of  rank  unbridled  violence  "till  men  said  openly  that  Christ 
and  His  saints  slept." 

Stephen  himself  was  taken  prisoner  in  a  battle  at  Lincoln  early  in 
1 1 41.  His  cause  seemed  to  have  collapsed,  and  Maud  was  elected  "  Lady 
of  England."  She  in  her  turn  at  once,  by  her 
arrogance  and  violence  and  her  total  disregard 
of  the  advice  of  both  Gloucester  and  the  king 
of  Scots,  aroused  such  a  spirit  of  resentment 
that  within  the  year  she  was  herself  a  fugitive 
and  her  brother  of  Gloucester  was  a  prisoner. 
Then  Stephen  and  Gloucester  were  exchanged, 
and  in  a  few  weeks  half  the  country  had  again 
acknowledged  Stephen.  It  is  scarcely  profitable 
to  pursue  the  ups  and  downs  of  the  fighting. 
Gloucester's  death  in  1147  threatened  to  ruui 
the  Angevin  cause  ;  it  was,  perhaps,  saved  by 
the  death  four  years  afterwards  of  Count 
Geoffrey,  whose  son  Henry,  then  eighteen  years 
old,  was  not  long  in  proving  himself  a  youth  of 
extraordinary  capacity,  vigour,  and  intelligence. 

So  far  as  concerned  the  fight  between 
Stephen  and  Maud  herself,  it  had  been  practi- 
cally won  when  the  empress  retreated  from 
England  after  Robert  of  Gloucester's  death. 
But  the  succession  was  another  matter. 
Stephen's  one  desire  was  to  secure  it  for  his 
son  Eustace  ;  but  he  had  finally  succeeded  in 
driving  the  clergy  solidly  over  to  the  Angevin 
side.  In  11 53  young  Henry  landed  with  a  small  enough  force,  but  one 
which  sufficiently  enabled  him  to  display  his  qualities  of  leadership.  The 
tide  of  favour  seemed  suddenly  to  turn  ;  Eustace  was  unpopular,  and  the 
barons  began  to  come  in  to  Henry.  The  death  of  Eustace  made  Stephen 
careless  for  the  future.  Theobald,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  intervened  to 
negotiate  between  the  rivals,  and  terms  were  agreed  upon  at  Wallingford. 
Stephen  was  to  remain  upon  the  throne,  but  Henry  was  to  succeed  him,  and 
was  to  be  in  some  sort  associated  with  him  in  the  government  of  the 
kingdom  ;  and  in  the  meantime  Stephen,  with  Henry's  support,  was  to  set 
about  the  ejection  of  the  mercenaries  or  free-lances,  who  had  been  employed 
in  large  numbers  by  both  sides  throughout  the  struggle,  and  the  destruction 
of  the  many  hundreds  of  unlicensed  castles  which  had  sprung  up  all  over 
the  country.      Henry,  in  fact,  left  Stephen  to  carry  out  these  stipulations  by 


Seal  of  Henry,  Bishop  of  Winchester 
brother  of  King  Stephen. 


78 


NATION    MAKING 


himself ;  but  only  a  year  remained  to  him  for  the  fulfilment  of  his  under- 
takings. The  something  that  was  done  was  done  with  characteristic  in- 
efficiency, and  the  country  only  began  to  breathe  freely  when  Stephen  died 
to  make  room  for  a  man  who,  whatever  his  faults  or  merits,  was  nothing  if 
not  efficient. 


VII 


SCOTLAND 


THE    SCOTS   KINGS 


Duncan. 
I 


Malcolm  III. ,  Canmore,  1059, 
m.  Margaret  ^theling. 


I 
Donalbane,  1093. 


Edgar,  1098.  Alexander  I., 

1107. 


I 

David  I.,  1 1 24. 

I 

Henry  of  Huntingdon. 


Edith,  m. 
Henry  I. 


Malcolm  IV. 

the  Maiden, 

II53- 


A  half  Saxon  royal  family  was  established  on  the  throne  of  Scotland 
when  Edgar  secured  the  throne  during  the  reign  of  William  Rufus  in 
England.      Since    the    reconciliation     of    Edgar    the    ^theling    with    the 

Norman,  the  under- 
current of  hostility  to 
the  Norman  dynasty  in 
England  disappeared 
among  the  sons  of 
Malcolm  Canmore  and 
Margaret.  Those  princes 
in  fact,  themselves,  now 
represented  the  heredi- 
tary claims  of  the  house 
of  Wessex,  any  attempt 
to  assert  which  would 
have  been  particularly 
absurd  in  view  of  the 
relations  between  King 
Edgar  and  William  Rufus.  When  Henry  I.  married  King  Edgar's  sister, 
the  family  claims,  such  as  they  were,  were  absorbed  by  the  offspring 
of  that  marriage.  But  it  is  curious  to  observe  that  on  the  principles  of 
pure  legitimacy  the  kings  of  Scotland  were  the  rightful  kings  of  England, 
not  the  Norman  line,  which,  on  feudal  principles,  periodically  put  in  its 
own  claim  to  the  overlordship  of  Scotland. 

Three  brothers  now  reigned  in  succession.  When  Edgar  died, 
Alexander  I.  became  king  with  his  capital  at  Edinburgh  ;  but  even  during 
liis  reign  the  last  brother,  David,  as  Earl  of  Southern  Scotland,  was  practi- 
cally the  ruler  of  the  whole  of  the  Lowlands.  David  was  in  constant 
contact  with  the  English,  and  his  wife  was  the  daughter  of  Waltheof. 
Alexander  himself  was  considerably  occupied  with  the  repression  of  the 
rebellious  Celts  of  the  North,  and  with  the  Anglicising  or  Normanising  of 
the  ecclesiastical  organisation  ;  although  he  was  extremely  careful  to  avoid 
doing  anything  which  could  be  construed  into  a  subjection  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland  to  the  supremacy  either  of  CantL-rbury  or  York.      Perhaps,  if 


Villiam  the  Lion, 

1165. 

I 

Alexander  II. , 

1214. 

I 

Alexander  III. , 

1249. 


David  of  Huntingdt 


Robert  I.  Bruce, 
1306. 


THE   NORMANS  79 

Alexander    had    left   a    son,    Scotland    might    have    been    parted    into    two 
kingdoms.     As  he  was  childless,  David  ascended  the  throne  in  1124. 

David's  reign  of  twenty-nine  years  established  the  character  of  the 
Scottish  kingdom,  both  through  his  failures  and  his  successes.  It  was 
his  ambition  to  obtain  the  northern  earldoms  of  England  and  absorb  them 
into  the  Scottish  kingdom  ;  but  though 
he  procured  from  Stephen  the  grant  of 
Northumberland,  he  did  not  succeed  in 
absorbing  it.  Tweed  and  Solway  re- 
mained the  lasting  boundaries  between  the 
kingdoms.  It  was  not  to  these  ambitions 
that  the  great  importance  of  David's  reign 
must  be  attributed.  It  is  to  be  found 
rather  in  the  Normanising  of  the  southern 
aristocracy,  in  the  organisation  of  the 
Church  and  the  extension  of  its  influence, 
and  in  the  municipal  development  which 
he  fostered.  The  elements  which  went 
to  make  up  the  Scottish  state  proved  to 
be  much  more  difficult  of  combination 
than  those  in  England,  when  Norman 
feudalism  and  English  institutions  blended 
together.  There  the  Crown  took  the  people 
into  partnership  in  order  to  hold  the  law- 
lessness of  the  barons  in  check  ;  then  the 
barons  took  the  people  into  partnership  in 
order  to  hold  the  lawlessness  of  the  Crown 
in  check.  The  Church  generally  took  the 
side  of  the  law,  except  when  it  followed  an 
aggressive  line  on  its  own  account,  when 
the  king  and  the  barons  made  common 
cause  against  it.  The  Celtic  element  was 
always  insignificant.  But  in  Scotland  the 
Celtic  element  was  always  active,  and 
there  were  constant  cross  currents  of 
Celtic  tribalism  in  the  North  and  Norman 
feudalism  in  the  South,  both  acting  against 
the  central  government,  which  was,  on  the  other  hand,  constantly  in 
close  alliance  with  the  Church  against  both  Celtic  and  Norman  nobility. 
The  effect  of  David's  Normanising  and  ecclesiastical  policy  was  in  the 
first  instance  pre-eminently  civilising,  and  Scottish  culture  attained  a 
higher  standard  in  many  respects  than  that  of  England.  Scotland  became 
a  nation,  and  developed  a  sense  of  nationality  which  enabled  it  to  set  its 
far  more  powerful  neighbour  at  defiance ;  though  the  warring  elements 
of  which  the  nation  was  composed  kept  it  internally  in  a  state  of  anarchy, 


Church  of  St.  Regulus,  St.  Andrews. 
[A  pre-Norman  church  of  loth  to  12th  centuries.] 


8o  NATION    MAKING 

which  was  hardly  checked  except  by  the  unifyhig  influence  of  the  common 
hostihty  to  England. 

But  all  this  did  not  become  apparent  in  the  reign  of  David  I.,  or  indeed 
till  long  afterwards.  What  was  apparent  in  that  reign,  which  ended  a  year 
before  the  death  of  Stephen,  was  that  Scotland  had  emerged  definitely 
in  the  character  of  a  state  developing  on  the  general  lines  of  European 
civilisation — lines,  that  is,  partly  Teutonic  and  partly  Latin  ;  not  on  the 
un-Latinised  and  un-Teutonised  Celtic  lines  which  she  had  been  following 
down  to  the  accession  of  Malcolm  Canmore.  The  politically  predominant 
division  of  Scotland  approximated  not  to  Ireland  or  to  Wales,  but  to 
England  ;  and  her  future  relations  with  England  were  for  a  time  at  least 
to  be  seriously  complicated  by  the  fact  that  the  great  barons  of  the  Low- 
lands for  the  most  part  held  fiefs  in  England  as  well,  and  were  vassals 
at  once  of  the  two  kings  of  England  and  Scotland. 


CHAPTER    IV 
THE   EARLY   PLANTAGENETS 


HENRY    H 


OF 


Henry  Plantagenet,  Count  of  Anjou,  was  barely  one  and  twenty  when 
he  became  king  of  England.  Already  his  audacity  and  ambition  had  been 
displayed  by  the  wooing  and  winning  of  Eleanor  of  Aquitaine,  an  alliance 
which  added  to  his  dominions  about  a  quarter 
of  the  whole  French  realm.  The  lady's 
marriage  with  her  previous  husband,  the  king 
of  France,  had  been  annulled,  owing  to  incom- 
patibility of  temper.  With  the  English  in- 
heritance came  that  of  Normandy,  carrying 
with  it  Maine  and  the  over-lordship  of  Brittany, 
so  that  in  his  own  right  or  in  that  of  his  wife 
he  was  actual  lord  of  more  than  half  of  France, 
besides  having  disputed  claims  on  Toulouse. 
In  respect  of  these  counties  and  duchies  the 
king  of  France  was  his  suzerain  ;  in  respect  of 
England  he  was  of  course  entirely  inde- 
pendent. The  populations  which  owned  his 
sway  even  on  the  other  side  of  the  channel 
were  exceedingly  diverse  ;  and  undoubtedly  it 
was  his  ambition  to  weld  all  these  dominions 
into  a  consolidated  empire.  Hence  more  than 
half  the  years  of  his  reign  were  spent  on 
the  continent;  and  we  have  to  realise  that 
he  was  not  a  king  of  England  with  continental 
possessions  so  much  as  a  great  continental 
prince  who  happened  also  to  be  king  of 
England.  But  since  he  did  happen  to  be  king  of  England  it  was  in  this 
country  that  he  found  scope  for  his  genius  as  a  ruler,  while  France 
absorbed  his  talents  for  war,  diplomacy,  and  intrigue. 

He  found  England  utterly  sickened  and  surfeited  with  the  anarchy  of 
Stephen's  reign  and  ready  to  welcome  the  strong  hand  which  should  put 
down  disorder.     Young  as  he  was,  he  displayed  at  once  a  combined  vigour 


THE   BLOOD    ROYAL 
ALFRED 

Ecgbert,  King  of  Wessex. 

I 
^thelwulf. 

I 
Alfred  the  Great. 

I 

Edward  the  Elder. 

I 

Edmund. 

I 

Edgar. 

I 

.'Ethelred  the  Redeless. 

I 

Edmund  Ironside. 

I 

Edward. 

I 

Margaret,  vt.  Malcolm  III 

of  Scotland. 

I 


I 

David  I. 

of  Scotland. 

I 

All  later  kings 

of  Scotland. 


Edith,  m. 
Henry  I. 

I 
Empress 
Maud. 

I 


Henry  II.  Plantagenet. 

I 

All  later  kings  of  England. 


82  NATION    MAKING 

and  shrewdness  which  won  him  support  on  every  side.  In  nine  months 
he  had  restored  order  and  government.  Tlie  mercenaries  were  cleared  out 
of  the  country  and  the  unhcensed  castles  were  levelled  to  the  ground.  The 
nobles  who  dreamed  of  recalcitrancy,  of  asserting  their  right  to  follow  their 
own  devices,  were  paralysed  by  the  swift  energy  of  his  movements.  Men 
no  longer  felt  that  each  had  to  fight  for  his  own  hand ;  the  majority  were 
ready  enough  to  combine  on  the  side  of  law  and  order  when  the  principles 
of  law  and  order  were  incarnated  in  a  chief  endowed  with  so  vigorous  and 
capable  a  personality. 

Henry  took  nominally  for  his  chief  counsellor  Archbishop  Theobald  of 
Canterbury,  a  prelate  trained  in  the  school  of  Roger  of  Salisbury,  who  had 
been  the  right-hand  man  of  Henry  I.  For  chancellor  he  took  the  arch- 
bishop's brilliant  young  secretary,  Thomas  Becket,  a  man  after  the  king's 
own  heart,  to  whom  Theobald  willingly  relinquished  the  onerous  work  of 
the  king's  chief  minister.  The  administrative  system  which  had  been 
organised  by  his  grandfather  and  had  gone  to  ruin  under  the  general  chaos 
of  Stephen's  reign  was  restored,  and  for  some  years  to  come  Henry  allowed 
himself  to  be  absorbed  mainly  by  his  continental  ambitions.  During  these 
years,  however,  he  took  advantage  of  the  youth  of  the  king  of  Scots, 
Malcolm  IV.,  the  grandson  of  David,  to  compel  him  to  surrender  the  claims 
on  Northumberland  and  Cumberland  which  Henry  had  promised  David  to 
acknowledge,  and  to  do  homage  for  his  earldom  of  Huntingdon. 

Henry's  French  wars  established  the  important  institution  of  scutage. 
He  could  summon  the  barons  and  their  feudal  levies  to  his  banner,  but 
their  attendance  could  only  be  required  for  a  limited  period.  Hence  the 
system  was  extremely  inconvenient  for  him  and  also  for  them.  Therefore 
they  welcomed  a  scheme  under  which  they  were  allowed  to  commute 
personal  service  with  their  levies  for  a  proportionate  money  payment,  to 
which  was  given  the  name  of  "  scutage "  or  shield-money.  The  scutage 
enabled  the  king  on  his  side  to  hire  soldiery  who  were  directly  in  his  own 
pay  and  were,  by  consequence,  exclusively  devoted  to  his  interests.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  barons  being  virtually  released  from  their  feudal  obligation 
to  maintain  forces  ready  to  take  the  field  ceased  to  do  so,  with  the 
obvious  result  that  they  ceased  also  to  be  ready  to  take  the  field  on  their 
own  account.  This  commutation  had  already  been  practised  in  respect  of 
land  held  by  the  Church  ;  but  its  extension  to  the  lay  baronage  immensely 
increased  the  military  power  of  the  Crown.  Some  twenty  years  later 
another  step  in  the  same  direction  was  taken  by  the  Assize  of  Arms,  which 
reconstituted  the  national  fyrd  and  regulated  the  arms  which  all  freeholders, 
burghers,  and  freemen  were  required  to  carry. 

In  1162  Archbishop  Theobald  died.  The  Church,  with  ample  justi- 
fication, had  acquired  under  Stephen  many  relaxations  of  its  subordination 
to  the  Crown  ;  rules  established  under  the  Conqueror  and  under  Henry  I. 
fell  into  abeyance.  Henry  II.  was  resolved  to  re-establish  the  claims  of 
the  Crown   but  was  willing  to  wait  for  Theobald's  death.     Now  it  seemed 


L-rllGIKS    UF    Hi:XRV     II     AND     HIS     OUKEN     EI.lii^NOR    AT    FONXRliVAL  LI 
ABBF.Y,     Nf)RMANDV 


THE   EARLY    PLANT AGENETS  83 

that  his  time  had  come,  and  he  conceived  that  he  had  an  instrument  read}' 
to  his  hand  in  his  chancellor,  Thomas  Becket,  who  had  hitherto  seen  eye  to 
eye  with  him.  He  nominated  Thomas  to  the  archbishopric.  Becket,  as 
chancellor,  acted  the  role  of  the  great  minister  of  the  Crown  with  dramatic  zeal 
and  enthusiasm  ;  but  he  had  a  different  conception  of  his  duties  as  archbishop. 
He  had  become  the  head  of  the  Church  ;  and  in  that  capacity  he  was  no 
longer  the  servant  of  the  Crown,  but  the  champion  of  the  Church  against 
all  comers,  resolute  to  surrender  no  tittle  of  her  privileges.  Since  the  part 
was  thrust  upon  him  he  would  play  it  like 
his  previous  part,  with  dramatic  thorough- 
ness, of  which  martyrdom  would  be  a 
welcome  climax.  In  the  meanwhile  the 
brilliant  and  worldly  statesman,  the  king's 
boon  companion,  the  cleric  before  whose 
lance  knights  had  been  known  to  go  down, 
became  the  ascetic  devotee,  the  father  of 
the  poor,  the  servant  of  the  Lord's  servants. 

Now  the  reforms  on  which  Henry  was 
set  were  twofold.  On  the  one  side  he 
claimed  the  recovery  for  the  Crown  of 
those  rights  which  it  had  successfully  main- 
tained in  the  time  of  the  Conqueror  and 
Henry  I.  On  the  other  he  demanded  the 
curtailment  of  ecclesiastical  powers  which 
had  grown  out  of  that  complete  separation  of  ecclesiastical  and  temporal 
jurisdictions  for  which  William  I.  and  Lanfranc  had  been  responsible.  In 
the  chaos  of  Stephen's  reign  there  had  been  little  hope  of  obtaining  justice 
from  any  except  ecclesiastical  courts,  which,  as  a  natural  consequence,  en- 
croached upon  the  jurisdiction  of  the  lay  courts.  King  Henry  found  that 
in  all  cases  in  which  any  person  was  concerned  who  belonged  to  the  ranks 
of  the  clergy,  including  what  was  practically  the  lay  fringe  of  that  body, 
the  Church  claimed  exclusive  jurisdiction,  and  inflicted  on  clerics  penalties 
which,  from  the  lay  point  of  view,  were  grotesquely  inadequate.  Royal 
expostulations  were  met  by  archiepiscopal  denunciations.  The  quarrel 
waxed  hot.  The  king  was  determined  that  the  clergy  should  not  be 
exempted  from  the  due  reward  of  their  misdoings.  In  the  Constitutions  of 
Clarendon  he  propounded  a  scheme  which  he  professed  to  regard  as  ex- 
pressing the  true  customs  of  the  kingdom.  Becket  was  induced  to  promise 
to  accept  the  customs  ;  but  not  without  justification  he  repudiated  the 
king's  view  of  what  those  customs  were. 

The  clauses  in  the  Constitutions  which  forbade  carrying  appeals  to 
Rome  and  required  the  higher  clergy  to  obtain  a  royal  licence  to  leave  the 
kingdom  were  hardly  disputable.  But  the  case  for  the  *'  customs  "  broke 
down  when  the  king  claimed  that  criminous  clerks  should  be  handed  over 
to  the  secular  arm  for  further  judgment  after  the  Church  had  inflicted  its 


Thomas  a  Becket  arguing  with  Henry  II, 
and  King  Louis. 


84  NATION    MAKING 

own  penalties.  Beckei,  however,  chose  to  resist  the  demand  on  the  ground 
that  a  cleric  as  such  was  exempt  from  secular  punishment  in  virtue  of  his 
office.  The  barons  took  the  king's  side  and  threatened  violence.  Becket 
yielded  avowedly  to  force  and  nothing  else.  Having  done  so  he  obtained 
a  papal  dispensation  annulling  his  promise.  The  king's  indignation  was 
obvious  and  justifiable.  Becket  persuaded  himself  that  his  life  was  in 
danger,  as  it  really  may  have  been  ;  and  he  fled  from  the  country  to  appeal 
to  the  Pope  and  the  king  of  France. 

In  the  course  of  the  quarrel  both  sides  had  committed  palpable  breaches 
of  the  law.  Now,  with  Becket  out  of  the  country,  diplomacy  at  Rome, 
coupled  with  the  logic  of  facts  in  England,  might  have  secured  the  king  a 
complete  victory  ;  but  he  was  tempted  to  a  blunder.  He  had  his  eldest 
son  Henry  crowned  as  his  successor.     Coronation  was  a  prerogative  of  the 

FOUR   GENERATIONS   OF    PLANTAGENETS 


He>i 

7//.,  1 154. 

1 

1                  1 

Henry.                     Richard  I., 
CcEur  de  Lion, 
1189. 

1 
Geoffrey  of  Brittany, 

1 
Arthur. 

1 
John,  1 199. 

Henry  III.,  1216. 

1 
Richard  of  Cornwall. 

Joan,  7)1. 

Alexander  H 

Scotland. 

1 

1 
Elinor,  m. 
.  of                  Simon  de 
Montfort. 

1                              1 
Edwa rd  I.,             Edmund 
1272.                Crouchback 
1                   of  Lancaster. 
1                              1 

1 
Margaret, 

Alexander  III. 

Henry  of 
Almain. 

Edmund  of 
Cornwall. 

1 

Alexander  HL, 

m.  Margaret,  da. 

of  Henry  III. 

Archbishop  of  Canterbury  ;  the  young  prince  was  crowned  without  him. 
The  Pope  threatened  to  suspend  the  bishops  who  had  performed  the 
ceremony  and  to  lay  the  king's  continental  territories  under  an  interdict. 
Henry  was  alarmed  and  sought  a  reconciliation  with  Becket.  At  a  formal 
meeting  in  France  the  quarrel  was  so  far  composed  that  Becket  was  invited 
to  return  in  peace  to  Canterbury. 

He  returned,  but  not  in  peace.  He  had  hardly  landed  in  England 
when  he  excommunicated  the  bishops  wlio  had  participated  in  the  corona- 
tion ceremony.  The  news  was  carried  to  the  king,  who  was  then  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Bayeux.  He  burst  into  a  fit  of  ungovernable  rage. 
P'our  knights  caught  at  the  words  which  he  uttered  in  his  frenzy,  slipped 
from  the  court,  posted  to  the  sea,  and  took  ship  for  England,  where  they  at 
once  made  for  Canterbury.  They  broke  into  the  archbishop's  house  and 
charged  him  with  treason.  He  flung  the  charge  in  their  teeth.  They 
withdrew,  but  only  to  arm  themselves.  The  archbishop's  chaplains  forced 
him  into  the  cathedral  where  the  vesper  service  was  beginning.  As  he 
passed  up  into  the  choir  the  knights  burst  in  with  drawn  swords  crying, 


THE   EARLY    PLANTAGENETS  85 

"  Where  is  the  traitor  ?  where  is  the  archbishop."  He  turned  and  advanced 
to  meet  them.  "I,"  he  said,  ''am  the  servant  of  Christ  whom  ye  seek." 
One  of  them  laid  hands  on  him  ;  the  archbishop  flung  him  off  with  words 
of  scorn.  They  cut  him  down  and  scattered  his  brains  on  the  pavement. 
Then  they  took  horse  and  departed. 

The  murder  of  Becket  gave  him  the  victory  which  otherwise  would 
hardly  have  been  his.  Henry's  repentance  was  abject  and  sincere.  Nearly 
eighteen  months  passed  before  he  finally  came  to  terms  with  the  Pope;  he 
evaded  the  extremity  of  submission,  making  a  pretext  for  delay  out  of  the 
expedition  to  Ireland,  of  which  we  shall  presently  speak  further.  When  he 
did  come  to  terms  he  was  able  to  maintain  those  claims  for  the  independence 


Mounted  soldiers  of  the  time  of  Henry  II. 
[From  a  Vulgate  Bible  at  Winchester.] 

of  the  English  Crown  which  had  been  asserted  by  his  predecessors.  But 
he  had  to  surrender  on  the  question  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  ecclesiastical 
courts  ;  and  no  encroachment  was  made  upon  those  privileges  called 
"  Benefit  of  Clergy"  until  the  dawn  of  the  Reformation. 

The  story  of  the  later  years  of  Henry's  reign  is  very  much  taken  up 
with  his  quarrels  with  his  sons,  the  details  of  which  scarcely  concern  our 
history.  But  how  effectively  the  king  had  organised  the  royal  power  we 
can  see  by  the  fact  that  for  nearly  twenty  years  after  his  accession  there 
was  no  revolt.  And  then  when  of  a  sudden  his  enemies  rose  up  against 
him  on  all  sides — his  sons,  his  foes  on  the  continent,  English  barons,  and 
the  king  of  Scots — he  turned  to  bay,  stamped  out  rebellion,  routed  his 
external  enemies,  took  the  king  of  Scots  prisoner,  and  extorted  from  him 
by  the  treaty  of  Falaise  the  one  unqualified  and  unquestionable  submission 
of  the  northern  kingdom  which  history  records. 


86  NATION    MAKING 

Henry's  victory  in  this  first  contest  was  shortly  followed  by  the  Assize 
of  Northampton,  which  gave  a  final  shape  to  the  system  of  sending  justices 
on  circuit  which  had  first  been  instituted  by  Henry  I.  Two  years  later,  in 
1178,  another  step  was  taken  in  the  organisation  of  the  judicial  system  by  the 
appointment  of  a  special  committee  of  the  Curia  Regis  to  deal  with  the  bulk 

of  the  questions  which  normally  came  before 
that  body.  At  a  later  date  this  committee, 
now  known  as  the  Curia  Regis  in  Banco, 
developed  into  the  two  Courts  of  King's 
Bench  and  Common  Pleas.  The  final  court 
of  appeal,  however,  continued  to  be  that  of 
the  king  sitting  in  council. 

In  1 1 83  family  quarrels  again  broke  out, 
in  which  the  three  elder  sons  fought  against 
each  other  and  occasionally  combined  in 
order  to  fight  their  father.  In  this  year, 
however,  died  the  eldest  son  Henry,  thus 
leaving  the  second,  Richard,  who  was  already 
Duke  of  Aquitaine,  heir  to  the  English  throne. 
Three  years  later  died  the  third  son,  Geoffrey, 
on  whom  Brittany  had  been  bestowed,  to 
whom  after  his  death  was  born  that  son 
Arthur,  of  whose  tragic  fate  the  tradition,  if 
not  the  actual  facts,  are  preserved  in  Shake- 
speare's play,  King  John.  Quarrels  between 
King  Henry  and  Richard  were  sedulously 
fomented  by  the  crafty  and  utterly  un- 
scrupulous young  king  of  France,  Philip  II., 
called  Augustus.  A  check  was  put  upon  them, 
however,  by  a  sudden  blow  which  fell  upon 
Christendom. 

For  eighty  years  the  Christians  had  held 
Jerusalem  and  the  sacred  places  in  Palestine, 
which  had  been  torn  from  the  Saracens  in 
the  first  crusade.  But  a  new  leader  of 
aggressive  Mohammedanism  arose  in  the 
person  of  the  Seljuk  Turk  Sala-ud-Din,  the  famous  "  Sultan  Saladin."  He 
fell  upon  the  Latin  kingdom  of  Jerusalem  and  captured  the  Holy 
City  itself.  All  Western  Christendom  began  to  arm  for  a  mighty  crusade, 
and  in  the  horror  of  that  great  disaster  all  other  feuds  were  for  the 
time  compounded.  The  preparations  for  the  crusade  led  in  England 
for  the  first  time  to  the  imposition  of  a  tax  not  upon  land,  but  upon 
movables  or  personal  property,  known  as  the  Saladin  Tithe.  The  tax 
was  sanctioned  by  the  Great  Council  ;  and  it  is  to  be  observed  that 
although   tlie  individual   gave   in  his  own  sworn  return  of  the   value  of  his 


Knights  of  the  late  12th  century. 


THE   EARLY    PLANTAGENETS  87 

property,  his  assessment  might  be  appealed  against  to  a  jury  of  his  own 
parish. 

Henry  probably  and  Richard  certainly  were  both  sincere  in  their  crusad- 
ing zeal.  But  Richard's  policy  was  always  ruined  by  the  personal  passions 
and  jealousies  of  the  moment,  which  Philip  of  France  always  turned  to  his 
own  account.  Richard  involved  himself  in  a  quarrel  with  the  Count  of 
Toulouse  ;  Philip  joined  in  against  him,  and  Henry  himself  was  dragged  in. 
Then  Philip  and  Richard  became  reconciled  and  turned  on  the  old  king. 
How  and  why  Henry  broke 
down  it  is  hard  to  guess  ;  but 
break  down  he  did,  both  in 
body  and  mind.  He  had 
no  heart  to  fight,  and  sub- 
mitted, conceding  everything 
that  was  demanded  of  him, 
including  the  pardon  of  all 
who  had  joined  the  conspiracy. 
The  last  blow  fell  when  he 
opened  the  list  of  traitors  and 
found  it  headed  by  the  name 
of  his  youngest  and  favourite 
son  John.  The  shock  killed 
him.  Richard,  passionate  in 
his  remorse  as  in  his  anger,  came  to  view  his  father's  corpse  ;  and  men  said 
that  blood  trickled  from  the  dead  man's  nostrils,  a  sign  that  he  who  stood 
by  him  was  his  murderer. 

The  tragedy  and  failures  of  Henry's  last  months  do  not  touch  the  fact 
that  in  England  he  raised  the  crown  to  the  highest  point  that  it  ever  reached. 
When  he  came  to  the  throne  the  one  absolute  necessity  was  the  concentra- 
tion of  power  in  the  central  government,  which  meant  and  could  mean  only 
in  the  king's  hands.  There  was  no  independent  political  organisation  of  the 
people  ;  while  of  the  greater  barons  each  one  was  a  law  to  himself.  They 
had  not  learnt  to  stand  together  as  champions  of  public  law.  But  they  were 
not  unwilling  to  receive  from  the  king  the  conception  of  public  law  which 
was  afterwards  to  bear  fruit.  The  new  powers  of  the  Crown  prepared  the 
way  for  the  tyranny  of  John  ;  but  Henry's  own  methods  implanted  in  the 
barons  that  conception  of  public  spirit  which  was  exemplified  at  Runnymede 
and  culminated  in  Simon  de  Montfort. 

The  most  marked  of  the  royal  innovations  was  to  be  found  in  the 
extension  of  taxation  in  the  form  of  exactions  for  war  purposes  called 
"  scutage "  in  the  case  of  tenants-in-chief,  and  "gifts,"  "aids,"  or  "tall- 
ages "  when  levied  from  shires  and  towns.  The  Crown  was  further 
strengthened  when  the  king  made  almost  a  clean  sweep  of  the  sheriffs,  and 
for  local  magnates  substituted  exchequer  officials  in  that  office — an  adminis- 
trative reform  of  great  importance.     We  have  already  noted  how  the  dis- 


Ladies  of  the  1 2  th  century  weaving. 
[From  Ead wine's  Psalter.] 


88  NATION    MAKING 

integrating  character  which  attended  continental  feudaHsm  was  checked 
by  the  institution  of  scutage  and  the  more  thorough  organisation  of  the 
national  militia  by  the  Assize  of  Arms,  which  also  extended  the  obligation 
of  military  service  to  classes  which  had  hitherto  been  exempt. 

In  the  field  of  judicature  we  have  noted  the  reorganisation  of  the  Curia 
Regis  itself  and  the  revival  of  Henry's  system  of  occasionally  sending  visiting 
justices  to  inspect  and  supervise  judicial  administration  in  the  provinces. 
This  system  also  was  reorganised  by  the  Assizes  of  Northampton  and 
Clarendon,  which  sent  justices  regularly  on  circuit  and  reserved  for  their 
judgment  w'hole  classes  of  cases  which  had  hitherto  been  dealt  with  by 
local  courts,  although  in  the  main  questions  of  guilt  or  innocence  were 
settled  by  the  preliminary  inquiry.  That  is,  no  one  was  presented  for  trial 
who  had  been  acquitted  in  preliminary  investigation  ;  and  the  fact  of  pre- 
sentation was  treated  2ls  prima  facie  evidence,  of  guilt.  The  itinerant  justices 
were  the  representatives  of  the  Crown.  Thus  by  his  various  reforms  Henry 
concentrated  in  the  hands  of  the  Crown  and  of  officers  dependent  on  the 
favour  of  the  Crown  the  control  of  finance,  the  control  of  the  military 
forces,  and  the  control  of  judicial  adtninistration.  When  the  Crown  abused 
its  powers  it  became  the  turn  of  the  barons  to  insist  that  those  powers 
should  be  exercised,  not  arbitrarily,  but  in  accordance  with  precedent  and 
custom.  But  those  powers  were  so  great  that  they  could  not  be  set  at 
defiance  or  even  challenged  at  all  by  individuals,  or  capriciously  even  by 
groups  of  individuals,  but  only  by  the  concerted  action  of  men  moved  by  a 
strong  sense  of  loyalty  to  a  common  cause. 


II 

THE   ANNEXATION    OF   IRELAND 

Henry  II.  won,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the  Scots  king  a  complete  sub- 
mission and  an  acknowledgment  of  his  suzerainty  over  the  kingdom  of 
Scotland.  This,  however,  was  to  be  immediately  abrogated  by  Henry's 
successor.  On  the  other  hand,  he  made  a  permanent  acquisition  by  the 
annexation  of  Ireland,  which  hitherto  had  stood  outside  the  region  of 
English  affairs,  though  it  had  influenced  the  early  history  of  Scotland. 

The  Romans  came  and  passed  but  never  set  foot  on  the  sister  island. 
The  English  came  and  made  themselves  masters  of  Britain,  save  for  the 
highlands  of  the  west,  from  the  Channel  to  the  Forth,  the  "  Scots  water." 
And  they  also  left  Ireland  alone.  The  Irish  Celts  continued  their  Celtic 
development  untouched  by  the  Latin  or  the  Teuton.  They  sent  out  those 
tribes  which  occupied  Argyle,  and  ultimately  gave  their  name  to  the  Scottish 
nation.  They  sent  out  the  missionaries  who  taught  Christianity  to  the  wild 
peoples  of  the  North,  and  seemed  likely  enough  at  one  stage  to  capture  all 
England  for  their  Church.      But  Celtic  tribalism  never  adapted  itself  to  the 


O'Neills    seems    commonly   to    have 


An  Irish  chalice  of  ih 
[In 


loth  to  I  ith  centuries. 


THE   EARLY   PLANTAGENETS  89 

evolution  of  an  advanced  political  State.  The  subordination  of  the  parts 
for  the  sake  of  the  whole  u'as  alien  to  the  Celtic  temperament ;  and  the 
progress  which  followed  upon  the  stirrings  of  religious  enthusiasm  ended 
when  the  motive  impulse  died  down.  Ireland  continued  to  be  peopled  by 
clansmen  personally  devoted  to  their  petty  chiefs,  but  under  no  common 
government.  Powerful  chiefs  exercised  some  dominion  over  numerous 
minor  chiefs,  and  some  sort  of  nominal  supremacy  over  the  whole  island 
on  the  part  of  the  chief  of  the 
been  recognised  by  these  lesser  kings. 

But  Ireland  was  no  more  immune 
from  the  attacks  of  the  Northmen 
than  the  rest  of  Western  Europe. 
Danes  so-called,  and  probably  many 
more  Norwegians  than  Danes,  harried 
her  coasts  and  planted  settlements 
from  Dublin  to  Waterford — settle- 
ments which  were  made  the  occa- 
sional base  for  attacks  upon  England. 
But  these  Danes  made  no  great 
effort  to  effect  a  conquest ;  the 
Danish  host  never  flung  itself  in  force 
upon  Ireland  as  it  did  upon  England 
and  France.  According  to  tradition 
a  Norse  conquest  was  attempted  early  in  the  eleventh  century,  when  the 
invaders  were  overwhelmed  at  the  great  battle  of  Clontarf  by  the  Irish 
hero,  Brian  Boroimhe,  in  1014.  This,  however,  was  precisely  the  time 
when  Denmark  was  conquering  England,  and  no  aggressive  national  move- 
ment was  taking  place  from  Norway.  The  Danes  or  Norsemen  who  were 
overthrow'n  by  Brian  Boroimhe  were  no  great  host  of  invaders  from  over- 
sea, but  probably  the  folk  from  the  Danish  settlements  on  the  coast,  though 
reinforced  no  doubt  by  bands  of  miscellaneous  sea-rovers. 

However,  the  battle  of  Clontarf  put  an  end  finally  to  active  aggression 
on  the  part  of  Danes  or  Norsemen.  Ireland  was  not  included  in  Knut's 
conception  of  a  northern  empire.  Seventy  years  later  it  appears  that 
William  the  Conqueror  contemplated  the  annexation  of  Ireland,  of  which 
doubtless  also  William  Rufus  also  dreamed.  The  English  Chronicler  says 
that  the  Conqueror,  had  he  lived  two  years  longer,  ''would  have  subjugated 
Ireland  by  his  wisdom  without  war."  But  his  plans  remain  unrevealed  and 
never  materialised  in  action.  Whatever  Rufus  may  have  intended,  his 
ambitions  were  cut  short  by  Walter  Tyrell's  arrow  in  the  New  Forest. 

Nevertheless,  if  Brian  Boroimhe  delivered  Ireland  from  the  Scandinavian 
conqueror,  he  did  not  succeed  in  organising  an  Irish  state.  Ireland  re- 
mained unconsolidated,  a  congeries  of  clans  engaged  on  interminable  feuds, 
and  of  petty  kings  engaged  on  interminable  rivalries ;  politically  and 
ecclesiastically  as  well  as  geographically  outside  the  influences  which  were 


ver  exquisitely  ornamented  with  gold  repous.si£  and 
filigree  work.] 


90  NATION   MAKING 

shaking  western  Christendom;  un-Teutonised,  un-Latinised,  and,  from  the 
papal  point  of  view,  heretical  and  hardly  better  than  pagan. 

Towards  this  region  Henry  Plantagenet  turned  an  occasional  glance, 
as  one  which  it  might  some  day  be  worth  while  to  conquer  if  he  should 
find  time.  Very  early  in  his  reign  he  obtained  from  Pope  Adrian  IV.,  the 
one  Englishman  who  has  ever  occupied  the  papal  throne,  an  authorisation 
to  bring  Ireland  under  his  dominion  and  into  ecclesiastical  obedience  to 
Rome.  Other  matters  were  of  more  immediate  importance  to  the  king  ; 
but  an  opportunity  presented  itself  for  establishing  his  authority  in  Ireland 
without  undertaking  a  war  to  that  end.  Dermot,  King  of  Leinster,  was 
desperately  at  feud  with  a  neighbour.  Deposed  from  his  kingdom,  he 
appealed  for  aid  to  the  mighty  monarch  on  the  other  side  of  St.  George's 
Channel.  Henry  would  not  take  up  the  quarrel  himself,  but  he  allowed 
a  group  of  Norman  adventurers  to  make  what  they  could  out  of  the  situa- 
tion, always  on  condition  of  their  remaining  his  own  liege  subjects  and 
doing  homage  to  him  for  any  new  territories  they  might  acquire.  The 
chief  of  the  adventurers  was  Richard  de  Clare,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  called 
Strongbovv,  a  baron  whose  acres  did  not  suffice  to  make  him  wealthy  or 
powerful  at  home  in  spite  of  remarkable  abilities.  With  him  were 
associated  sundry  Fitzgeralds,  De  Burghs,  Fitzurses  and  others.  They 
went  over  to  the  aid  of  Dermot  with  forces  which  were  not  indeed  large, 
but  were  incomparably  better  equipped  than  the  half-armed  levies  of  the 
Irish  clans,  whom  they  routed  with  ease.  Dermot  was  reinstated  in  his 
kingdom ;  Strongbow  married  his  daughter,  and  was  endowed  with  wide 
estates  and  the  reversion  of  Leinster.   The  rest  of  the  Normans  had  their  share. 

But  Henry  of  England  had  no  intention  of  permitting  his  own  barons  to 
set  up  independent  principalities  in  the  neighbourhood  of  his  own  kingdom. 
He  was  minded  to  make  his  own  profit  out  of  their  adventure;  moreover, 
the  murder  of  Becket  made  it  particularly  convenient  for  him  at  that 
moment  to  place  himself  out  of  reach  of  rapid  communication  with  Rome. 
So  in  1 171  he  proceeded  to  Ireland  with  a  considerable  force.  Whatever 
ambitious  projects  Strongbow  may  have  entertained,  he  had  no  thought  of 
defying  the  king  of  England,  who  came,  moreover,  armed  with  the  papal 
authority  which  conferred  upon  him  the  dignity  of  Lord  of  Ireland. 
Strongbow  was  well  enough  content  to  retain  the  ample  estates  of  Leinster 
as  Henry's  vassal  and  to  surrender  the  royal  title. 

There  was  no  united  Ireland  to  bid  defiance  to  the  invader  ;  and  most 
of  the  Irish  chiefs  had  no  particular  objection  to  acknowledging  the  over- 
lordship  of  the  king  of  England,  such  acknowledgments  being  in  theii 
experience  easily  made  and  easily  set  aside.  All  that  Henry  wanted  was  a 
general  submission  on  their  part  and  a  secure  foothold  for  himself  in  case 
he  should  afterwards  find  it  convenient  to  turn  it  to  account.  There  was 
no  such  prospect  of  immediate  profit  as  would  tempt  him  to  expend  time, 
labour,  and  money  on  the  organisation  of  the  newly  acquired  kingdom. 
Policy   however,  demanded  insistence  on  the  ecclesiastical  side  of  his  old 


THE   EARLY    PLANTAGENETS  91 

bargain  with  Adrian  IV.  in  order  to  conciliate  the  present  Pope  Alexander 
III.  The  Churchmen  in  Ireland  saw  better  hope  for  the  future  in  the 
prospect  of  a  government  organised  on  the  English  model  than  in  the 
prevalent  lawlessness.  They  may  perhaps  be  forgiven  if  they  acted  on 
expectations  which  were  unfulfilled.  Their  unorthodoxy  was  not  deeply 
rooted  ;  they  accepted  the  Roman  supremacy  and  ranked  themselves  on 
the  side  of  the  annexation. 

Henry  then  did  not  conquer  Ireland  in  the  sense  in  which  William  I. 
conquered  England,  or  even  in  the  sense  in  which  William  would  have 
conquered  England  had  there  been  no  insurrections  after  his  coronation. 
It  was  rather  as  though  William  had  merely  established  a  few  of  his  followers 
with  a  couple  of  earldoms  and  several  minor  baronies  carved  out  of  Wessex, 
and  had  then  left  the  country  to  take  care  of  itself  under  the  nominal 
control  of  one  justiciar.  Practically  this  was  what  Henry  did  in  Ireland. 
He  placed  Hugh  de  Lacey  in  Dublin  as  justiciar,  and  gave  him  the  great 
earldom  of  Meath  to  counterbalance  Strongbow's  earldom  of  Leinster.  A 
few  Normans  held  scattered  territories,  while  the  bulk  of  the  Irish  chiefs 
retained  their  land  as  feudatories  of  the  English  king.  The  English  law 
ran  only  in  the  regions  from  Waterford  to  Dublin  known  as  the  English 
Pale.  Henry,  in  fact,  was  quite  as  anxious  to  ensure  that  the  Norman  barons 
in  Ireland  should  not  become  too  powerful  as  to  establish  over  the  whole 
country  a  control  which  would  have  been  costly  and  unremunerative.  It 
was  indeed  his  intention,  at  the  time  of  the  conquest  of  Ireland,  to  part  his 
great  dominion  among  his  four  sons  ;  and  probably  when  he  annexed 
Ireland  he  had  the  idea  of  making  it  the  portion  for  the  youngest  of  them, 
John,  who  had  come  into  the  world  ten  years  after  his  elder  brothers  and 
could  otherwise  only  be  provided  for  by  slices  out  of  their  territory.  But  the 
fact  remains  that  his  organisation  of  a  government  for  Ireland  never  went 
beyond  the  initial  stages  ;  and  when  twelve  years  later  John  did  actually 
visit  Ireland,  his  behaviour  went  very  near  to  driving  the  native  chiefs  into 
a  general  insurrection.  In  short,  the  official  government  exercised  only  a 
very  inefficient  control  within  the  Pale  and  none  at  all  outside  it ;  while 
the  Norman  barons  made  fresh  acquisitions  of  territory  for  themselves  and, 
like  the  Danes  before  them,  adapted  themselves  to  the  native  manners  and 
customs  ;  and  the  Fitzurses,  by  translating  their  name  into  its  Celtic  equiva- 
lent M'Mahon,  exemplified  the  general  truth  that  they  had  become  in  spirit 
much  more  Irish  than  Norman. 

Ill 

CGEUR   DE   LION 

Richard  I.  is  one  of  the  magnificently  picturesque  figures  of  our  history, 
the  incarnation  of  all  that  most  appeals  to  the  imagination  in  feudalism.  He 
is  the  fiery  soldier  dominated  by  the  great  ideal  of  winning  back  the  Holy 


92  NATION    MAKING 

Sepulchre  from  the  Paynim  ;  he  is  the  knight  of  unmatched  prowess  before 
whose  terrific  onset  the  Saracens  are  scattered  hke  chaff  ;  he  is  the  hero 
so  fearless  and  so  mighty  that  it  was  fabled  concerning  him  that  he  slew 
a  lion  with  his  hands  ;  he  is  the  minstrel  king,  rescued  from  durance  vile 
by  the  faithful  persistence  of  his  loyal  follower,  Blondell  ;  he  is  the  genial 
monarch  who  exchanged  buffets  with  Robin  Hood  and  Friar  Tuck  in  merry 
Sherwood  ;  he  is  the  generous  prince,  too  chivalrous  to  punish  the  traitorous 

brother  whom  he  freely  forgave  ;  who, 
dying,  freely  pardoned  the  man  who  had 
dealt  him  his  death-blow.  Fact  and  fable 
are  largely  mingled  in  the  picture.  But  as 
far  as  concerns  the  history  of  England 
Richard's  personality  belongs  chiefly  to 
romance.  Out  of  his  whole  reign  of  ten 
years  he  spent  barely  six  months,  all  told, 
in  England.  His  crusading  exploits  form 
no  part  of  English  history  ;  the  political 
aims  on  which  he  was  engaged  in  his 
latter  years  belong  to  his  position  as  a 
continental  potentate,  not  as  king  of  Eng- 
land. His  reign  had,  indeed,  a  constitutional 
importance  not  very  easil}^  grasped  and  very 
easily  forgotten  in  the  glamour  of  romance 
which  attaches  to  him  ;  but  this  was  owing, 
not  to  Richard,  but  to  the  ministers  to 
whom  he  entrusted  his  kingdom  during 
his  absence. 

Although  there  was  practically  no  estab- 
lished law  of  succession,  Richard's  title  to 
the  crown  was  unchallenged  when  Henry  H. 
died.  P^rom  August  to  December,  1189, 
he  was  in  England,  engaged  in  prepara- 
tions for  the  crusade.  His  great  need  was  money,  which  he  raised  with 
unparalleled  recklessness  by  selling  everything  he  had  the  power  to 
sell  for  which  he  could  get  a  price.  For  a  price  he  set  William  the 
Lion  of  Scotland  free  from  the  obligations  of  the  treaty  of  Falaise,  and 
cancelled  all  English  claims  which  rested  upon  that  transaction.  He  sold 
a  share  in  the  chief  justiciarship  to  the  Bishop  of  Durham  ;  he  sold 
sheriffdoms  right  and  left  ;  he  sold  charters  to  the  towns  ;  he  sold 
offices  and  honours  ;  he  sold  permission  to  resign  offices  and  honours. 
Then  he  departed,  and  England  did  not  see  his  face  again  till  the  spring 
of  1194. 

He  left  behind  him  as  chancellor  and  chief  justiciar — the  Bishop  of 
Durham  was  soon  superseded — a  low-born  Norman,  William  Longchamp, 
who  had  the  one  supreme  merit  of  being  loyal  to  his  master.      His  brother 


An  English  monarch  about  1190. 


THE   EARLY    PLANTAGENETS  93 

John  and  his  illegitimate  brother  Geoffrey,  Archbishop  of  York,  were 
under  oath  to  remain  outside  the  kingdom  for  two  years.  Longchamp, 
who  was  generally  detested  as  an  upstart,  and  displayed  all  an  upstart's 
vices,  started  on  a  policy  of  repressing  the  nobles  by  re-occupying  the 
royal  castles  which  had  been  left  in  their  hands  in  consideration  of  substantial 
payments.  But  Prince  John  had  been  allowed  to  return  to  the  country, 
and  now  sought  to  pose  as  the  champion  of  liberty  against  the  justiciar's 
oppression.  Richard,  whose  progress  to  Palestine  was  delayed  in  Sicily 
till  the  spring  of  1191,  received  warnings  which  led  to  the  appointment 
of  the  trustworthy  and  capable  Walter  of  Coutances  as  justiciar  in  the  room 
of  Longchamp. 

John  plotted  to  obtain  supreme  power  for  himself,  with  the  connivance 
of  Philip  of  France,  who  had  returned  from  Palestine  a  few  weeks  after 
Richard's  arrival  there.  In  the  autumn  of  119 2  Richard  himself  started  on 
his  return  journey  ;  but  he  was  shipwrecked  on  the  Adriatic  coast,  captured 
by  his  personal  foe,  Leopold  of  Austria,  and  handed  over  to  the  clutches 
of  the  German  Emperor  Henry,  who  held  him  in  captivity.  An  enormous 
ransom  was  demanded,  and  the  conspirators,  Philip  and  John,  spent  the 
year  11 93  in  intrigues  to  prevent  Richard's  liberation.  But  Walter  of 
Coutances  and  his  successor  in  the  justiciarship,  Hubert  Walter,  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  aided  by  the  old  queen-mother  Eleanor,  succeeded  in  raising 
the  huge  ransom  ;  and  the  conspirators  were  checkmated  by  Richard's  own 
arrival  in  England  in  March  1194.  Rebellion  collapsed  and  the  rebels  met 
with  undeservedly  generous  treatment.  Richard's  exploits  had  secured  him 
a  popularity  in  England,  which  was  evidenced  by  the  readiness  with  which 
the  nation  had  submitted  to  fearfully  heavy  taxation  in  order  to  set  him  free  ; 
and  which  was  not  destroyed  even  by  the  new  taxation  imposed  for  carrying 
out  Richard's  vengeful  designs  against  his  arch-enemy,  Philip  of  France. 
Within  two  months  Richard  had  again  departed  from  England,  never  to 
return,  leaving  the  government  in  the  hands  of  Hubert  Walter,  who  ruled 
the  country  for  four  years. 

Richard's  wars  and  diplomatic  intrigues  concern  England  mainly 
because  of  the  heavy  demands  for  taxation  and  for  military  service  which 
they  entailed.  The  latter  brought  about  what  may  be  called  a  constitutional 
alliance  of  the  greater  barons  and  the  higher  clergy,  which  foreshadowed 
the  events  of  the  coming  century.  Headed  by  Bishop  Hugh  of  Lincoln, 
they  declared  that  their  feudal  obligation  did  not  extend  to  service  beyond 
the  seas.  And  this  Constitutional  Opposition  carried  its  point.  Hubert 
thereupon  resigned  his  position,  and  Geoffrey  FitzPeter,  Earl  of  Essex, 
took  his  place. 

But  the  fundamental  importance  of  Walter's  term  of  office  lies  in  his 
development  of  the  system  of  representation  and  election  for  the  purposes 
of  local  government,  which  afterwards  provided  the  machinery  for  a  repre- 
sentative parliament.  The  archbishop,  it  may  be  taken  for  granted,  was 
not  looking  forward  to  any  such  development  ;  probably  he  was  concerned 


94  NATION    MAKING 

only  with  administrative  convenience.  But  the  changes  he  made  also  had 
the  political  effect  of  adding  greatly  to  the  importance  of  the  class  which 
grew  into  the  gentry  of  the  country,  the  "knights  of  the  shire,"  who  were  for 
the  most  part  tenants-in-chief  holding  from  the  Crown.  Men  of  greater 
estate  than  the  small  freeholders,  there  was  no  class  in  the  community 
whose  interests  were  more  bound  up  with  the  maintenance  of  peace  and 
the  enforcement  of  law.  Hitherto  the  local  "juries"  had  been  bodies 
selected  by  the  sheriff  ;  it  was  their  function  to  lay  sworn  information 
before  the  Crown  officials  in  connection  with  assessments  for  taxation  and 
for  fiscal  purposes,  and  to  present  cases  for  trial  at  the  grand  assizes. 
Walter  substituted  for  this  arrangement  the  election  in  the  shire  court  of 
four  officers  called  Coroners,  who  decided  which  cases  should  be  reserved 
to  be  presented  for  trial  by  the  judges  ;  and  the  selection  of  the  juries, 
instead  of  being  left  to  the  sheriffs,  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  four  knights 
of  the  shire  elected  for  that  purpose  in  the  shire  courts.  Thus  the  way 
was  prepared  for  sending  elected  knights  of  the  shire  to  attend  the  Great 
Council,  the  name  now  clearly  appropriated  to  the  National  Assembly,  at 
which  all  tenants-in-chief  were  entitled  to  be  present.  Incidentally  also 
knights  of  the  shire  were  appointed  "  custodians  of  the  peace,"  which 
meant  primarily  that  they  controlled  the  "  Hue  and  Cry,"  which  may  be 
described  as  the  local  machinery  for  police  purposes,  out  of  which  again 
at  a  later  stage  developed  the  functions  of  justices  of  the  peace. 

In  1 1 99  Richard  received  his  death  wound  while  besieging  the  fortress 
of  a  recalcitrant  vassal,  the  Viscount  of  Limoges,  and  was  succeeded  by 
his  brother  John. 


IV 

JOHN 

There  was  another  claimant  to  the  throne  in  the  person  of  the  twelve  year 
old  Arthur  of  Brittany,  the  posthumous  son  of  Geoffrey,  a  brother  who  had 
come  between  Richard  and  John.  Both  England  and  Normandy,  not  with- 
out hesitation,  acknowledged  John's  claim  ;  and  in  England  he  was  formally 
elected.  Hubert  Walter  became  chancellor,  and  while  he  lived  co-operated 
with  the  justiciar  Geoffrey  FitzPeter.  But  Arthur's  mother,  Constance, 
claimed  for  him  Anjou  and  Maine,  as  well  as  Brittany,  encouraged  by  Philip 
of  FYance.  Aquitaine  in  the  meantime  indubitably  belonged  to  the  old  queen- 
mother  Eleanor,  whose  marriage  with  Henry  II.  while  he  was  still  only  Count 
of  Anjou  had  associated  it  with  the  Angevin  dominion.  John  stirred  up  a 
host  of  enemies  by  divorcing  his  wife  Isabella  of  Gloucester,  whose  name 
is  commonly  given  as  Hadwisa,  on  a  plea  of  consanguinity,  and  marrying 
another  Isabel,  of  Angouleme,  in  spite  of  her  being  betrothed  to  Hugo  of 
Lusignan.      Out  of  these  embroilments   Philip  of  France  meant  to  get  his 


THE   EARLY    PLANTAGENETS  95 

own  advantage  by  giving  his  support  wherever  there  was  most  to  be  gained, 
though  always  professedly  acting  in  accordance  with  feudal  law. 

The  Lusignans  formed  a  party  ;  revolts  spread  among  John's  French 
vassals  of  various  sorts  ;  Philip  intervened  as  suzerain  and  mediator  ;  trickery 
was  answered  by  trickery  ;  and  when  Philip  thought  himself  strong  enough 
he  summoned  John  to  appear  before  him  to  answer  charges  brought  against 
him  in  his  capacity  as  Duke  of  Aquitaine.  John  refused  to  appear  and 
Philip  declared  his  fiefs 
forfeited.  Normandy 
Philip  meant  to  keep  for 
himself ;  for  the  rest  of 
the  Angevin  dominion  he 
recognised  the  rights  of 
Arthur.  Arthur  attacked 
Aquitaine  and  besieged 
the  queen  mother.  For 
once  John  exerted  the 
military  ability  which  he 
really  possessed,  swooped 
upon  Arthur  by  a  bril- 
liantly rapid  march,  and 
captured  him  with  all 
his  company.  He  had 
the  game  in  his  own 
hands,  and  lost  it  by 
murdering  Arthur  as 
every  one  believed,  and 
treating  others  of  his 
captives  with  a  brutality 
which  alienated  numbers 
who  would  otherwise 
have  supported  him. 
Philip    flung    himself 


-^     EUROPE  obour  1200 

Boundaries  of  the  Empire  and  France  ■  •  ■■» 
r  of  Angevin  Dominions  in  Fronce---^^^ 


against  Normandy,  and 
John's  English  barons  refused  to  fight  for  him.  By  the  midsummer  of 
1204  Normandy  was  irrevocably  lost.  By  the  end  of  the  year  Gascony, 
which  was  bound  to  England  by  trade  interests,  was  all  that  was  left  to 
John  of  the  Angevin  inheritance  except  a  part  of  Poitou. 

While  John  was  losing  Normandy  and  most  of  his  other  territories, 
matters  went  tolerably  smoothly  in  England  itself  under  the  government  of 
Geoffrey  FitzPeter  and  Hubert  Walter.  John  insisted  upon  exactions  whicli 
were  excessive  and  of  doubtful  legality.  But  the  justiciar  made  politic  con- 
cessions, sometimes  to  powerful  barons,  sometimes  to  a  section  of  the  clergy, 
and  sometimes  to  the  towns.  The  charters  and  trading  rights  granted  to 
the  last  served  for  a  long  time  to  keep  them  royalist,  when  the  baronage  had 


96  NATION    MAKING 

already  been  goaded  into  an  attitude  of  open  opposition  to  the  Crown.  The 
obstinate  refusal  of  the  baronage  to  follow  John  from  France  made  the 
success  of  his  cause  impossible  there,  though  probably  in  any  case  he  would 
have  compassed  his  own  ruin. 

In  1205  the  death  of  Hubert  Walter  opened  the  second  phase  of  King 
John's  reign,  the  struggle  with  the  papacy.  For  John  it  was  unfortunate 
that  the  most  powerful  and  the  most  uncompromising  of  all  the  Popes, 
Innocent  III.,  now  occupied  the  papal  throne.  The  king's  nominee  for  the 
archbishopric  vacated  by  Hubert  Walter's  death  was  John  de  Grey,  Bishop 
of  Lincoln.  The  actual  right  of  election  lay  with  the  Chapter  of  Canter- 
bury ;  but  the  bishops  of  the  province  had  in  practice  claimed  to  participate, 
and  the  king  had  in  practice  an  effective  power  of  control.  The  Chapter 
did  not  want  John  de  Grey,  but  some  of  them  at  least  would  have  preferred 
to  avoid  a  quarrel  with  the  king  and  the  bishops.  A  hot-headed  section, 
however,  held  a  secret  and  irregular  election,  chose  their  sub-prior,  and 
hurried  him  off  to  Rome  to  obtain  papal  confirmation  of  the  election.  The 
facts  leaked  out  while  he  was  on  his  journey.  The  other  party  in  the 
Chapter  hastened  to  make  their  peace  with  the  king  by  electing  John  de  Grey 
in  conjunction  with  the  bishops.  De  Grey  went  off  to  Rome  to  procure  his 
own  confirmation.  Innocent  took  the  view  that  both  the  elections  were 
highly  irregular,  and  he  invited  the  king  to  send  to  Rome  a  commission  of 
the  Canterbury  Chapter  with  authority  to  make  a  new  election.  When  the 
commission  arrived,  Innocent,  having  set  aside  the  two  previous  elections, 
invited  them  to  adopt  a  nominee  of  his  own.  Cardinal  Stephen  Langton. 
The  commission  obeyed  ;  and  now  every  one  concerned  except  Stephen 
Langton  himself,  including  the  Pope,  had  behaved  irregularly,  though  there 
was  no  question  of  Langton's  fitness  for  the  office,  and  Innocent  had  believed 
that  the  appointment  would  be  acceptable  to  the  king. 

John  wanted  his  own  creature  and  flung  defiance  at  the  Pope  ;  the 
Pope  retorted  by  taking  the  high  ground  of  his  supreme  authority  as  the 
successor  of  St.  Peter.  John  seized  the  Canterbury  estates,  and  the 
monks  withdrew  or  were  driven  into  exile.  The  Pope  threatened  an 
interdict.  John  offered  submission  with  a  saving  clause  ;  Innocent  would 
listen  to  no  saving  clause.  John  proclaimed  that  if  the  interdict  were 
issued  he  would  forfeit  the  estates  of  every  ecclesiastic  who  obeyed  it. 
Innocent  pronounced  the  interdict,  and  the  clergy  obeyed  it.  Practically 
the  king  and  the  king's  officers  on  the  one  side  declared  war  on  the  clergy, 
while  the  clergy  on  the  other  side  closed  the  churches. 

The  populace  seem  to  have  accepted  the  situation  with  a  surprising 
equanimity.  On  the  whole  they  inclined  to  the  king's  side,  probably  because, 
when  the  ecclesiastical  revenues  were  seized,  they  were  themselves 
delivered  from  the  excessive  burden  of  taxation.  But  John  was  threatened 
with  excommunication,  which  would  give  every  one  who  wanted  it  the 
papal  authority  for  repudiating  allegiance  to  him.  At  the  end  of  1209 
John   was   excommunicated,  and    the  excommunication    was   followed   by 


THE    EARLY    PLANTAGENETS  97 

the  threat  of  inviting  Philip  of  France  to  effect  his  deposition.  John 
continued  to  be  defiant ;  but  discontent  increased,  the  air  grew  thick 
with  plots  and  rumours  of  plots  ;  John  could  trust  no  one  and  sus- 
pected all  ;  Philip  was  preparing  for  invasion  ;  and  John,  at  last  in  sudden 
terror  lest  he  should  find  himself  deserted  and  alone,  resolved  on  sub- 
mission. In  May  12 13  he  admitted  the  papal  legate  Pandulph,  and 
made  the  famous  submission  in  which  he  surrendered  the  crown  of 
England  and  received  back  the  kingdom  as  a  fief  of  Holy  Church.  Thence- 
forth   John     was    the 

Pope's   repentant   son  ^  ,    ^^ 

and  very  obedient  ser- 
vant, and  Innocent  was 
John's  very  good  lord 
and  father.  The  sub- 
mission does  not  ap- 
pear at  the  time  to 
have  shocked  public 
opinion  to  any  great 
extent ;  John  was  by 
no  means  alone  among 
the  European  princes 
who  received  their 
crowns  as  vassals  of 
the  Holy  See.  And 
John's  foes  were  deprived  of  the  papal  sanction  for  attacking  him. 

Stephen  Langton,  now  accepted  as  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and 
Geoffrey  FitzPeter,  were  anxious  to  turn  the  new  situation  to  account  by 
efforts  to  restore  the  kingdom  to  its  normal  condition,  and  to  remedy  the 
abuses  which  had  increased  and  multiplied  while  the  quarrel  with  the 
papacy  was  in  progress.  But  John  had  other  views.  Philip  of  France 
had  protested  loudly  that  he  would  not  give  up  at  the  Pope's  dictation  the 
project  of  deposing  John  in  favour  of  his  own  son,  which  he  had  taken  in 
hand  by  the  Pope's  desire.  But  immediately  after  the  reconciliation  an 
English  fleet  had  fallen  upon  the  French  ships,  destroyed  large  numbers 
of  them,  and  captured  some  hundreds  with  quantities  of  stores.  For 
anything  like  invasion  Philip  was  temporarily  paralysed.  Nevertheless, 
John's  first  desire  was  to  pursue  a  vindictive  poHcy.  Continental  powers, 
including  the  Emperor  Otto,  were  ready  to  join  in  an  alliance  for  the 
overthrow  of  the  French  king„ 

The  English  baronage,  however,  would  have  nothing  to  say  to  a 
renewal  of  the  French  war.  They  mistrusted  John  as  a  soldier  ;  they 
knew  that  he  had  before  collected  vast  suras  of  money,  ostensibly  for 
military  purposes,  which  were  thrown  away  in  extravagance  and  mis- 
management. John  raged,  but  in  the  face  of  their  stolidity  he  was 
helpless.      Resolved  to  vent  his  wrath  upon  some  one,  he  started  for  the 

G 


A  translation  of  holy  relics  In  the  13th  century. 
[Drawn  by  Matthew  Paris.] 


98  NATION    MAKING 

North,  intending  to  exact  penalties  from  the  northern  barons  for  their 
recalcitrance.  Stephen  Langton  followed  him,  with  threats  even  of 
renewing  the  excommunication  if  he  persisted.  An  assembly  was  called 
at  St.  Albans  by  Geoffrey  FitzPeter,  where  the  proposal  was  perhaps  made 
that  the  charter  of  Henry  I.  should  be  laid  before  John  for  ratification. 
Constitutional  resistance  to  unconstitutional  action  was  taking  shape. 
And  then  the  old  justiciar,  who,  like  Hubert  Walter,  had  in  some  sense 
stood  between  the  Crown  and  the  barons,  died.  Both  those  men  had 
been  loyal  supporters  of  the  Crown,  but  had  exercised  a  restraining 
influence  on  John  himself  while  endeavouring  to  conciliate  the  interests 
which  it  was  most  dangerous  to  outrage. 

John  had  rejoiced  in  the  death  of  Walter  and  rejoiced  now  in  the  death 
of  FitzPeter.  The  Pope,  who  had  been  ready  to  depose  a  disobedient  king, 
was  equally  ready  to  condemn  disobedience  to  his  repentant  vassal.  But 
Innocent  himself  had  presented  England  with  an  archbishop  who  feared 
neither  king  nor  pope  when  he  saw  before  him  the  clear  path  of  justice. 
If  the  baronage  produced  no  conspicuously  competent  leader,  the  Church 
gave  them  in  Stephen  Langton  a  guide  as  courageous  as  he  was  wise.  It 
was  Langton  who  produced  and  set  before  them  the  actual  charter  of 
Henry  I.,  and  gave  them  the  controlling  principle  that  they  should  demand 
not  innovations,  but  the  observance  of  the  laws  which  the  people  and  the 
great  rulers  of  the  past  had  recognised  as  just  and  righteous.  The  strength 
of  the  barons  in  the  coming  contest  lay  in  the  fact  that  it  was  made  one  not 
on  behalf  of  the  privileges  of  a  class,  but  on  behalf  of  the  supremacy  of 
the  law. 

Still  John  was  bent  on  his  project  of  destroying  Philip  of  France,  in 
conjunction  with  the  Emperor  Otto  and  other  enemies  of  the  French  king. 
Unable  to  raise  the  feudal  levies,  John  collected  a  large  force  of  mercenaries 
and  sailed  for  Poitou.  He  made  terms  with  his  old  enemies  of  the  house 
of  Lusignan,  and  reports  came  home  of  a  series  of  successful  operations. 
But  Otto  on  the  east  did  not  strike,  and  Philip  organised  his  defence.  At 
last  Otto  did  move,  in  conjunction  with  a  considerable  force  of  John's 
troops  which  were  in  the  Low  Countries  under  the  command  of  William 
Longsword,  Earl  of  Salisbury.  Then  came  complete  disaster.  At  the  battle 
of  Bouvines  Philip  put  Otto  utterly  to  rout,  taking  the  Earl  of  Salisbury 
prisoner  ;  and  his  victory  entirely  dissolved  the  alliance  which  had  been 
formed  against  him.  Pope  Innocent  succeeded  in  procuring  a  peace  which 
still  left  Gascony  and  Guienne  to  the  king  of  England  ;  but  John  returned 
to  his  kingdom,  not  with  the  palm  of  victory  as  he  had  hoped,  but  under 
the  stigma  of  defeat  and  disgrace. 

Characteristically  enough  John  wished  to  relieve  his  feelings  at  the 
expense  of  the  barons  ;  but  Bouvines  only  served  to  stiffen  them.  The 
leaders  entered  into  a  solemn  compact  to  insist  on  the  demand  for  the 
confirmation  of  Henry  I.'s  charter.  In  January  12 15  they  appeared  before 
John  in  arms  and  made  their  demand.     John  procured  three  months'  delay, 


THE   EARLY    PLANTAGENETS  99 

and  in  the  interval  employed  every  device  of  which  he  was  master  to  break 

up  the  opposition  ;  on  his   behalf,  too,   Innocent  thundered  from   Rome. 

But  it  was  in  vain.     The  barons  collected  a  great  army  in  the  North  and 

once  more  sent  in  their  statement  of  grievances.     John  flew  into  a  passion, 

declaring  with   many  oaths  that  they  had  better  have  asked  him  for  his 

kingdom  at  once.     They  had  awaited  his  reply  ;  now  they  marched  south 

to  London,  while  John  retreated  towards  the  west.      London  received  the 

barons  with  open   arms  ;  no  one  gathered  to  the  king's  support.      He  saw 

that   he   was   beaten,  and 

placed     himself     in     the 

hands  of  the  archbishop. 

The  Great  Charter,  based 

upon   that    of    Henry    I., 

was     drawn     up,     placed 

before  him,  and  received 

the  royal  seal  on  June  17, 

1 2 1 5 ,  at  Runnymede,  near 

Windsor. 

The  fundamental 
quality  of  all  political  re- 
volutions that  have  taken 
place  in  England  has  been 
a  theoretical  conservatism. 
From  the  Charter  to  the 
Parliament  Bill  of  191 1  the  reformers  have  invariably  taken  their  stand 
on  the  doctrine  that  they  were  insisting  on  fundamental  principles  of  the 
constitution  against  unconstitutional  innovation.  The  only  exceptions  are 
to  be  found  in  the  divers  forms  of  republic  which  were  attempted  between 
1648  and  1660  ;  since  it  was  not  possible  to  maintain  that  England  had 
ever  before  been  a  republic.  In  no  case  has  the  doctrine  been  more  com- 
pletely warranted  than  in  that  of  the  Great  Charter,  "the  Charter"  par 
excellence.  With  the  exception  of  a  single  point,  every  line  of  it  insists  upon 
principles  either  explicitly  formulated  in  previous  charters  or  implicitly 
sanctioned  by  them — principles  which  had  been  set  aside  only  in  times  of 
sheer  lawlessness  or  by  the  deliberate  innovations  of  the  Plantagenets.  Its 
novelty  lay  in  the  fact  that  it  was  extorted  from  the  king  at  the  sword's 
point  instead  of  being  voluntarily  conceded  by  him.  In  the  charter  itself 
the  main  variation  from  precedent  lay  in  its  explicit  formulation  of  principles 
which  hitherto  had  only  been  implied.  But  it  was  precisely  that  change 
which  established  it  as  a  permanent  criterion. 

It  laid  down  that  no  man  should  be  brought  to  trial  unless  evidence 
could  be  produced  against  him  ;  that  no  man  should  be  punished  except 
after  lawful  trial,  or  in  a  manner  disproportionate  to  his  defence  ;  that 
justice  should  not  be  sold  nor  delayed  nor  denied  to  any  man.  It 
claimed  also  that  only  recognised  taxes  and  feudal  fees  (though  these  are 


West  Dean  Parsonage,  Sussex,  a  13th  century  building. 


loo  NATION    MAKING 

somewhat  inadequately  defined)  might  be  levied  without  obtaining  the 
formal  consent  of  the  Great  Council.  There  was  ample  ground  for  declar- 
ing that  every  one  of  these  principles  had  been  observed  by  the  great  rulers 
of  the  past.  When  the  Charter  comes  to  details  the  remarkable  fact  is 
that  the  barons  did  not  confine  themselves  to  insistence  on  the  privileges  of 
their  own  order,  but  also  bound  themselves  to  observe  the  just  rights  of 
other  sections  of  the  community  in  accordance  with  the  law.  Not  that  they 
wished  to  improve  the  position  of  the  humbler  classes  or  pretended  to  be 
champions  of  democracy  ;  but  they  stood  for  the  Supremacy  of  Law,  and 
the  right  of  every  man  to  be  in  practice  secure  of  what  the  law  promised 
him  in  theory. 

The  one  innovation  of  the  Charter  was  the  machinery  which  it  set  up 
for  compelling  the  Crown  to  carry  out  its  obligations.  It  created  a  com- 
mittee of  twenty-five,  nominated  from  among  the  Greater  Barons  with  the 
addition  of  the  Mayor  of  London,  which  should  have  authority  to  enforce 
the  Charter  in  arms  even  against  the  king.  That  innovation  was  the  one 
feature  of  the  Charter  in  which  there  was  no  permanence,  although  it  was 
followed  as  a  precedent  at  various  crises  during  the  next  two  hundred 
years. 

The  Charter  marks  an  epoch  in  English  history  ;  it  set  up  a  permanent 
formula  of  liberties  to  which  appeal  could  for  ever  after  be  made.  But  it 
did  not  bring  immediate  peace  and  good  government.  There  were  numbers 
of  the  barons  who  wanted  something  very  much  more  drastic  than  what 
the  wisdom  and  moderation  of  Stephen  Langton  sought  to  procure.  For  a 
short  time  it  seemed  that  the  king  meant  to  fulfil  his  promises ;  but  insub- 
ordination among  the  barons  provided  him  with  an  excuse  for  making 
preparations  to  repudiate  the  Charter.  He  procured  from  the  Pope  a 
decree  which  annulled  it ;  the  more  readily,  because  Innocent  wanted  John 
to  take  a  leading  part  in  a  new  Crusade,  which  under  the  existing  conditions 
was  impossible.  Langton  himself  was  paralysed  by  a  papal  threat  to 
suspend  him  from  his  office.  By  the  autumn  both  sides  were  preparing 
for  war  ;  and  before  the  end  of  the  year  the  barons,  or  a  majority  of  them, 
took  the  extreme  step  of  inviting  the  French  Dauphin  Louis  to  come  to 
their  aid.  The  barons  suffered  from  the  want  of  any  strong  and  capable 
leader,  and  the  coming  of  a  French  force  identified  patriotism  with  the 
Royalist  cause.  At  first,  indeed,  the  king  gained  few  supporters,  and  none 
from  among  the  baronage.  Though  Dover  held  out  for  him  stoutly  under 
the  Justiciar  Hubert  de  Burgh,  it  seemed  at  the  outset  as  though  Louis 
would  carry  matters  all  his  own  way.  But  time  was  on  the  side  of  a 
reaction,  and  the  barons  began  to  perceive  with  wrath  that  Louis's  French 
followers  expected  to  reap  their  own  harvest,  while  the  Committee  of 
twenty-five  were  almost  ignored  by  him.  John  occupied  Lincoln,  and 
already  there  were  signs  of  the  tide  turning,  when  the  king  was  seized 
with  a  sudden  illness  and  died  at  Newark  on  October  19,  1216. 

John  deservedly  enjoys  the  reputation  of  the  worst  monarch  who  ever 


THE    EARLY    PLANTAGENETS  loi 

occupied  the  English  throne,  with  no  one  to  challenge  that  unenviable 
primacy  except  possibly  yEthelred  the  Redeless.  But  John's  very  crimes 
and  failures  wrought  good  for  the  country.  The  recklessness  of  his  rule, 
his  utter  disregard  of  law,  his  violence  towards  the  Church,  his  extrava- 
gance, his  monstrous  taxation,  and  his  personal  wickedness,  drove  the 
baronage  to  assume  the  attitude  of  champions  of  law  and  order,  and»  to 
wring  from  him  the  Charter  to  which  appeal  could  for  ever  after  be  made 
when  the  ruling  powers  set  law  and  order  at  nought.  He  shattered  the 
Angevin  dominion,  but  by  so  doing  he  made  England  English.  The  fusion 
of  English  and  Normans  had  made  great  progress  even  in  the  reign  of 
Henry  II.  ;  but  the  loss  of  Normandy  finally  deprived  the  Norman  families 
in  England  of  their  interest  in  Normandy,  and  bound  them  to  England  ;  so 
that  in  the  next  reign  they  looked  upon  themselves  as  English,  and  upon 
Frenchmen,  wherever  they  came  from,  as  aliens  and  foreigners.  Hence 
the  national  development  of  England  was  greatly  indebted  to  the  loss  of 
John's  possession  in  Northern  France.  Henceforth  no  king  of  England 
could  treat  the  kingdom,  after  the  manner  of  Richard  L,  as  secondary  to 
his  continental  dominions.  England  was  not  a  province  of  the  Duke  of 
Normandy  and  Aquitaine  ;  Gascony  and  Guienne  were  French  provinces  in 
the  possession  of  the  king  of  England. 


HENRY   III.   AND   SIMON   DE   MONTFORT 

On  John's  death  the  small  group  of  loyalist  barons  and  bishops  was 
prompt  to  proclaim  his  young  son  Henry  king.  At  its  head  was  the 
stout  old  Earl  Marshal,  William  of  Pembroke,  who  accepted  the  office  of 
Protector  ;  supported  by  Ranulf  of  Chester,  as  well  as  by  the  Justiciar 
Hubert  de  Burgh  and  the  legate  Gualo,  who  represented  the  new  Pope 
Honorius  III.  The  great  Charter  was  reissued  by  the  new  government, 
but  with  a  significant  suspension  of  the  clauses  which  forbade  taxation 
except  by  consent  of  the  Great  Council.  The  rebels  were  at  pause  ;  uneasy 
and  dissatisfied  with  the  Dauphin  and  his  French  companions,  but  unwilling 
to  submit  to  the  loyalists.  Hostilities  were  suspended  till  the  early  summer 
of  the  next  year,  by  which  time  there  had  been  appreciable  accessions  to 
the  king's  party.  The  run-away  fight  known  as  the  *'  Fair  of  Lincoln " 
turned  the  scale  ;  and  this  was  followed  in  August  by  the  victory  of  Hubert 
de  Burgh  in  the  Straits  of  Dover  over  a  considerable  fleet  bringing  French 
reinforcements  for  the  Dauphin.  Louis  saw  that  the  struggle  had  become 
hopeless,  and  came  to  terms  in  September.  An  almost  complete  amnesty  was 
granted  to  the  rebels,  the  exception  being  in  the  severity  displayed  by  the 
papal  legate  Gualo  towards  the  clergy  who  had  opposed  the  Crown  in  defiance 
of  the  papal  commands — a  severity  which  accentuated  the  disposition  of 
the  English  clergy  to  resent  the  exercise  in  England  of  control  by  Rome. 


I02  NATION    MAKING 

The   Earl    Marshal  lived   only  eighteen   months    longer,  ruling  during 
that  time  with  firmness  and  moderation.     On  his  death  the  control  passed 

to  Hubert  de  Burgh  and  the  Bishop  of 
Winchester,  Peter  des  Roches,  a  Poitevin 
like  John's  queen  and  her  kinsfolk,  who 
placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the  foreign 
element  which  John — forced  to  depend 
on  mercenaries — had  brought  into  the 
country.  Gualo's  successor  Pandulph 
sought  to  enforce  a  papal  supremacy, 
but  retired  in  face  of  the  combination 
of  Hubert  and  Peter  ;  while  Stephen 
Langton  persuaded  the  Pope  to  give  up 
imposing  foreign  legates  on  the  country. 
The  barons  were  leaderless,  and  for  a 
time  there  was  a  struggle  for  power 
between  the  foreign  party  inspired  by  the 
bishop  and  the  patriots  represented  by 
the  justiciar,  from  which  Hubert  de  Burgh 
emerged  triumphant. 

But  in  1227  Henry  HI.  came  of  age 
and  assumed  the  government.  For  five 
years  Hubert  remained  his  chief  minister, 
bearing  the  burden  of  the  young  king's 
follies  and  doing  his  best  to  counteract 
or  minimise  their  bad  effects  ;  while  Peter 
des  Roches  intrigued  to  undermine  his 
position.  In  1232  the  intriguer  in  his 
turn  achieved  success  ;  charges  of  malad- 
ministration and  peculation  were  brought 
against  Hubert  which  could  not  indeed 
be  proved,  but  were  not  easy  to  disprove, 
and  he  was  deprived  of  oftice  and  of  most 
of  his  estates  ;  though  some  of  his  strongest 
political  adversaries  interposed  in  his 
favour,  and  popular  sentiment  was  all  on 
the  side  of  the  stout  old  patriot. 

Hubert  de  Burgh  had  striven  honestly 
and  loyally  to  restore  what  the  misdeeds 
of  John  had  destroyed — a  strong  central 
government  on  national  lines.  Not  only 
were  the  Commons  of  England  English, 
but  the  baronage  of  England  had  become  at  length  definitely  English  also 
in  the  course  of  the  last  three  generations.  The  barons  were  resolved  that 
the    government    of    England   should    be   English,   not   foreign,    but    they 


An  early  i  jth  century  kniglil. 
[From  a  tomb  at  Bitton  Church,  Somersetshire.] 


THE   EARLY    PLANTAGENETS  103 

were  by  no  means  clearly  bent  on  keeping  it  strong  and  centralised.  For 
some  twenty-five  years  after  the  fall  of  the  last  great  justiciar  it  is  im- 
possible to  discover  anywhere  acknowledged  leaders,  or  a  definite  positive 
policy  in  the  opposition  to  the  Crown,  or  a  definite  plan  for  remedying 
the  persistent  misrule,  mismanagement,  and  extravagance. 

King  John  was  a  brutal  and  debauched  tyrant,  clever  enough  to  have 
been  a  distinguished  statesman  and  general  had  he  not  been  the  slave  of  his 
own  passions  and  vices,  which  were  ignoble  without  qualification.  Henry 
was  neither  cruel  nor  debauched,  and  if  he  had  recognised  his  own  intel- 
lectual limitations  and  allowed  himself  to  be  guided  by  sensible  and 
patriotic  advisers,  he  would  have  been  an  eminently  respectable  monarch. 
Unfortunately,  although  he  was  pious  and  a  gentleman,  he  was  obstinately 
determined  to  go  his  own  way,  which  was  invariably  unwise  ;  and  like 
many  other  obstinate  but  shortsighted  persons,  he  was  generally  managed 
by  crafty  intriguers  who  took  advantage  of  his  weaknesses  to  gain  their 
own  ends.  But  there  was  nothing  so  fatal  as  his  persistent  mistrust  of  all 
Englishmen,  which  led  him  habitually  to  repose  his  confidence  in  foreign 
advisers,  and  to  place  the  administration  in  the  hands  of  men  who,  what- 
ever their  merits,  were  detested  as  spoil-hunting  aliens  and  were  wholly 
un-English  in  their  sympathies. 

In  the  first  stage  the  alien  domination  was  that  of  the  Poitevins,  the 
allies  or  proteges  of  Peter  des  Roches.  But  Henry's  marriage  in  1236  to 
Eleanor  of  Provence,  whose  mother  was  of  the  house  of  Savoy,  brought  an 
incursion  of  the  young  queen's  Savoyard  uncles  and  Proven9al  kinsmen, 
who  had  been  disappointed  of  expected  profits  when  Eleanor's  sister 
married  the  king  of  France,  Louis  IX.  ;  and  a  few  years  later  there  was  a 
fresh  influx  of  Poitevins,  sons  and  kinsfolk  of  Henry's  mother,  who  had 
married  again.  To  these  alien  swarms  had  to  be  added  members  of  the 
French  nobility  who  by  descent  or  marriage  discovered  claims  to  territories 
in  England.  When  Simon  de  Montfort,  the  great  Earl  of  Leicester,  first 
appeared  on  the  scene,  he  was  a  conspicuous  member  of  this  last  group, 
though  as  time  passed  he  identified  himself  with  the  country  of  his 
adoption  and  made  himself  the  whole-hearted  champion  of  English  liberties. 
And  while  Henry's  jealousy  of  the  English  baronage  provided  power,  place, 
and  profit  for  the  foreigners,  his  pious  submission  to  the  papacy  made  him 
ready  to  accede  to  every  demand  of  the  Holy  See,  to  pour  the  revenues  of 
the  National  Church  into  the  Roman  Treasury,  and  to  fill  ecclesiastical 
vacancies  with  the  nominees  of  the  Pope. 

The  influence  of  Peter  des  Roches  was  first  challenged  by  Richard 
Marshal,  the  son  of  the  Protector,  perhaps  the  one  man  who  was  fitted  to 
head  a  patriotic  opposition.  But  the  Earl  was  done  to  death  by  a  treacher- 
ous stratagem  while  in  Ireland,  and  although  the  baronage  and  the  clergy, 
headed  by  the  new  Archbishop,  Edmund  Rich,  succeeded  in  forcing  the 
Bishop  of  Winchester  into  retirement,  there  was  no  one  strong  enough  to 
dominate   the    king,    who   kept    the   management    of   matters   in   his   own 


104  NATION    MAKING 

incompetent  hands.  A  series  of  magnificent  marriages,  including  that  of 
the  king's  sister  to  the  German  Emperor  Frederick  II.,  as  well  as  the  king's 
own  nuptials,  involved  a  tremendous  expenditure,  which  was  bitterly  grudged 
while  it  could  hardly  be  resisted.  Matters  were  not  improved  when  Henry 
made  an  unpopular  military  expedition  to  Poitou,  of  which  only  a  remnant 
was  left  to  the  Angevins.  Year  after  year  saw  repeated  protests  against 
taxation  and  extravagance  on  the  part  of  the  Great  Council,  a  body  which 
still  for  practical  purposes  usually  consisted  of  the  greater  barons  and 
ecclesiastics. 

At  last  in  1244  the  opposition  began  to  formulate  something  like  a 
scheme  for  controlling  the  king.  Their  leaders  on  this  occasion  were  the 
king's  brother  Richard  of  Cornwall  and  Simon  de  Montfort,  who  a  few 
years  earlier  had  been  allowed  to  marry  a  sister  of  the  king.  They  urged, 
though  without  success,  that  three  great  officers  of  state,  the  justiciar,  the 
chancellor,  and  the  treasurer,  should  be  elected,  and  a  permanent  council 
appointed  with  some  power  of  control.  But  the  attempt  collapsed.  Mont- 
fort was  for  some  years  employed  abroad  mainly  in  establishing  the  king's 
authority  in  Gascony  ;  while  the  position  of  Richard  of  Cornwall  prevented 
him  from  acting  energetically  in  antagonism  to  the  king.  Edmund  Rich 
of  Canterbury,  a  saint  but  not  a  strong  statesman,  was  succeeded  by  one 
of  the  queen's  uncles,  Boniface  of  Savoy,  who  showed  considerable  inde- 
pendence, and  was  apparently  willing  to  act  as  a  good  Englishman,  but 
was  inevitably  under  suspicion  as  a  member  of  the  Savoyard  family. 
Practically  the  papacy  and  the  Crown  combined  to  lay  the  country  under 
ever-increasing  impositions,  which  neither  the  baronage  nor  the  national 
clergy  were  strong  enough  to  resist  effectively. 

The  climax,  however,  was  reached  when  the  king  accepted  from  the 
Pope  Innocent  IV.  the  nomination  of  his  second  son  Edmund  to  be  King 
of  Sicily,  which  the  papacy  was  determined  to  take  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
Hohenstauffen.  In  accepting  the  kingdom,  Henry  in  effect  pledged  him- 
self to  extract  from  England  money  for  Innocent  and  his  successor 
Alexander  IV.  to  carry  through  the  papal  quarrel  with  the  Hohenstauffen, 
which  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  England.  The  immense  demands 
involved  upon  the  national  purse  strained  the  endurance  of  baronage  and 
clergy  to  the  breaking  point.  The  opposition  closed  up  its  ranks  ;  although 
in  1257,  a  portion  of  Henry's  demands  were  conceded,  the  Great  Council, 
known  as  the  Mad  Parliament,  which  assembled  in  1258,  insisted  uncom- 
promisingly on  the  redress  of  grievances. 

The  grievances  and  the  proposed  remedy  were  formulated  in  the  Pro- 
visions of  Oxford.  The  facts  of  portentous  extravagance,  illegal  exactions, 
endless  mismanagement,  military  incapacity,  and  subservience  to  the  papacy 
were  patent.  Henry's  expeditions  in  France  had  ended,  not  in  the  re- 
covery, but  in  the  complete  loss  of  Poitou.  Llewelyn,  the  Prince  of  North 
Wales,  had  succeeded  practically  for  the  first  time  in  uniting  nearly  the 
whole  of  Wales  in  defiance  of  England,  and  the  attempts  to  bring  him  to 


THIRTEENTH    CENTURY    KNIGHTS    IN    BATTLE 


9 


5  ^■'s-n^A 


'X  --^-^^ 


A      A 


V    '  I 


/     1 


fie  coliAro-^njcuiaai  VoinnMifinKl*!)! 


'I   \ 


THE    KING    CONFERS    WITH    THE    ARCHITECT    AT    THE    BUILDING    OF    A    NEW  CATHEDRAL 

Drawings  from  ax  early  Thirteenth  Century  MS.  by  Matthew  Paris 

From  the  original  MS.  in  the  British  Museum.     The  drawings  are  perhaps  by  Matthew  Paris  himself, 
and  were  eertainly  made  in  St.  Alban's  Abbey  under  his  supervision  about  1250. 


THE   EARLY    PLANTAGENETS  105 

subjection  had  failed  i<^nominiously.  All  these  troubles  the  barons  attri- 
buted in  the  main  to  the  king's  employment  of  aliens  in  nearly  all  posi- 
tions of  trust.  Repeated  confirmations  of  the  modified  Charter  went  for 
nothing  when  there  were  no  means  of  compelling  the  king  to  carry  out 
his  pledges.  So  the  Provisions  demanded  a  clean  sweep  of  the  aliens  and 
of  incompetent  and  corrupt  officials.  But  they  went  much  further,  and 
insisted  on  the  appointment  of  a  quite  novel  species  of  oligarchy,  which, 
on  the  one  hand,  was  to  take  the  place  of  the  Great  Council,  and  on  the 
other  was  to  exercise  complete  control  over  the  administration.  The 
arrangements  were  extravagantly  complicated  ;  but  the  practical  outcome 
was  that  there  was  to  be  a  supreme  council  of  fifteen,  two  committees  of 
twenty-four,  and  another  committee  of  twelve,  with  various  functions  to 
discharge,  all  the  committees  being  made  up  so  that  one  group  of  the 
greater  barons  were  members  of  each,  and  government  was  to  be  perma- 
nently vested  in  the  hands  of  a  few  families. 

But  the  oligarchy  was  united  in  nothing  but  the  determination  to 
remove  the  control  of  the  government  from  the  king's  hands.  The  system 
could  in  no  case  have  been  shaped  into  a  working  constitution.  Montfort 
would  probably  have  entirely  repudiated  the  idea  that  he  was  seeking  his 
own  personal  aggrandisement  ;  his  honest  aim  was  the  establishment  of  a 
strong  and  just  government.  But  also  he  would  probably  never  have  re- 
garded any  government  as  strong  and  just  in  which  he  was  not  practically 
the  dictator.  There  were  others  who  wanted  a  strong  and  just  government, 
but  would  not  have  Montfort  as  dictator.  And  there  were  others  who 
were  actuated  by  merely  personal  ambition,  and  wanted  to  dominate  the 
government  for  their  own  personal  ends.  Within  four  years  the  oligarchs 
were  hopelessly  at  odds  among  themselves,  and  half  of  them,  in  order  to 
overthrow  Montfort,  had  gone  over  to  the  side  of  the  king,  who  in  his  turn 
obtained  from  the  Pope  a  dispensation  from  his  repeated  oaths  to  observe 
the  Provisions.  At  last  there  was  a  general  agreement  to  refer  the  whole 
question  to  the  arbitration  of  the  French  king,  Louis  IX.,  one  of  the  noblest 
characters  of  the  century.  Louis  gave  his  award,  known  as  the  Mise  of 
Amiens,  in  January  1264,  entirely  on  the  side  of  Henry. 

Montfort  repudiated  the  award  as  the  other  side  would  undoubtedly 
have  done  had  it  gone  against  them.  Both  sides  appealed  to  arms. 
Montfort  had  emphatically  championed  popular  rights  and  popular  liberties, 
as  his  opponents  had  championed  baronial  privileges.  The  contest  now 
was  not  one  between,  the  Crown  and  the  barons,  but  between  a  popular 
party  headed  by  Montfort  and  supported  by  the  towns  and  Commons 
generally,  and  a  feudal  party  which  had  joined  hands  with  the  supporters 
of  the  Crown.  But  Montfort  was  far  superior  to  his  adversaries  in  military 
skill  ;  and  although  the  odds  at  first  had  seemed  against  him,  when  the 
opposing  forces  met  in  a  pitched  battle  at  Lewes  he  was  completely 
victorious  ;  Henry  himself  and  his  eldest  son,  who  afterwards  became 
Edward  I.,  were  obliged  to  surrender  to  him. 


io6 


NATION    MAKING 


Thus  Earl  Simon  was  able  practically  to  dictate  to  the  king  a  new 
arrangement  known  as  the  Mise  of  Lewes.  The  government  was  to  be 
in  the  hands  of  a  council,  and  the  council  was  to  be  appointed  by  a 
committee  of  arbitrators  from  which  all  aliens  were  to  be  excluded.  The 
rangement  collapsed  at  once,  because  no  tolerably  impartial  committee 
But  immediately  afterwards  the  Great  Council 
was  again  assembled,  at  which  there 
was  again  present  that  fleeting  element, 


could  be  brought  together. 

0 


the  representative  knights  of  the  shire. 
To  this  Council  or  Parliament  Earl 
Simon  presented  a  new  scheme.  The 
Council  was  itself  to  appoint  three 
electors,  none  of  whom  were  to  be 
aliens.  The  three  electors  were  to 
nominate  a  council  of  nine.  The  nine 
were  to  appoint  all  officers  of  state, 
and  were  in  fact  to  control  the  govern- 
ment. The  parliament  chose  as 
electors  Montfort  himself  with  the 
young  Earl  Gilbert  of  Gloucester  and 
the  Bishop  of  Chichester,  two  of  his 
strongest  supporters.  The  arrange- 
ment meant  the  dictatorship  of  Simon 
de  Mcntfort. 

At  the  end  of  the  year  the  dictator 
summoned  the  famous  parliament 
which  met  at  the  beginning  of  1265. 
Hitherto  the  Great  Council  had  con- 
sisted of  the  greater  barons  and  higher 
clergy,  summoned  personally  by  the 
king,  occasionally  but  irregularly  sup- 
plemented by  elected  knights  of  the 
shire.  Not  all  of  the  greater  barons 
were  summoned  to  Montfort's  parlia- 
ment, which  was  in  fact  a  packed  assembly,  but  the  Earl  introduced 
an  important  innovation.  Besides  the  elected  knights  of  the  shire,  he 
selected  a  number  of  boroughs,  which  were  in  general  favourable  to  him, 
and  summoned  two  elected  burgesses  from  each  of  them.  The  parliament 
is  famous,  not  because  of  what  it  accomplished,  but  because  it  was  the  first 
in  which  the  burgess  element  was  represented.  There  had  been  previous 
occasions  when  burgesses  had  been  summoned  for  consultation  and  to  give 
information,  but  they  had  not  been  allowed  any  voice  in  the  actual  delibera- 
tions of  the  Council.  Montfort  set  a  precedent  which  was  not  to  be  perma- 
nently adopted  till  thirty  years  afterwards,  but  its  importance  is  not  there- 
fore to  be  underrated 


Simon  de  Montfort  the  elder. 
[From  a  window  in  Chartres  Cathedr.-il,  about  1230.] 


THE   EARLY    PLANTAGENETS  107 

Montfort  professedly  intended  the  method  of  government  instituted 
after  the  Mise  of  Lewes  to  serve  merely  as  a  viodus  vivcndi  until  a  permanent 
system  could  be  agreed  upon.  But  in  the  meanwhile  the  other  side  was 
mustering  troops  in  France  for  a  renewal  of  the  war,  and  the  provisional 
government  was  constantly  threatened  from  the  side  of  the  Welsh  marches, 
where  Mortimer  stood  for  the  king's  party.  Earl  Simon's  popularity  was 
derived  from  those  qualities  in  his  character  which  had  won  for  him  the 
name  of  Earl  Simon  the  Righteous,  and  heroes  of  the  Puritan  type  are 
generally  prone  to  make  enemies.  His  sons  lacked  their  father's  idealism 
and  alienated  many  who  would  willingly  have  supported  the  Earl  himself. 
They  quarrelled  with  the  Earl  of  Gloucester,  who  opened  negotiations  with 
Mortimer.  Prince  Edward  escaped  from  his  custody  and  joined  the 
Marcher  earls  who  rose  in  arms. 

The  insurgents  were  in  overwhelming  force  from  north  to  south  of  the 
Welsh  marches.  Montfort  had  at  last  met  his  match.  A  year  before  he 
had  out-generalled  the  Royalists  )  and  at  the  battle  of  Lewes,  Prince  Edward 
had  played  the  part  of  Prince  Rupert  in  the  great  Rebellion  four  hundred 
years  afterwards.  His  cavalry  charge  had  swept  away  the  wing  of  Simon's 
army  opposed  to  him,  but  he  had  rushed  on  in  a  prolonged  pursuit  and 
returned  to  the  field  only  to  find  the  battle  lost.  It  was  the  blunder  of 
inexperience.  Edward  had  learnt  his  lesson  and  realised  the  importance 
of  scientific  strategy  and  scientific  tactics  in  war.  Montfort's  son  was  at 
Kenilworth  in  Warwickshire,  and  with  him  the  Earl  intended  to  form  a 
junction  and  then  crush  the  Prince.  But  Edward  struck  at  the  younger 
Montfort  before  the  elder  arrived.  When  the  Earl  reached  Evesham, 
instead  of  being  joined  by  his  son,  he  was  met  by  the  Prince  in  superior 
force.  With  anything  like  equal  capacity  in  the  leaders  the  result  of  the 
battle  was  a  foregone  conclusion.  Montfort's  army  was  annihilated  and  he 
himself  was  slain. 

Nearly  two  years  elapsed  before  pacification  was  completed.  Gloucester 
had  turned  against  Montfort  on  personal  grounds,  but  his  aims  had  always 
been  nearly  akin  to  those  of  Montfort  himself ;  and  when  the  Royalists 
seemed  to  him  to  be  using  their  victory  unjustly,  he  threatened  to  raise 
revolt  again.  But,  in  fact  though  not  in  name,  Edward  had  already  taken 
his  father's  place.  The  great  Earl  was  dead,  but  essentially  his  cause  was 
victorious.  Edward  was  Montfort's  disciple  in  statesmanship  as  well  as 
in  war  ;  and  the  Crown  itself  took  up  the  task  of  establishing  a  government 
which  should  be  at  once  just,  strong,  and  patriotic.  Five  years  after 
Evesham  order  had  been  so  completely  restored,  and  the  existence  of  a 
new  and  firm  regime  so  thoroughly  recognised,  that  Edward  himself  was 
able  to  leave  the  country  on  the  last  crusade  in  which  an  English  Prince 
took  part,  and  to  remain  absent  for  four  years,  although  his  father  died 
during  the  interval. 

Earl  Simon's  career  is  unique  in  English  history.  Born  and  bred  a 
foreigner,  a  younger  son  of  that  Simon  de  Montfort  of  European  fame  who 


io8  NATION    MAKING 

led  the  crusade  against  the  Albigenses  and  acquired  the  county  ofToulouse, 
he  came  to  England  merely  to  make  good  a  claim  to  the  earldom  of 
Leicester  which  had  descended  to  his  father.  At  the  outset  he  was  in  the 
eyes  of  Englishmen  a  typical  alien,  to  be  classed  with  the  Poitevins  and 
Savoyards  ;  especially  when  he  obtained  the  royal  assent  to  his  marriage 
with  one  of  the  king's  sisters,  a  marriage  which  greatly  disgusted  the  king's 
brother,  Richard  of  Cornwall.  Yet  we  find  him  associated  with  Richard 
as  most  prominent  among  the  barons  in  calling  for  a  revision  of  the  whole 
system  of  government  after  Henry's  expedition  to  Poitou.  He  won 
himself  a  foremost  place  by  his  high  abilities  as  a  soldier  and  as  an 
administrator,  which  were  put  to  the  proof  when  he  was  sent  abroad  to 
govern  Gascony  in  the  king's  name.  But  his  high  moral  character  with 
its  Puritan  quality,  his  idealism,  his  devotion  to  a  cause  which  appealed 
not  at  all  to  other  men  of  his  own  class,  singled  him  out  even  more  than 
his  abilities  from  the  rest  of  the  English  magnates  and  made  him  inevitably 
the  leader.  There  is  little  enough  sign  in  him  of  constructive  statesman- 
ship ;  he  was  one  of  those  men  who  with  power  in  his  own  hands  would 
have  ruled  autocratically,  with  even-handed  justice  according  to  his  lights, 
and  with  a  single  eye  to  the  welfare  not  of  himself,  not  of  a  class,  but  of 
the  community  at  large.  But  the  one  innovation  introduced  by  him  which 
was  in  the  long  run  to  be  permanently  established,  the  representation  of 
the  towns  in  the  National  Council,  was  merely  an  accident,  the  outcome 
of  the  fact  that  he  was  himself  assured  of  the  support  of  that  new  element. 
None  of  the  machinery  which  he  devised  for  controlling  the  power  of  the 
Crown  could  conceivably  have  been  made  permanent  with  beneficial  results, 
though  it  must  also  be  remarked  that  he  himself  never  intended  it  to  be 
permanent.  His  greatness  lies  in  his  insistence  on  the  principle  that  the 
aim  of  the  government  must  be  the  prosperity  of  the  whole  state,  and  his 
manifest  desire  to  make  the  government  a  government  by  national  consent. 


VI 

ASPECTS 

Norman  kings  bore  sway  in  England  for  eighty-eight  years.  That  period 
was  not  one  of  progress  ;  it  cannot  be  said  that  at  the  end  of  it  the  people 
of  England  were  more  prosperous  or  the  political  status  of  the  country 
higher  than  in  the  days  of  Canute  or  of  the  Confessor.  Superficially  at 
least  the  Conquest  has  the  appearance  of  a  convulsion  which  turned  the 
land  upside  down  from  end  to  end,  overthrew  its  institutions,  and  set  up 
an  entirely  new  system  while  imposing  upon  the  English  control  by  an 
alien  and  conquering  race.  We  are  able  to  discover,  when  we  get  below 
the  surface,  that  fundamental  institutions  were  not  after  all  destroyed.  The 
Normans  introduced  a  new  factor,  but  they   did  nut  wipe  out  what  they 


THE    EARLY    PLANTAGENETS  109 

had  found  before  them.  The  new  factor  and  the  old  conditions,  violently 
antagonistic  as  they  were  at  the  outset,  had  to  be  adapted  to  each  other 
and  harmonised  into  new  conditions,  which  should  render  a  national 
growth  possible.  The  Conqueror  by  blood  and  iron,  and  Henry  I.  with 
his  cold-blooded  aptitude  for  business,  constructed  out  of  the  warring 
elements  foundations  on  which  it  was  possible  for  their  successors  to  build 
and  which  even  the  impotence  of  Stephen  did  not  obliterate.  The  building 
was  taken  in  hand  by  the  first  of  the  Plantagenets  and  the  era  of  English 
progress  began. 

Henry  II.  found  the  hostility  of  Norman  and  Enghshman  already  being 
forced  into  the  background  by  the  common  danger  from  unlicensed  feudal- 
ism which  threatened  the  bulk  of  the  Normans  no  less  than  the  Englishmen 
themselves.  Before  the  close  of  his  reign  a  notable  public  ofBcial,  Richard 
FitzNeal,  could  affirm  in  his  Dialogus  de  Scaccario  {i.e.  the  Exchequer)  that 
Norman  and  Englishman  had  become  practically  indistinguishable  outside 
the  class  of  villeins.  The  unifying  process  was  completed  when  the  separa- 
tion from  Normandy  identified  the  interests  of  even  the  greater  baronage 
entirely  with  the  country  in  which  all  their  estates  now  lay  ;  and  at  least 
from  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  entire  baronage  looked 
upon  itself  as  English  and  was  imbued  with  the  nationalist  conception  of 
the  state.  This  disappearance  of  racial  hostility  was  the  first  condition  of 
national  progress. 

The  second  necessary  condition  was  the  development  of  a  higher  moral 
standard.  The  Conquest  tended  to  force  to  the  front  all  the  baser  and 
more  brutal  qualities  alike  in  the  conquerors  and  in  the  conquered — greed, 
cruelty,  vindictiveness,  treachery.  The  sheer  excesses  of  Stephen's  reign 
brought  about  reaction,  a  craving  for  order,  a  revulsion  against  the  principle 
that  might  is  right.  In  all  the  civil  strifes  during  the  Angevin  period  there 
was  no  reappearance  of  the  horrors  of  the  anarchy.  But  the  change  which 
came  was  more  than  a  mere  revulsion  against  abnormal  excesses.  A  positive 
conception  of  personal  duties  and  obligations  permeated  the  higher  ranks 
of  the  community.  Barons  and  knights  were  not  indeed  possessed  with  a 
sudden  spirit  of  altruistic  self-sacrifice,  but  the  chivalric  ideal  became  elevated 
and  purified  though  it  was  often  enough  misdirected«  A  Coeur  de  Lion 
provided  an  infinitely  higher  type  for  imitation  than  a  Rufus  ;  and  the 
change  which  made  a  Richard  rather  than  a  Rufus  the  ideal  of  knighthood 
prepared  the  way  for  a  conception  of  knighthood  which  took  for  its  ideal  a 
St.  Louis  or  a  Simon  de  Montfort.  Men  had  learnt  at  least  to  pursue  ends 
that  were  not  purely  selfish,  and  to  take  thought  for  the  public  good. 

In  bringing  about  this  change  the  Church  played  a  not  inglorious  part. 
At  the  close  of  the  eleventh  century  and  throughout  the  twelfth,  the  papacy 
was  in  aggressive  conflict  with  the  lay  potentates  of  Europe.  But  England 
was  too  remote  from  Rome  to  be  very  directly  involved  in  that  struggle. 
The  claims  of  the  Roman  pontiff  until  the  thirteenth  century  were  for  the 
most  part  resisted  alike  by  the  Crown  and  by  the  clergy  in  England  ;  and 


no  NATION    MAKING 

in  the  thirteenth  century  it  was  the  Crown  which  submitted  to  those  claims 
while  the  clergy  continued  to  resist  them.  The  political  aggression  of  the 
papacy,  however,  was  in  itself  the  outcome  of  a  lofty  conception  of  the 
Church's  duty  in  the  world,  a  conception  by  which  the  clergy  in  England 
were  as  emphatically  actuated  as  the  Popes  themselves. 

From  Lanfranc  to  Edmund  Rich  the  archbishops  of  Canterbury  and 
many  of  the  bishops  provided  conspicuous  examples  of  that  public  spirit 
which  only  began  to  make  its  appearance  among  the  lay  baronage  in  the 

time  of  Henry  II.  Becket 
and  the  Popes  of  the 
thirteenth  century  were 
responsible  for  translating 
the  ecclesiastical  ideal  into 
one  of  conflict  between 
the  ecclesiastical  and  the 
secular  authority ;  but 
Stephen  Langton, 
Edmund  Rich,  and  the 
great  bishop  Grossetete  of 
Lincoln,  the  friend  of 
Simon  de  Montfort,  were 
the  foremost  champions 
of  the  highest  ideals  of 
their  day. 

And  to  their  support 
came  a  new  movement 
which  gave  the  religious 
sentiment  a  new  vitality. 
.  The  orders  of  Mendicant 
friars,  founded  by  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi  and  by 


Ordination  of  a  priest,  1 2th  century. 
[From  the  Roll  of  Guthlac  in  the  British  Museum.] 


St.  Dominic,  were  planted  in  England  just  after  the  accession  of  Henry  III. 
By  precept  and  example  the  brothers  taught  men  to  deny  themselves,  not, 
like  the  ascetics,  for  the  discipline  or  salvation  of  their  own  souls,  but  for 
the  welfare  of  others,  material  as  well  as  moral. 

Political  and  moral  progress  reacted  upon  material  progress  to  which 
the  Conquest  had  in  the  first  place  given  a  set-back.  The  villeins  of 
Domesday  had  been  freemen  ;  by  the  time  of  Henry  II.  they  had  become 
in  the  eyes  of  the  law  serfs  bound  to  the  soil.  But  with  the  development 
of  the  new  conditions  they  ceased  to  be  the  victims  of  perpetual  oppression. 
In  practice  they  were  not  greatly  affected  by  the  change  in  their  legal  status, 
because  in  practice  it  would  very  rarely  have  occurred  to  the  villein  to  wish 
to  leave  the  soil  on  which  he  was  born,  and  if  he  did  so  wish,  the  difBcultics 
would  in  general  have  been  almost  insuperable.  But  we  have  now  to 
distinguish.     The  villein  had  now  come  to  be  roughly  identified  with  the 


THE   EARLY    PLANTAGENETS  in 

man  who  held  his  land  from  a  lord  to  whom  he  owed  agricultural  service, 
while  he  who  held  by  payment  in  coin  or  in  kind  was  generally  looked  upon 
as  a  free  man.  The  effect  of  the  Conquest  had  been  to  transfer  large 
numbers  of  the  latter  class  to  the  former.  But  with  the  new  conditions 
came  an  increasing  tendency  to  allow  services  to  be  commuted  for  payment ; 
with  the  necessary  complementary  tendency  to  employ  labour  for  which 
wages  were  paid,  in  place  of  the  compulsory  labour  which  was  commuted 
for  rent.  This  movement  was  further  facilitated  by  the  growing  employ- 
ment of  coin  as  a  medium  of  exchange  and  of  payment,  in  place  of  the 
more  primitive  methods  of  barter  and  payment  in  kind  which  necessarily 
prevailed  when  the  precious  metals  were  generally  unavailable. 

The  change  marked  improved  relations  between  the  lords  of  the  soil 
and  the  actual  cultivators,  a  gradual  passing  of  the  feeling  that  the 
one  class  were  practically  the  chattels  of  the  other.  But  it  does  not 
otherwise  imply  any  material  modification  in  the  manner  of  life  of  the 
rural  population.  A  more  prominent  feature,  however,  of  the  period  is  the 
development  of  the  boroughs. 

The  borough  or  town,  in  the  sense  in  which  w^e  shall  now  use  that 
term,  was,  as  we  have  seen,  at  the  time  of  the  Conquest,  merely  a  larger  tim, 
township  or  village,  formed  either  by  expansion  or  by  the  aggregation 
of  two  or  more  townships  in  a  single  community.  Life  in  the  town  did 
not  differ  essentially  from  life  in  the  village  ;  the  population  was  mainly 
concerned  with  agriculture.  But  so  far  as  trade  existed,  the  town  was  the 
centre  of  trade.  Within  this  larger  community  men  specialised  to  a 
greater  extent  in  the  few  handicrafts  which  were  practised.  Thither  to 
market  or  to  fair  came  the  village  folk  who  had  produce  to  exchange  for 
goods  which  their  own  labour  could  not  provide.  The  Norman  demanded 
more  and  better  goods  of  various  kinds  than  had  satisfied  the  Saxon  ;  and 
the  Conquest  brought  in  its  train  foreign  merchants  with  manufactured 
wares  to  sell,  and  willing  to  buy  the  raw  materials  which  were  the  only 
English  produce  of  which  they  stood  in  need.  Foreign  commerce  in  the 
sense  of  commerce  with  foreigners  in  England  increased,  for  the  English 
themselves  did  very  little  in  the  way  of  direct  import  or  export.  Roughly 
speaking,  the  trade  within  each  county  or  shire  was  concentrated  in  one 
or  two  boroughs,  and,  on  a  larger  scale,  in  the  half-dozen  leading  towns  in 
the  kingdom,  London  and  Winchester,  York,  Lincoln  and  Norwich,  and 
Bristol. 

The  borough  lay  sometimes  within  the  lordship  of  a  single  manor  ; 
more  often  perhaps  two  or  more  lords  of  the  manor  had  jurisdiction  within 
its  borders.  It  was  also  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  king's  officers, 
often  because  it  had  originally  acquired  its  dignity  as  a  btirh,  a  fortified 
garrison  town.  It  regarded  its  neighbours  with  jealousy  and  counted 
their  citizens  foreigners,  to  be  admitted  to  the  privilege  of  trading  only 
because  it  was  inconvenient  or  impossible  to  do  without  them  ;  so  they 
were  to  be  generally  discouraged  and  made  to  pay  for  the  privilege. 


112  NATION    MAKING 

The  boroughs  were  already  possessed  of  certain  powers  of  self-govern- 
ment separating  them  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  shire  authorities,  but 
they  had  a  natural  desire  to  be  free  also  from  manorial  control  and  from 
that  of  the  king's  officers.  Throughout  the  early  Plantagenet  period  one 
borough  after  another  acquired  immunities  or  privileges  by  a  charter  or 
a  series  of  charters  obtained  from  the  lords  of  the  manor  and  the  kings. 
These  rights  were  not  granted  for  nothing,  since  they  involved  the 
surrender  by  the  authority  v/hich  granted  the  charter  of  rights  financially 

valuable,  tolls  and  fees.  In  one 
way  or  another  the  charters  were 
purchased  at  a  price,  and  were 
granted  most  readily  by  kings  or 
lords  when  in  want  of  money. 

The  powers  and  rights  conferred 
by  the  charters  were  not  identical  in 
form,  but  the  same  two  objects 
were  always  in  view  —  immunity 
from  outside  jurisdiction,  which  was 
to  be  vested  instead  in  the  freemen 
of  the  borough,  and  authority  to 
establish  a  gild-merchant  having 
power  to  regulate  trade  in  the 
borough. 

In  discussing  the  gild-merchant  we  are  on  exceedingly  debatable 
ground,  and  can  only  put  forward  probable  explanations  which  must  not 
be  taken  as  dogmatic  pronouncements.  Apparently  in  the  first  instance, 
wherever  a  gild-merchant  was  established,  the  freemen  of  the  borough 
formed  themselves  into  two  separate  organisations  with  separate  officers  for 
the  discharge  of  two  separate  functions — town  government,  which  was  the 
work  of  the  corporation,  and  trade  regulation,  which  was  the  work  of  the 
gild-merchaat.  But  the  gild-merchant  became  distinct  from  the  body 
of  the  freemen  of  the  borough,  because  in  the  first  place  the  men  who 
were  not  engaged  in  trade  would  not  enroll  themselves  in  the  gild- 
merchant,  and  in  the  second  place  the  gild-merchant  admitted  to  its 
membership  persons  who  were  not  freemen  of  the  borough.  The  most 
explicit  constitutional  regulation  of  the  gild-merchant  was  that  no  one 
should  be  permitted  to  trade  within  the  borough,  except  by  special 
occasional  licence,  unless  he  had  been  admitted  to  membership  of  the 
gild-merchant.  On  the  other  hand,  the  gild  was  not  a  private  association 
which  captured  the  control  of  trade,  but  was  a  body  to  which  every 
burgess  was  entitled  to  belong  if  he  chose.  The  term  merchant  had  not, 
it  must  be  remembered,  its  modern  signification  ;  the  manufacturer,  the 
wholesaler,  and  the  retailer  had  not  been  differentiated.  Every  one  with- 
out distinction  who  sold  goods  was  a  merchant. 

The  gild-merchant  could  carry  its   regulations  down  to  the   minutest 


Travellers  in  Anglo-Norman  dress. 
[From  a  i2lh  century  MS.] 


THE   EARLY    PLANTAGENETS  113 

details.  It  could  fix  wages  and  prices,  standards  of  quality,  the  time  at 
which  work  might  be  done.  The  idea  of  free  competition  had  not  come 
into  existence.  Buying  and  selling  was,  of  course,  a  matter  of  bargaining, 
but  no  one  had  any  doubt  that  a  public  authority  was  entitled  for  the 
public  good  to  draw  the  line  between  fair  and  unfair  bargaining.  It  was 
the  legitimate  business  of  the  gild-merchant  to  take  such  measures  as  it 
thought  fit  to  ensure  good  workmanship,  fair  dealing,  and  fair  wages  and 
prices. 


VII 

SCOTLAND 

Scotland  affords  no  counterpart  to  the  constitutional  struggles  with 
which  England  had  been  so  largely  occupied  for  three-quarters  of  a  century 
when  Henry  111.  died  ;  and  the  process  of  consolidation  which  went  on  in 
the  northern  kingdom  was  also  on  quite  different  lines.  For  England  the 
vital  fact  was  that  the  country  ceased  to  be  merely  a  portion  of  the 
dominions  of  a  European  potentate,  and  that  French^  provinces  became 
merely  appanages  of  the  English  crown.  Scotland,  on  the  other  hand,  had 
no  foreign  possessions  and  no  direct  interest  in  European  politics.  For 
her,  foreign  policy  meant  relations  with  only  two  powers,  England  and 
Norway. 

But  Scotland  itself  was  composed  of  much  more  heterogeneous  elements 
than  England.  A  dynasty,  which  until  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century 
was  pure  Celt,  had  established  a  claim  to  supremacy  over  the  whole  of  the 
lands  north  of  the  Tweed  ;  but  very  little  Celtic  blood  ran  in  the  veins  of 
the  Scottish  kings.  Malcolm  Canmore's  mother  was  a  daughter  of  Siward 
the  Dane,  Earl  of  Northumbria  ;  his  wife  w^as  the  sister  of  Edgar  the 
^theling;  his  son  David,  the  progenitor  of  the  later  kings  of  Scotland, 
married  the  heiress  of  Siward's  son  Waltheof.  Thus  the  royal  family  was 
to  an  immense  extent  Saxonised,  and  as  time  went  on  became  also  very 
much  Normanised.  Of  the  dominions  over  which  it  ruled,  two-thirds  of 
the  Lowlands  and  much  of  the  eastern  coastal  districts  beyond  the  Forth, 
though  still  perhaps  mainly  Celtic  in  race,  were  Teutonised  in  character  ; 
but  Galloway  at  least,  on  the  west,  and  the  whole  of  the  highlands,  were 
almost  entirely  Celtic  ;  while  the  population  of  the  islands  was  partly 
Celtic  and  partly  Norwegian  ;  and  Caithness,  as  well  as  the  Orkneys  and 
Shetlands,  was  almost  entirely  Norwegian.  From  Shetland  to  the  Isle 
of  Man  the  isles  fell  under  two  groups  known  as  the  Nordereys  and 
the  Sudereys,  and  it  was  exceedingly  doubtful  whether  they  regarded  their 
allegiance  as  due  to  the  King  of  Norway  or  to  the  King  of  Scotland,  while 
the  Earl  of  Caithness,  a  Norseman,  paid  homage  to  the  King  of  Scots  for 
Caithness  itself  and  to  the  King  of  Norway  for  the  Orkneys. 

H 


114  NATION    MAKING 

The  Celtic  highlands  resented  the  supremacy  of  the  Anglicised  royal 
house,  and  whenever  it  suited  them  supported  any  pretenders  to  the  throne 
who  might  appear  ;  of  whom  there  were  two  groups,  one  the  MacHeths, 
claiming  by  descent  from  the  son  of  Lady  Macbeth,  in  whose  name 
Macbeth  himself  had  seized  the  crown  ;  while  the  other  group,  the  Mac- 
Williams,  descended  from  an  elder  son  of  Malcolm  Canmore  by  his  first 
marriage.  So  that  there  was,  broadly  speaking,  a  Scandinavian  or  semi- 
Scandinavian  fringe  which  leaned  towards  Norway,  a  great  Celtic  population 

covering  nearly  the  whole  of  the 
north  and  the  west  which  still 
clung  to  the  old  tribal  system 
and  detested  the  Anglo-Norman 
form  of  feudalism,  and  a  large 
Teutonic  or  Teutonised  popula- 
tion, mainly  in  the  Lothians, 
which  accepted  the  Anglo-Nor- 
manised  monarchy  and  its  Anglo- 
Norman  institutions.  But  this 
section,  the  wealthiest  and  the 
most  progressive,  remained  stub- 
bornly antagonistic  to  the  Eng- 
lish of  England  ;  while  the  kings 
resented  the  English  claims  to 
overlordship,  and  at  every  avail- 
able opportunity  made  counterclaims  on  the  English  counties  north  of  the 
Tees. 

The  period  of  wildest  anarchy  in  England,  when  Stephen  was  king,  was 
the  period  when  David  I,  in  Scotland  was  organising  unity  in  Church  and 
State,  extending  Anglo-Norman  institutions,  and  introducing  a  very  con- 
siderable Norman  leaven  into  what  was  now  becoming  the  Scottish 
baronage.  David  died  a  year  before  Stephen.  His  eldest  grandson  and 
immediate  heir  was  placed  on  the  throne  as  Malcolm  IV.  (nicknamed  the 
Maiden)  at  the  age  of  twelve  ;  and  was  followed  twelve  years  later  by  his 
brother  William,  called  the  Lion.  William  died  in  the  fifteenth  year  of  his 
reign,  two  years  before  King  John.  We  have  already  seen  how  he  was 
captured  in  the  reign  of  Henry  IL,  when  raiding  the  north  of  England  with 
intent  to  assert  his  claims  in  Northumberland  and  Cumberland,  and  how 
he  was  compelled  to  do  homage  for  the  kingdom  of  Scotland  to  the  King  of 
England  by  the  treaty  of  Falaise,  which  was  abrogated  fifteen  years  after- 
wards by  Richard  Co^ur  de  Lion. 

After  this  time  the  Scots  claim  for  Northumberland  and  Cumberland 
was  not  again  made  a  pretext  for  war,  although  it  was  from  time  to  time 
asserted  when  the  King  of  England  appeared  to  be  in  a  dangerous  strait. 
Moreover,  for  a  hundred  years  no  attempt  was  made  by  any  King  of 
England   to   enforce   a   claim    of    sovereignty   over    Scotland ;    though   on 


David  I.  and  Malcolm  IV.  of  Scotland. 
[From  the  Kelso  Abbey  Charter,  about  1160.] 


THE   EARLY    PLANTAGENETS  115 

sundry  occasions  when  a  Scots  king  did  homage  for  possessions  in  Enghind 
the  EngUsh  king  sought  without  success  to  exact  homage  for  the  Scottish 
crown  also. 

The  last  of  the  MacHeth  and  MacWilliam  insurrections  were  sup- 
pressed  on  the  accession  of  Wilham's  young  son  Alexander  II.,  a  vigorous 
monarch  who  reigned  from  12 14  to  1249.  He  met  his  death  on  a  western 
expedition,  undertaken  in  order  to  bring  under  his  dominion  the  southern 
isles,  which  at  this  stage  professed  allegiance  to  Norway.  Twelve  years 
earlier  he  had  finally  settled  the  Northumbrian  question,  by  commuting  his 
clamis  for  estates  in  those  counties  held  from  the  King  of  England. 

His  son  and  successor  Alexander  III.  was  only  a  boy  of  eight,  and  the 
years  of  his  minority  foreshadowed  what  was  afterwards  to  become  the 
normal  state  of  affairs  on  the  demise  of  a  Scottish  king.  A  child  succeeded 
to  the  throne,  and  opposing  factions  of  the  more  powerful  barons  en- 
deavoured to  capture  the  person  of  the  young  king  and  the  authority  of 
the  regency.  When  young  Alexander  came  of  age,  however,  he  asserted 
his  authority  undisputed  by  either  of  the  rival  factions  ;  and  very  shortly 
afterwards  the  Norwegian  question  was  settled  as  the  dynastic  question  in 
Scotland  itself  had  already  been  settled.  Alexander  resolved  to  assert  his 
authority  over  the  islands.  The  chiefs  appealed  to  King  Haakon  of  Norway, 
and  according  to  Scottish  tradition  Haakon  attempted  to  make  good  his 
own  claims  by  an  invasion  on  the  west.  The  Norsemen  were  routed  at 
the  battle  of  Largs,  and  three  years  later  Haakon's  successor,  Eric,  King  of 
Norway,  ceded  to  Alexander  all  his  claims  on  the  islands  except  the  Orkneys 
and  Shetlands.  King  Eric  subsequently  married  Alexander's  daughter, 
Alexander  himself  having  married  a  daughter  of  Henry  III. 

Broadly  speaking,  the  whole  period  under  review  was  one  of  prosperity 
for  Scotland.  After  the  Norwegian  treaty  folio w-ing  the. battle  of  Largs  the 
royal  authority  was  recognised  over  the  whole  of  the  mainland  and  the 
islands  from  Cape  Wrath  to  the  Solway.  The  risk  of  political  disruption 
or  of  a  dynastic  overthrow  had  practically  disappeared  ;  and  in  the  Low- 
lands at  least,  north  as  well  as  south  of  the  Forth,  the  Church  flourished 
and  commercial  towns  were  developing.  No  one  anticipated  the  storms 
which  were  destined  to  arise  after  the  death  of  Alexander  III. 


BOOK    II 

NATIONAL  CONSOLIDATION  (i 272-1 485) 

CHAPTER    V 
NATIONALISM   AND   CONSTITUTIONALISM 

I 

THE    REIGN    OF   EDWARD    I 

The  reign  of  Edward  L  marks  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  peoples 
of  Great  Britain.  It  saw  the  subjugation  of  Wales  and  her  incorporation 
into  the  EngHsh  kingdom.  It  saw  that  attempt  at  the  incorporation  of 
Scotland  which  aroused  the  fierce  struggle  for  Scottish  independence  that 
was  decisively  concluded  in  the  ensuing  reign.  Scotland  achieved  her 
liberty  ;  and  if  liberty  were  not  itself  priceless,  we  might  be  tempted  to 
say  that  the  price  she  paid  in  after  years  was  excessive.  In  England  it 
saw  the  final  confirmation  of  the  nationalism  which  had  been  developing 
during  the  previous  century,  and  the  establishment  of  the  constitutional 
system,  which  assured  to  a  representative  parliament  the  control  of  the 
public  purse  and  all  which  that  control  implies.  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  any  one  of  these  things  would  have  happened  but  for  the  per- 
sonality of  the  king  who  occupied  the  throne  of  England. 

For  two  hundred  years  England  had  been  ruled  by  kings  of  whom 
all  except  the  two  last  spent  more  than  half  their  lives  outside  her 
borders.  The  two  exceptions,  John  and  Henry  III.,  had  both  stood  in 
direct  antagonism  to  the  national  ideas  growing  up  amongst  the  baronage, 
who  had  hitherto  been  as  alien  and  un-English  as  the  kings  themselves. 
With  those  ideas  Edward  identified  himself,  so  that  he  became  the  typical 
national  leader,  presenting  in  his  own  person  and  character  with  a 
singular  precision  those  qualities  which  have  ever  since  characterised  the 
nation  of  which  he  was  the  head. 

The  English  people,  although  foreign  critics  have  always  reproached 
them  with  inordinate  greed,  while  to  some  they  have  appeared,  like  the 
Carthaginians  to  the  Romans,  as  the  typically  "  perfidious  "  race,  have  always 
prided  themselves  on  their  love  of  justice.  No  less  have  they  prided 
themselves  on  their  love  of  liberty,  although  again  the  foreign  critic  is  apt 
to  denounce  their  tyranny.      In  fact  they  have  always  loved  liberty  passion- 


ii8  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

ately,  in  the  concrete  for  themselves,  and  in  the  abstract  for  their  neigh- 
bours. But  this  has  not  prevented  them  from  being  perfectly  confident 
that  it  is  good  for  other  people  to  be  ruled  by  them.  There  is,  indeed, 
ample  warrant  for  that  belief  ;  but  it  has  been  apt  to  leave  out  of  count 
the  fact  that  other  peoples  hold  the  same  view  of  liberty  which  they  take 
for  themselves,  and  prefer  their  own  self-rule,  however  defective,  to  a  rule 
forced  upon  them,  however  admirable.  The  Englishman  loves  strict 
justice  administered  without  fear  or  favour,  but  he  has  an  aptitude  for 
persuading  himself  that  the  course  of  strict  justice,  and  the  course  which 
coincides  with  his  own  interest,  are  identical ;  though  if  he  fail  so  to 
persuade  himself,  he  will  choose  the  course  which  he  believes  to  be  just. 
He  will  keep  faith  with  resolute  precision  ;  the  letter  of  his  bond  is  sacred  ; 
but  he  is  given  to  taking  an  advantage  of  the  letter  himself,  and  is  some- 
what inclined  when  occasion  arises  to  evade  the  spirit  in  reliance  on 
the  letter.  Hence  the  fervid  denunciations  of  England  as  tyrannical  and 
greedy,  hypocritical  and  perfidious,  by  those  who  have  suffered  from  her 
methods.  Edward  1.  was  an  exemplar  of  the  English  national  char- 
acter as  here  portrayed  ;  whether  we  look  at  his  Scottish  or  Welsh  policy, 
or  study  his  relations  with  the  England  baronage  and  the  English  people. 
To  Welsh  and  Scots  he  is  the  ruthless  king,  the  tyrannical  usurper,  though 
he  himself  probably  never  had  a  doubt  of  the  perfect  righteousness  of 
his  treatment  of  both  countries.  He  took  for  his  own  motto  Pactum  serva, 
"Keep  troth,"  while  his  enemies  denounced  him  as  an  unprincipled  trickster. 

From  a  purely  English  point  of  view,  however,  Edward  stands  out  as 
emphatically  the  greatest  of  the  Plantagenets — the  greatest,  perhaps,  of  all 
England's  rulers  during  the  six  centuries  between  the  grandsons  of  Alfred 
and  Queen  Elizabeth.  He  completed  the  work  of  consolidating  the  Eng- 
lish nation,  although  he  failed  in  his  design  of  bringing  the  whole  of  Great 
Britain  under  a  single  sceptre.  No  other  country  in  Europe  was  formed  into 
such  a  state  of  unity  till  nearly  two  hundred  years  afterwards.  His  legislation 
gave  permanent  shape  to  the  law.  His  creation  of  the  Model  Parliament 
gave  that  assembly  a  form  which  it  retained  for  more  than  five  hundred 
years,  and  made  it  the  mouthpiece  of  the  will  of  the  nation  ;  while  its  power 
of  withholding  supplies  made  the  administration  increasingly  dependent  on 
its  support  and  goodwill,  as  the  development  of  expenditure  placed  the 
government  more  and  more  at  the  mercy  of  those  who  held  the  purse- 
strings.  Government  in  England  became  essentially,  as  it  had  never  been 
before,  government  by  assent  of  the  commons  ;  government  which  was  not 
controlled  by  the  commons  but  must  rest  upon  their  support.  The  fact 
stands  out,  although  it  is  not  to  be  attributed  to  any  relaxation  on  Edward's 
part  of  the  absolutist  theory.  Rather  it  was  his  aim  to  create  a  force  which 
would  counterbalance  that  of  the  baronage  and  prevent  baronial  groups 
from  dominating  the  Crown.  But  it  followed  also  that  the  Crown  must 
conciliate  that  force,  lest  it  should  make  common  cause  with  the  baronage. 

In  another  aspect  also  the  reign  of  Edward  I.  was  of  great  importance, 
because  in  it  were  laid  the   foundations  of  national  eonmiercc,  the  sense  of 


NATIONALISM    AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM     119 

community  of  interests  among  English  traders,  and  the  expansion  of  trade 
with  foreign  countries. 

The  reign  falls  broadly  into  two  periods.  The  first,  from  1272  to  1290, 
during  which  Edward  was  admirably  served  by  his  great  Chancellor,  Robert 
Burnell,  was  the  period  of  legislation  ;  within  which  fell  also  the  conquest 
of  Wales.  The  second,  from  i  290  to  i  307,  was  the  period  of  a  constitutional 
struggle  in  which  the  two  most  prominent  incidents  were  the  summoning  of 
the  Model  Parliament  and  the  Confirmation  of  the  Charters.  In  this 
period  falls  also  Edward's  attempt  to  establish  the  English  supremacy  over 
Scotland. 

II 

EDWARD'S   LEGISLATION 

Down  to  the  time  of  King  John  the  kings  of  England  had  all  succeeded 
to  the  throne  only  after  a  form  of  election  ;  it  had  never  been  recognised 
that  there  was  any  one  with  an  indefeasible  title  to  the  succession.  On 
John's  death,  when  there  was  no  other  possible  claimant  of  the  blood  royal, 
the  boy  Henry  had  been  proclaimed  as  a  matter  of  course  by  the  loyalists  ; 
there  being  no  other  pretender  except  the  French  Dauphin.  Thenceforth 
the  hereditary  title  was  assumed ;  though  always  with  a  reservation,  not 
explicitly  set  forth,  of  the  right  of  parliament  to  set  aside  the  legitimist 
occupant  or  heir  of  the  throne.  Edward  himself  was  in  Palestine  when 
Henry  III.  died,  but  the  estates  swore  fealty  without  demur  to  the  repre- 
sentatives whom  he  had  appointed.  Affairs  went  on  so  peaceably  that 
Edward  made  no  haste  to  return.  He  was  at  first  detained  by  affairs  in 
Gascony,  and  his  relations  with  his  cousin  and  suzerain,  Philip  III.  of 
France  ;  and  he  did  not  land  in  England  to  take  up  the  work  of  govern- 
ment till  1274. 

The  disturbances  of  Henry's  reign  had  been  due  to  the  royal  and  papal 
exactions  and  to  the  favour  shown  by  the  king  to  aliens.  The  Opposition 
had  attempted  to  find  a  remedy  by  setting  excessive  restrictions  upon  the 
power  of  the  Crown,  by  transferring  to  a  baronial  oligarchy  or  a  dictator 
powers  fraught  with  danger  unless  wielded  by  men  of  the  purest  integrity 
and  patriotism.  From  the  baronial  wars  Edward  had  learnt  two  political 
lessons  ;  first,  that  the  strength  of  the  Crown  must  lie  in  its  accord  with 
the  feeling  of  the  nation  ;  and  secondly,  that  it  must  not  be  subjected  to 
the  control  of  fortuitous  baronial  combinations.  The  most  irritating 
feature  of  Henry's  government  had  been  that  it  was  unstable,  capricious, 
and  incalculable.  Policy  demanded  that  its  methods  should  be  systematic, 
recognisable,  clearly  defined.  It  was  the  object  of  the  legislation  to  which 
Edward  now  set  himself  to  make  definite  what  had  hitherto  been  indefinite, 
and  thereby  to  remove  sources  of  disputation  ;  neither  to  create  nor  to 
abolish  rights,  but  to  arrive  at  and  keep  to  a  clear  understanding  and 
acknowledgment  of  rights  which  were  entitled  to  recognition ;  whether  of 
king,  barons,  clergy,  or  commons.     This  definition   of  rights  ought  to  be 


I20  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

arrived  at  not  arbitrarily,  but  in  such  a  fashion  that  the  various  parties  con- 
cerned should  share  the  responsibility  for  the  conclusions  accepted. 

The  process  opened  with  the  summoning  in  1275  of  a  parliament  in 
which  the  commons  were  represented.  Of  all  the  sources  of  friction  none 
was  more  serious  than  that  of  taxation.  The  Great  Charter  had  laid  down 
the  principle  that  while  the  Crown  had  a  legal  right  to  exact  feudal  dues  it  had 
no  right  to  make  additional  exactions  except  by  consent  of  the  Great  Council, 
But  the  dues  which  the  Crown  was  entitled  to  exact  were  inadequately  defined, 
and  claims  which  Henry  III.  asserted  had  been  angrily  resented.  Moreover, 
there  were  other  claims  which  in  practice  were  undisputed  because  their  opera- 
tion was  limited  and  their  effect  as  taxation  was  not  realised.  Such  was  the 
authority  of  the  Crown  to  regulate  trade,  by  the  issue  of  licences  and  the  im- 
position of  port  duties.  The  alien  who  wished  to  trade  in  England  was  only 
allowed  to  do  so  under  supervision,  and  had  to  pay  for  a  licence, and  also  to  pay 
toll  on  the  goods  which  he  imported  or  exported.  Magna  Carta  had  merely 
stipulated  in  general  terms  that  such  tolls  should  be  limited  to  the  right 
and  ancient  customs.  Edward's  Statute  of  Westminster  made  progress  in 
defining  the  feudal  dues  to  which  the  king  was  entitled  ;  but  it  also  ex- 
plicitly conferred  upon  the  king  the  right  of  imposing  at  the  ports  a  fixed 
toll  upon  all  the  exported  wool,  wool-fells  and  leather,  which  very  soon 
came  to  be  known  as  the  "  great  and  ancient  customs."  The  point  espe- 
cially noteworthy  is  that  these  port  duties  had  not  hitherto  attracted  notice 
as  sources  of  revenue.  It  was  the  great  expansion  of  foreign  trade  now 
setting  in  which  impressed,  first  on  the  king  and  then  on  the  parliament,  a 
consciousness  of  the  value  to  the  royal  treasury  which  such  impositions 
might  attain.  It  is  in  this  reign  that  taxes  on  imports  and  exports  take 
their  place  beside  the  land  tax,  dating  from  the  time  of  ^thelred,  and  the 
tax  on  movables  dating  from  the  Saladin  tithe  of  Henry  II.,  as  sources  of 
revenue  important  enough  to  demand  popular  control ;  whereas  hitherto 
they  had  been  merely  an  incidental  part  of  the  government  machinery  for 
regulating  trade. 

The  next  step  was  concerned  with  a  different  subject.  Various  barons 
claimed  and  exercised  various  rights  of  jurisdiction  locally,  with  exemption 
from  interference  on  the  part  of  the  king's  officers,  and  in  effect  superseding 
the  royal  authority.  The  Statute  of  Gloucester  empowered  the  king's 
officers  to  examine,  in  virtue  of  the  writ  called  Quo  Warranto,  the  authority 
under  which  the  barons  claimed  and  exercised  these  privileges  ;  on  the 
hypothesis  that  the  claims  were  null  and  void,  unless  supported  by  docu- 
mentary proof  that  they  had  been  conferred  by  royal  grant.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  they  had  been  established  for  the  most  part  only  by  long  custom  ; 
and  the  proceedings  of  the  royal  officers  aroused  among  the  barons  an 
outburst  of  indignation  so  threatening  that  Edward  found  it  necessary  to 
withdraw  the  demand  for  documentary  proof  and  to  accept  a  compromise, 
under  which  all  such  rights  were  recognised  as  valid  if  they  had  been  in 
practice  recognised  at  the  accession  of  Richard  I.      Nevertheless  the  king's 


NATIONALISM    AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM     121 

great   object  was   secured  ;    since  it  was  thenceforth   impossible  for  those 
rights  to  be  extended  or  muUiplied  except 
by  express  grant  of  the  Crown. 

From  the  baronage  Edward  turned  to 
the  Church.  Henry's  subserviency  to  the 
popes,  repaid  by  the  support  which  he 
consistently  received  from  them  in  his  con- 
tests with  the  baronage,  had  allowed  them 
to  make  great  encroachments,  to  assert 
successfully  their  claims  to  make  ecclesi- 
astical appointments,  and  upon  ecclesiastical 
revenues.  In  1279.  Pope  Nicholas  III. 
ignored  Edward's  wishes,  and  appointed  to 
the  archbishopric  of  Canterbury  the  Fran- 
ciscan friar  John  Peckham,  who  immediately 
set  about  asserting  the  ecclesiastical  as  against 
the  secular  authority  in  a  highly  aggressive 
manner.  Edward's  immediate  answer  was 
tlie  Statute  of  Mortmain,  which  forbade  the 
conveyance  of  land  from  private  ownership 
to  the  "dead  hand"  of  a  corporation  with- 
out the  assent  of  the  Crown.  The  parti- 
cular corporation  which  the  king  had  in 
view  was  of  course  the  Church  ;  and  the 
justification  was  twofold.  For  military  pur- 
poses, that  is,  for  the  feudal  levies,  lands 
held  by  the  Church  were  of  less  use  to  the 
Crown  than  lands  held  by  lay  feudatories. 
In  the  second  place,  lands  held  by  a  cor- 
poration were  necessarily  exempt  from  those 
incidental  fees  and  fines  to  which  individual 
owners  were  liable  on  succession  to  an  estate 
and  in  connection  with  the  wardship  of 
minors,  marriage,  and  knighthood.  In 
practice,  indeed,  the  new  law  made  very 
little  difference,  beyond  ensuring  that  the 
transfer  of  land  to  the  Church  should  be 
open  and  bona  fide ;  but,  like  the  Statute  of 
Gloucester,  it  empowered  the  Crown  to  limit 
the  extension  of  an  inconvenient  practice. 
Two  years  later  Peckham  invited  another 
collision  by  an  attempt  to  extend  the  juris- 
diction of  the  ecclesiastical  courts,  which 
was  checked  by  the  royal  ordinance  Circitm- 
specte  Agatis — a  warning   to  the    clergy   to    attempt  no   extension  of   their 


A  knight  of  the  13th  century. 

[From  the  brass  of  Sir  John  D'Abernoun,  died 
1277,  at  Stoke  Dabenion,  Surrey.  ] 


122  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

jurisdiction  beyond  the  limits  recognised  by  the  secular  authority,  which 
were  carefully  defined. 

This  enactment  had  been  deferred  by  the  exigencies  of  the  Welsh  war 
to  which  we  shall  presently  revert.  It  was  issued  in  1285,  a  year  of  con- 
siderable legislative  activity.  In  that  year  the  second  Statute  of  West- 
minster established  the  principle  of  entailing  estates  by  prohibiting  the 
tenant  from  alienating  land  to  the  detriment  of  the  rights  of  his  heir.  Later 
the  parliament  sitting  at  Winchester  reorganised  the  militia,  the  ancient  fyrd 
which  Henry  II.  had  regulated  by  the  Assize  of  Arms  a  hundred  years  before, 
and  at  the  same  time  reorganised  the  system  of  local  police  or  "  watch  and 
ward,"  and  revived  the  authority  and  jurisdiction  of  the  local  popular  courts 
of  law. 

The  last  statute  of  what  we  have  called  the  legislative  period  was  that 
of  1290,  called  Onm  Emptorcs,  or  the  third  Statute  of  Westminster.  This, 
like  the  Statute  of  Mortmain,  was  one  which  had  the  approval  of  the  baron- 
age and  strengthened  the  landed  interest ;  but  it  strengthened  the  Crown 
still  more,  since  it  was  a  check  on  feudal  disintegration.  It  forbade  subin- 
feudation ;  that  is,  it  required  that  when  land  was  alienated  the  new  tenant 
should  hold  not  from  the  grantor  but  from  the  grantor's  overlord;  so  that 
the  grantor  multiplied  not  his  own  vassals  but  the  vassals  of  his  overlord  ; 
whereby  to  the  king  as  supreme  overlord  the  maximum  of  advantage 
accrued. 

Ill 

WALES 

The  legislative  activities  of  King  Edward  were  periodically  interrupted 
by  the  contests  with  the  Welsh,  which  were  hardly  ended  with  the  overthrow 
of  the  patriot  prince  Llewelyn  and  the  absorption  of  Wales  into  the  English 
dominion.  But  Edward's  conquest  was  so  far  practically  effective  that  the 
Welsh  thenceforth  were  troublesome  only  when  they  acted  in  concert  with 
English  rebels.  The  story  of  the  relations  of  the  Welsh  with  their  more 
powerful  neighbours,  and  of  their  final  subjugation,  may  now  be  briefly  told. 

Swept  out  of  England  into  the  mountainous  districts  beyond  the  Severn 
by  the  advance  of  the  Saxons,  cut  off  from  their  kinsmen  in  the  south  by 
the  battle  of  Deorham,  and  from  the  Strathclyde  Britons  in  the  north  by 
the  battle  of  Chester,  the  Britons  in  Wales  had  still  defied  subjugation  by  the 
English.  Offa  of  Mercia  drove  them  in  behind  his  dyke  ;  but  the  utmost 
that  any  of  the  Saxon  kings  had  accomplished  was  to  exact  a  precarious 
tribute  and  formal  acknowledgments  of  sovereignty.  The  raids  of  the 
mountaineers  compelled  the  Norman  sovereigns  to  grant  their  own  earls 
on  the  Welsh  marches  abnormal  powers  ;  a  Norman  earldom  was  even 
planted  in  Pembr(jkc  ;  but  while  the  lords  of  Chester,  Shrewsbury,  Hereford, 
and  Gloucester  carried  on  perpetual  wars  with  their  Welsh  neighbours,  the 


NATIONALISM    AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM     123 

Welsh  still  remained  practically  independent,  separate,  speaking  their  own 
language,  following  their  own  customs,  and  owning  no  Norman  overlord, 
except  so  far  as  their  various  princes  found  it  convenient  to  acknowledge 
the  sovereignty  of  the  King  of  England.  Rufus  tried  to  bring  them  under 
his  heel,  but  his  Welsh  invasions  ended  in  ignominious  failure  ;  even  Henry 
II.  was  hardly  more  successful.  The  Welsh,  like  other  Celtic  peoples,  were 
extraordinarily  difficult  to  subdue,  and  yet  lacked  the  political  instinct  of 
unity  necessary  to  the  formation  of  a  consolidated  state  capable  of  establish- 
ing a  permanent  independence. 

Yet  in  the  thirteenth  century  such  a  consummation  seemed  almost  within 
sight.  Almost  throughout  the  first  half  of  it,  Llewelyn  ap  Jorwerth  was 
lord  of  Snowdon,  the  north-western  division  of  the  country.  He  for  the 
first  time  succeeded  in  combining  other  Welsh  princes  under  his  leadership, 
and  made  use  of  the  contests  between  King  John,  King  Henry,  and  the 
barons  to  strengthen  his  own  position.  When  Llewelyn  died  in  1240,  it 
seemed  that  his  work  was  doomed  to  be  undone  ;  the  Welsh  again  betook 
themselves  to  internal  strife,  until  a  second  Llewelyn,  son  of  Griffith,  son  of 
the  first  Llewelyn,  succeeded  in  establishing  himself  as  prince  of  Gwynedd 
or  Snowdon,  and  assumed  the  role  of  a  patriot  leader  in  1254.  Since 
Henry's  principal  supporters  among  the  baronage  were  to  be  found  among 
the  Marcher  earls,  Llewelyn  was  presently  in  alliance  with  Montfort. 
Nevertheless  he  did  not  fall  with  Montfort,  but  made  his  peace  with  the  king 
at  Shrewsbury  on  terms  highly  satisfactory  to  himself  ;  making  a  formal 
acknowledgment  of  the  English  overlordship,  and  retaining  for  a  price  the 
northern  territories  which  had  been  annexed  to  the  English  Crown  after  the 
death  of  the  first  Llewelyn,  and  recaptured  by  himself  on  his  first  assump- 
tion of  the  Welsh  leadership. 

But  Llewelyn  on  the  one  side  was  not  content ;  he  dreamed  at  least 
of  creating  an  entirely  independent  principality.  Edward,  on  the  other  side, 
had  his  own  dream  of  a  dominion  extending  from  Cape  Wrath  to  the 
Channel  ;  though  that  dream  could  not  come  within  the  range  of  practical 
politics  while  his  brother-in-law,  Alexander  III.,  reigned  in  Scotland.  There 
was  no  apparent  prospect  of  an  opportunity  for  dealing  with  the  northern 
kingdom  ;  but  if  Llewelyn  should  give  him  an  opening  in  Wales  he  was 
prepared  to  turn  it  to  account ;  though  according  to  his  principles  he  would 
only  act  under  colour  of  legal  right. 

Henry  III.  was  hardly  in  his  grave,  and  his  successor  was  still  abroad, 
when  Llewelyn  began  to  experiment  with  the  government  of  England. 
He  evaded  every  summons  to  render  homage  to  the  new  king,  and  he  ceased 
to  make  the  payments  required  of  him  under  the  treaty  of  Shrewsbury. 
Edward  was  fully  warranted  in  taking  active  measures.  In  the  beginning  of 
1277  the  royal  forces  advanced  in  the  middle  Marches  and  in  South  Wales, 
where  the  Welsh  made  immediate  submission.  In  the  summer  he  marched 
a  great  force  along  the  northern  Welsh  coast,  and  cooped  up  Llewelyn 
in  the  Snowdon  district.     Faced  with  the  prospect  of  being  starved  out 


124  NATIONAL  CONSOLIDATION 

in  the  winter,  Llewelyn  submitted  to  the  treaty  of  Aberconway,  which 
left  him  the  lordship  of  only  that  portion  of  Gvvynedd  which  he  had 
acquired  in  1254. 

So  far  Edward's  conduct  was  unimpeachable,  and  he  now  proceeded 
on  the  lines  which  present  themselves  to  the  English  mind  as  those 
obviously  dictated  by  common  sense,  and  to  the  Celtic  mind  as  a  violation 
of  the  most  cherished  sentiment.  He  tried  to  Anglicise  Wales,  and  to 
impress  upon  the  Welsh  by  the  force  of  example  the  superior  merits  of 

English  institutions. 
The  Welsh  looked 
askance.  Customs 
which  in  the  eyes  of 
the  English  were 
lelics  of  a  childish 
baibarism,  which  an 
intelligent  people 
would  be  prompt  to 
icpudiate  as  soon  as 
their  eyes  were 
opened,  had  to  the 
Welshmen  the  sanc- 
tion of  immemorial 
tradition.  The  Welsh 
mountaineers  found 
nothing  to  admire  in 
the  little  colonies  of  English  traders  and  agriculturists  which  were  planted 
in  the  government  centres.  The  English  law  and  the  English  legal 
machinery  offended  their  instincts  and  ignored  their  traditions.  The  Welsh 
gentry  found  their  rights  curtailed  and  their  personal  dignity  insulted  by 
the  intruders,  who  held  them  in  small  respect.  In  a  very  short  time  the 
Welshmen  were  repenting  of  their  submission  and  craving  for  escape  from 
the  beneficent  English  rule  which  in  their  blindness  they  had  brought  upon 
themselves.  The  men  whose  jealousy  and  desertion  of  Llewelyn  had  made 
his  overthrow  so  easy  were  the  first  to  turn  to  him  as  their  only  possible 
deliverer.  The  surface  was  calm,  but  under  it  insurrection  was  brewing. 
Edward  was  deaf  to  complaints  which  savoured  to  him  of  childish  not  to 
say  immoral  unreason.     The  storm  broke  suddenly  and  without  warning. 

The  first  blow  was  struck  by  a  man  who  had  been  hitherto  a  con- 
spicuous adherent  of  the  English,  the  arch-traitor  in  the  eyes  of  patriotic 
Welshmen,  David  the  brother  of  Llewelyn,  who  had  been  rewarded  by  a 
lordship  in  North  Wales.  David  attacked  and  captured  Hawarden,  sur- 
prising it.  His  stroke  was  the  signal  for  a  general  rising.  Llewelyn  flung 
himself  on  the  English  district  bordering  his  principality  on  the  north  ; 
David  sped  south  to  raise  southern  Wales.  For  the  moment  it  seemed  as 
if  the  English  would  be  swept  out  of  the  territories  of  which  not  five  years 


Conway  Castle,  North  Wales. 
[Built  during  the  reign  of  Edward  I,  after  the  EngUsh  conquest.] 


NATIONALISM    AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM     125 

ago  they  had  taken  possession.  No  preparation  had  been  made  for  an 
emergency  so  wholly  unexpected.  The  Marcher  levies,  hastily  raised,  could 
make  no  immediate  headway.  The  summer  passed  in  a  series  of  isolated 
operations,  in  which  the  English  gained  very  little  advantage.  In  the 
autumn  Edward  had  succeeded  in  getting  a  considerable  force  in  motion  on 
the  line  of  his  previous  northern  campaign  ;  but  the  troops,  inefficiently 
commanded,  met  with  a  disaster  in  early  winter,  close  to  the  Menai  Strait. 
Edward  resolved  on  the  unprecedented  course  of  a  winter  campaign. 

But  five  weeks  after  the  Menai  disaster  a  battle  and  an  accident  decided 
the  results  of  the  struggle.  Llewelyn  himself  had  moved  down  to  the  middle 
Marches.  His  forces  were  posted  in  a  strong  position  at  Orewyn  Bridge, 
and  he  himself  was  absent,  when  the  English  effected  a  surprise  attack. 
Orewyn  Bridge  is  noted  as  the  first  occasion  when  an  English  army 
employed  the  method  of  distributing  archers  among  the  men-at-arms  and 
opening  the  battle  with  artillery  to  prepare  the  way  for  a  cavalry  charge  ; 
an  adaptation  of  the  tactics  employed  by  the  Conqueror  at  Hastings,  and 
apparently  by  the  English  at  Northallerton.  Orewyn  Bridge  was  improved 
upon  some  years  later  by  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  again  in  the  course  of  the 
suppression  of  a  Welsh  insurrection,  at  the  battle  of  Maes  Madog  ;  where 
we  have  a  more  detailed  account  of  the  way  in  which  the  archers  were  dis- 
tributed among  the  soldiery.  To  the  student  of  the  art  of  war,  at  least  as 
practised  by  the  English,  it  is  interesting  to  observe  that  the  long-bow  did 
not  become  conspicuous  until  after  the  Welsh  campaigns.  The  cross-bow 
was  still  accounted  the  superior  weapon.  There  is  reason  to  suppose  that 
although  the  English  archers  acquired  a  unique  proficiency  in  the  use  of 
the  long-bow,  they  derived  the  use  of  the  weapon  itself  in  war,  not  from  the 
outlaws  of  Merry  Sherwood,  but  from  the  Welshmen. 

At  Orewyn  Bridge  the  Welsh  were  scattered  or  slaughtered.  The  acci- 
dent which  made  the  battle  practically  decisive  was  the  almost  simulta- 
neous capture  and  death  of  Llewelyn,  not  on  the  field  of  battle  ;  his  slayers 
being  unconscious  of  the  prize  which  had  fallen  into  their  hands. 

These  events  took  place  in  December.  For  six  months  more  Llewelyn's 
brother  David  held  out  in  North  Wales,  while  Edward  was  seriously 
hampered  by  the  defection  of  the  feudal  levies  which  had  served  their  time, 
and  by  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  supplies  for  the  payment  of  troops.  In 
June,  however,  David  was  captured,  and  three  months  afterwards  was  put  to 
death  as  a  traitor.     The  conquest  was  completed. 

The  practical  effect  was  that  so  much  of  Wales  as  had  hitherto  remained 
under  Welsh  princes,  owning  not  much  more  than  a  nominal  overlordship 
of  the  King  of  England",  was  now  annexed  to  the  direct  domains  of  the 
Crown,  the  Marcher  earldoms  and  baronies  under  the  great  Norman  feuda- 
tories not  being  immediately  or  directly  affected.  The  new  domain  formed 
the  Crown  principality  of  Wales,  which  it  presently  became  customary  to 
bestow  upon  the  heir-apparent  of  the  English  throne.  In  the  principality 
Edward  established  the  regular  shire  system,  raised  castles  to  keep  the 


126  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

country  in  subjection,  and  continued  the  Anglicising  process  by  the  plantation 
of  English  colonies  under  the  castle  walls.  For  some  centuries  to  come  the 
principality  was  governed  under  the  Statute  of  Wales  of  1284  as  a  Crown 
domain  standing  outside  the  general  political  system  of  England.  But  in- 
directly also  the  Marcher  earldoms  were  affected,  because  the  establishment 
of  the  king's  government  in  Wales  did  away  with  the  reasons  which  had 
necessitated  the  bestowal  of  exceptional  power  and  authority  in  districts 
where  a  state  of  war  had  been  practically  chronic. 

Ten  years  after  the  Statute  of  Wales  there  was  another  insurrection, 
headed  by  Madog,  a  son  of  Llewelyn  ;  but  this  was  crushed  at  the  battle  of 
Maes  Madog,  to  which  reference  has  already  been  made.  After  this,  though 
the  Welsh  preserved  their  sense  of  nationality,  Wales  did  not  again  attempt 
to  break  away  from  England,  and  the  contingents  of  light  Welsh  soldiery 
habitually  formed  an  element  in  the  armies  of  the  Plantagenet  kings  both 
on  their  Scottish  and  their  French  campaigns. 


IV 

EDWARD   AND   THE   CONSTITUTION 

It  is  a  common  note  of  constitutional  struggles  in  England  that  they 
have  been  largely  concerned  with  questions  of  finance.  Primarily  in  theory 
the  policy  of  the  State  was  the  policy  of  the  king.  The  king  was  supposed 
to  live  "of  his  own,"  and  so  long  as  he  could  pay  his  own  way  he  could 
follow  what  policy  he  chose.  But  if  he  sought  to  pursue  an  expensive 
policy  he  could  not  live  "  of  his  own,"  and  must  supplement  his  resources 
by  taxation  of  one  kind  or  another  ;  that  is,  he  must  either  persuade  or 
compel  his  subjects  to  provide  him  with  additional  means.  Persuasion 
involved  convincing  them  that  the  objects  he  had  in  view  were  desirable ; 
in  other  words,  as  long  as  his  subjects  could  refuse  supplies,  they  could 
paralyse  the  king  for  action,  and  therefore  could  in  effect  control  his  policy. 
The  Crown,  seeking  a  free  hand,  sought  also  every  available  means  of  raising 
revenue  otherwise  than  as  a  grant  by  favour  of  the  subjects.  The  subjects, 
on  the  other  hand,  without  in  the  first  instance  having  any  particular  desire 
to  interfere  with  policy,  resented  arbitrary  exactions.  The  mere  fact  that, 
by  doing  so,  they  found  themselves  exercising  a  control  over  policy,  taught 
the  people  to  regard  the  control  of  policy  as  an  end  to  which  the  control 
of  finance  was  a  means  ;  but  to  begin  with,  the  motive  of  the  subjects' 
resistance  to  taxation  was  not  a  political  one  but  a  simple  objection  to  being 
arbitrarily  deprived  of  their  property.  Thus  the  principle  laid  down  in  the 
Charter  had  been  that  taxation  should  not  be  arbitrary  ;  that  apart  from 
the  liabilities  established  by  recognised  custom,  no  additional  liabilities 
should  be  imposed  without  the  subjects'  consent.  It  is  not  till  the  time 
of  Edward  I.  that  we  have  indications  of  an  inclination  to   be   jealous   of 


NATIONALISM    AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM     127 

the  development  of  new  sources  of  revenue  in  the  hands  of  the  Crown  • 
to  resent  anything  which  helps  the  Crown  to  act  independently  of  supplies 
voluntarily  granted  by  the  people.  It  is  the  exigencies  of  war  and  the 
expenses  involved  by  war  that  bring  financial  and  therefore  constitutional 
questions  into  the  foreground  of  the  latter  portion  of  Edward's  reign. 

The  affairs  of  Scotland  demand  separate  and  consecutive  treatment, 
but  their  bearing  upon  other 
aspects  of  the  years  between 
1290  and  1307  necessitates  some 
reference  to  them  here„  The 
death  of  Alexander  III.  in  1286, 
followed  by  that  of  his  grand- 
daughter Margaret,  the  Maid  of 
Norway,  four  years  later,  opened 
the  debatable  question  of  the 
succession  to  the  Scottish 
Crown.  The  King  of  England 
consented  to  arbitrate  between 
the  various  claimants  on  con- 
dition that  his  own  suzerainty 
should  be  formally  recognised. 
The  demand  was  admitted  by 
the  Scottish  magnates,  and  after 
a  prolonged  inquiry  and  investi- 
gation, judgment  was  delivered 
in  1292  in  favour  of  John 
Balliol,  who  became  King  of 
Scotland  as  Edward's  vassal. 
But  when  it  became  evident 
that  Edward  meant  to  treat  his 
suzerainty  not,  like  his  pre- 
decessors, as  a  mere  formality, 
but  as  a  substantial  fact,  Balliol 
and  the  magnates  attempted 
defiance.  Edward  counted 
Balliol  as  a  recalcitrant  vassal, 
declared  the  crown  forfeited,  invaded  Scotland,  and  set  up  an  English 
government  in  1296.  In  1297  Scotland  was  in  revolt,  led  by  William 
Wallace,  and  the  English  garrison  was  expelled.  Next  year  Edward  again 
invaded  Scotland,  and  routed  the  Scots  at  Falkirk,  but  withdrew  at  the  end 
of  the  year,  leaving  the  country  by  no  means  subdued.  Another  invasion 
in  1 301  was  ineffective,  but  a  campaign  in  1304  was  followed  by  a 
reorganisation  of  the  government  of  Scotland  in  1305.  Balliol  had  dis- 
appeared at  an  early  stage ;  Wallace,  the  popular  Scottish  hero,  was 
captured,  and  executed  in  London  as  a  traitor  in    1305.     But  in   1306  a 


The  Toll  House  and  Prison,  Great  Yarmouth. 
[Mostly  built  in  the  13th  century.] 


128  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

new  liberator  appeared  in  the  person  of  Robert  Bruce,  and  Edward  was 
once  more  preparing  for  what  he  intended  to  be  a  final  and  crushing 
conquest  when  he  died,  a  few  miles  from  the  Scottish  border,  in  1307. 

Now  in  the  year  1292,  after  twenty  years  of  rule,  Edward's  position 
appeared  exceptionally  strong.  He  was  the  ofBcially  acknowledged  over- 
lord of  the  whole  island  from  end  to  end,  suzerain  of  Scotland,  and  master 
of  Wales.  He  had  acquired  an  almost  unprecedented  reputation  as  a  legis- 
lator. The  Marcher  earls  of  Hereford  and  Gloucester  had  incidentally 
learnt  that  they  must  not  presume  upon  their  privileges.  Ecclesiastical 
encroachments  had  been  held  in  check.  After  the  settlement  of  Wales 
Edward  had  spent  three  years  abroad,  mainly  in  Gascony,  where  his  relations 
both  with  his  subjects  and  with  his  suzerain,  Philip  IV.  of  France,  were 
apparently  satisfactory.  Edward's  personal  prestige  among  the  sovereigns 
of  Europe  was  exceedingly  high.  Nevertheless  both  in  France  and  in 
Scotland  trouble  was  brewing,  while  in  England  there  were  members  of  the 
baronage,  notably  Humphrey  de  Bohun,  the  Earl  of  Hereford,  who  were 
vindictively  disposed. 

Trouble  began  with  France.  Philip"  IV.  meant  to  get  Gascony  into  his 
own  hands,  though  he  did  not  intend  to  go  to  war  over  it.  But  apart  from 
the  antagonistic  interests  of  the  two  kings  in  Gascony,  their  subjects  on  either 
side  of  the  English  Channel  were  constantly  at  feud,  each  perpetually 
charging  the  others  with  piracy.  In  1293  there  was  an  organised  sea-light, 
in  which  the  English  were  completely  victorious.  Philip  IV.  used  the 
opportunity  to  summon  Edward  before  him  as  a  vassal.  Edward,  particular 
always  in  insisting  on  the  letter  of  the  law,  could  not  on  his  own  principles 
ignore  Philip's  claim.  For  form's  sake  certain  castles  in  Gascony  were  tem- 
porarily placed  in  Philip's  hands.  Having  got  the  castles,  Philip  showed 
his  hand,  pronounced  the  duchy  forfeited  on  the  ground  of  Edward's  con- 
tumaciousness,  and  proceeded  to  establish  his  own  government. 

Philip's  action  made  war  inevitable.  Parliament  was  called,  large  grants 
were  made  reluctantly  enough  by  the  estates,  and  further,  the  king  arbi- 
trarily took  possession  of  the  wool,  the  staple  export  of  England,  which  was 
lying  at  the  ports,  and  compelled  the  merchants  to  redeem  it  at  a  high 
price.  A  considerable  force  was  collected  and  despatched  to  Gascony. 
Even  the  Welsh  wars  had  proved  that  feudal  levies,  with  their  limited  periods 
of  service,  provided  at  the  best  of  times  very  unsatisfactory  armies  for  the 
conduct  of  long  campaigns.  Now,  the  claims  for  compulsory  service  over- 
seas led  to  that  Welsh  insurrection  which  was  only  suppressed  at  the  begin- 
ning of  1295  by  the  battle  of  Maes  Madog.  The  Welsh  rising  hopelessly 
crippled  the  expedition  to  Gascony,  where  Edward's  forces  met  with  repeated 
disaster.  It  was  hardly  suppressed  when  the  Scots  added  to  the  complications 
by  making  a  treaty  with  France,  the  beginning  of  an  alliance  which  was  to 
be  as  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  the  English  for  more  than  two  and  a  half 
centuries.      Edward  even  saw  himself  threatened  with  a  French  invasion. 

The  king  met  the  immediate  danger  by  a  strategic  organisation  of  the  fleets 


NATIONALISM    AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM     129 

in  the  Channel  which  marks  the  first  clear  recognition  of  command  of  the 
sea  as  a  specific  need  of  the  military  organisation.  But  beyond  this  it  was 
realised  that  a  situation  had  arisen  in  which  it  was  emphatically  necessary 
that  the  nation  should  consciously  identify  itself  with  his  policy,  and  to  this 
end  he  summoned  the  Model  Parliament  of  1295. 

The  summons  to  parliament  included  the  significant  pronouncement  that 
"what  touches  all  should  be  approved  by  all,"  and  that  the  common  danger 
should  be  faced  with  a  united  front.  To  this  parliament  Edward  called  all 
the  magnates,  lay  and  ecclesiastical,  representatives  of  the  lower  clergy,  two 
knights  from  every  shire,  and  two  burgesses  from  every  borough.  Parlia- 
ment had  at  last  ahnost  achieved  its  permanent  shape.  The  three  estates, 
baronage,  clergy,  and  commons,  met  and  deliberated  separately,  each  estate 
taxing  itself  in  answer  to  the  king's  appeal.  The  baronage  voted  an  eleventh, 
the  clergy  a  tenth,  the  boroughs  a  seventh.  But  it  is  to  be  observed  that 
at  this  stage  the  knights  of  the  shire  voted  with  the  baronage,  not  with  the 
burgesses.  It  was  not  till  nearly  forty  years  afterwards  that  the  different 
division  was  established  under  which  the  hereditary  and  ecclesiastical  mag- 
nates sat  in  one  chamber,  the  shire  and  borough  representatives  in  another 
as  the  Commons,  while  the  clergy  ceased  to  attend  as  an  estate  of  parlia- 
ment, but  made  their  grants  in  their  own  separate  assembly,  called 
Convocation. 

Though  Edward  was  thus  enabled,  with  the  nation  at  his  back,  to  make 
great  preparations  for  meeting  the  gathering  storm  of  war,  he  felt  himself 
obliged  to  divide  his  forces  ;  and  himself  spent  the  year  1296,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  an  invasion  of  Scotland,  while  the  second  expedition  was  despatched 
under  his  brother  Edmund  to  Gascony,  Though  the  Scots  war  was  to  all 
appearance  completely  successful,  the  expedition  to  Gascony  fared  little 
better  than  its  predecessor.  Free  to  concentrate  on  the  French  war,  Edward 
called  a  new  parliament,  where  the  barons  and  the  commons  gave  the  king 
liberal  support  ;  but  to  the  intense  indignation  of  every  one  else  concerned, 
the  clergy  declined  to  contribute. 

This  surprising  action  was  the  outcome  of  the  celebrated  Bull  known 
as  Clen'cis  Laicos,  issued  by  Pope  Boniface  VIII.,  forbidding  the  clergy  to 
make  contributions  for  secular  purposes  except  with  the  permission  of  the 
Holy  See  ;  an  injunction  which  had  perhaps  been  issued  not  so  much  with 
the  object  of  asserting  papal  authority  as  to  prevent  the  revenue  of  the 
Church  from  being  devoted  to  the  carrying  on  of  war  between  Christian 
princes.  The  effect,  however,  was  intolerable  to  the  kings  both  of  France 
and  of  England.  But  while  it  brought  the  Pope  in  direct  personal  coIH- 
sion  with  Philip,  the  collision  in  England  was  between  the  king  and  Arch- 
bishop Winchelsea,  the  successor  of  Peckham.  The  Archbishop  pleaded 
in  vain  that  the  clergy  were  ready  enough  to  make  the  grant,  but  that  their 
allegiance  to  the  Pope  forbade  their  doing  so  until  they  had  obtained  his 
permission.  This  doctrine,  that  allegiance  to  the  Pope  stood  before  alle- 
giance to  the  king,  was  peremptorily  rejected.     The  king  replied  that  unless 

I 


I30  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

the  clergy  made  a  contribution  of  a  fifth,  they  should  be  outlawed — that  is  to 
say,  denied  the  protection  of  the  civil  law — and  proceeded  to  carry  the  threat 
into  execution. 

The  clergy  did  not  hold  out  long,  but  some  of  the  barons  who  owed  the 
king  a  grudge  found  their  opportunity.     Edward  had   formed  an  alliance 

with  the  Count  of 
Flanders,  the  friend- 
ship of  Flanders  being 
for  commercial 
reasons  of  great  value 
to  England.  Edward's 
design  was  to  throw 
a  force  into  Flanders 
to  strike  at  France  on 
the  north-east,  instead 
of  confining  himself 
to  military  operations 
in  Gascony  itself.  Of 
tliis  force  he  intended 
himself  to  take  com- 
mand, while  the  Con- 
stable andthe  Marshal, 
the  Earls  of  Here- 
ford and  Norfolk,  the 
highest  military 
officers  of  the  king- 
dom, w^ere  to  com- 
mand in  Gascony. 
Both  refused  flatly, 
on  the  ground  that 
while  they  were 
bound  to  follow  the 
king  in  person,  they 
were  not  bound  to 
go  to  Gascony  with- 
out him.  And  there 
was  no  disputing  the  fact  that  the  technical  right  was  on  their  side 

Meanwhile  the  exigencies  of  the  situation  had  driven  the  king  to 
further  arbitrary  exactions.  Again  he  had  seized  large  quantities  of  wool, 
and  extracted  a  heavy  fee  called  a  male-tolte  from  merchants  w-ho  had  been 
allowed  to  retain  their  goods.  A  spirit  of  resistance  was  kindled,  and  the 
king  found  clergy,  barons,  and  commons  all  clamouring  against  him. 

Edward  realised  that  he  had  placed  himself  in  a  false  position,  and 
nothing,  perhaps,  testified  more  completely  to  the  real  strength  of  his 
character  than  the  wisdom  of  the  concessions  by  which  he  retrieved   the 


Edward  I.  receiving  the  Bull  of  Pope  Boniface  VIII. 
[From  a  MS.  written  and  illuminated  in  Edward's  reign.] 


NATIONALISM    AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM     131 

situation  without  loss  of  dignity.  As  concerned  the  clergy,  indeed,  not  only 
lay  sentiment,  but  probably  that  of  half  the  clergy  themselves,  was  on  his  side. 
It  was  the  clergy  who  gave  way,  not  the  king.  The  two  earls  having  refused 
to  serve  in  their  capacity  as  marshal  and  constable,  the  king  yielded  on  the 
technical  question,  and  their  places  were  taken  by  other  baronSo  In  like 
manner  Edward  publicly  admitted  that  there  was  no  feudal  obligation  to 
accompany  him  to  Flanders,  and  offered  pay  for  volunteer  services,  whereby 
he  was  enabled  to  raise  an  adequate  force.  He  was  at  pains  to  pay  for  all 
the  military  supplies  which  had  been  seized,  and  announced  that  in  due  course 
the  wool  impounded  should  also  be  paid  for.  The  North  was  left  to  look 
after  Scotland,  where  Wallace  had  just  raised  anew  the  banner  of  insurrec- 
tion ;  and  the  king  and  his  army  departed  for  Flanders,  while  Gascony  was 
left  to  take  care  of  itself. 

But  even  at  the  last  moment  the  two  recalcitrant  earls  presented  a  de- 
mand for  a  confirmation  of  the  Great  Charter  and  the  Forest  Charter  ; 
and  they  made  it  clear  that  the  further  collection  of  supplies  w^ould  be 
made  exceedingly  difficult  unless  their  demand  was  conceded.  They  did 
not  stop  the  king's  departure,  but  six  weeks  later,  when  the  regency  which 
had  been  left  in  charge  of  affairs  summoned  a  parliament,  they  appeared 
in  arms  and  presented  a  petition  which  later  generations  interpreted  as 
a  statute,  De  Tallagio  non  Concedendo,  and  cited  practically  as  if  it  had 
been  a  second  Charter ;  it  required  that  the  claims  called  tallages  or 
aids  should  not  be  imposed  without  the  consent  of  parliament.  The 
regency  responded  by  publicly  confirming  the  charters,  to  wiiich  they 
added  the  express  inclusion  of  the  luak-tolle,  though  not  of  tallages,  as 
a  burden  which  might  not  be  imposed  except  by  assent.  The  action  of 
the  regency  was  endorsed  by  the  king  in  Flanders,  and  this  Confirmatio 
Caiiariim  of  1297  stands  out  in  constitutional  history  as  a  landmark 
hardly  less  prominent  than  the  issuing  of  the  Great  Charter  itself  or  the 
calling  of  the  Model  Parliament. 

The  great  Flemish  expedition,  which  had  brought  about  the  crisis,  came 
to  nothing  from  a  military  point  of  view.  Philip  brought  up  an  army 
too  big  for  the  English  and  their  allies  to  attack,  while  he  was  afraid  him- 
self to  adopt  the  offensive.  When  the  kings  had  got  tired  of  doing  nothing 
they  agreed  to  refer  their  quarrel  to  the  Pope,  in  his  private  capacity,  for 
arbitration.  The  enemies  were  reconciled  ;  Edward  took  to  his  second 
wife  the  French  king's  sister,  while  the  Prince  of  Wales  was  betrothed  to 
his  infant  daughter.  Both  parties  tacitly  dropped  their  allies  ;  and  for  the 
remainder  of  Edward's  reign  England  and  France  were  on  terms  of  amity. 

Edward's  return  in  1298  was  followed  by  the  Falkirk  campaign,  but 
Scotland  remained  sporadically  in  arms.  Through  the  winter  and  the 
whole  of  the  year  following  Edward  w^as  much  occupied  with  efforts  to 
avoid  giving  effect  to  the  Confirmation  of  the  Charters,  whereby  much 
irritation  was  revived  among  both  baronage  and  commons  ;  how^ever,  in  the 
spring  of  1300  he  found  himself  compelled  to  give  the  royal  sanction  to 


132  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

what  were  known  as  the  Artimli  Super  Cartas,  which  were  in  effect  ad- 
ditional clauses  deahng  with  recent  grievances.  But  still  another  year 
passed  before  the  reconciliation  could  be  regarded  as  complete.  Perhaps 
what  conduced  more  than  anything  else  to  this  consummation  was  the 
action  of  Archbishop  Winchelsea,  who  supported  Pope  Boniface  in  a  claim 
to  interfere  between  England  and  Scotland,  on  the  somewhat  amazing  ground 
that  Scotland  belonged  to  the  papacy.  The  barons  were  as  angry  as  the 
king,  and  a  reply  was  returned  to  the  Pope  signed  by  more  than  a  hundred 
of  the  lay  magnates,  in  which  he  was  very  bluntly  warned  that  temporal 
affairs  were  the  king's  business  and  not  the  Pope's.  The  remainder  of  the 
reign  was  mainly  occupied  with  Scottish  affairs,  which  can  now  be  recorded 
in  detail. 


THE     LORDSHIP    OF   SCOTLAND 

For  a  hundred  years  after  the  abrogation  of  the  treaty  of  Falaise 
Scotland  prospered,  and  had  no  serious  collision  with  her  southern  neighbour. 
English  kings  had  from  time  to  time  formally  claimed  the  fealty  of  which 
the  three  Scottish  kings  carefully  evaded  any  formal  acknowledgment. 
After  the  accession  of  Edward  I.,  Alexander  III.  in  1274,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  coronation,  very  definitely  rendered  homage  only  for  his  English 
lordships.  Four  years  later  Edward  again  required  Alexander  to  do  homage, 
and  in  respect  of  the  details  the  contemporary  English  and  Scottish 
chroniclers  are  not  in  precise  agreement.  It  is  clear,  however,  that  homage 
for  the  Scottish  Crown  was  not  explicitly  included  in  the  form  of  the  oath 
which  was  taken  by  Alexander's  proxy,  Robert  Bruce,  Earl  of  Carrick ; 
while  the  Scottish  chronicler  affirms  that  it  was  explicitly  excluded.  Edward, 
on  the  other  hand,  explicitly  accepted  the  homage,  reserving  the  right  to 
claim  homage  for  Scotland.  Evidently,  therefore,  the  whole  question  still 
stood  precisely  where  it  had  stood  at  all  times  except  during  the  fifteen 
years  while  the  treaty  of  Falaise  was  in  force. 

Alexander  lived  and  the  kingdom  prospered  until  1286,  when  the  king 
was  killed  by  a  fall  from  his  horse.  The  sole  surviving  heir  of  his 
body  was  his  very  youthful  granddaughter,  Margaret,  the  Maid  of  Norway, 
the  child  of  his  daughter  who  had  married  King  Eric  and  had  died 
herself  when  little  Margaret  was  born.  She  had  been  formally  acknowledged 
as  heir,  and  a  regency  was  appointed  to  carry  on  the  government  until  the 
child  should  be  brought  from  Norway.  Such  a  state  of  affairs  was 
eminently  conducive  to  the  formation  of  parties  among  the  nobility,  since 
at  any  moment  the  succession  to  the  throne  might  become  an  open  question. 
Edward  saw  his  opportunity,  and  suggested  a  judicious  and  peaceful  union 
of  the  Crowns  by  the  marriage  of  Margaret  to  his  own  youthful  heir, 
Edward  of  Carnarvon,  an  arrangement  which  promised  to  be  satisfactory. 


NATIONALISM    AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM      133 

The  treaty  of  Brigham  was  signed  in  1290,  by  which  it  was  agreed  that 
if  the  marriage  took  place  the  laws  and  hberties  of  Scotland  should  be 
maintained.  If  heirs  failed,  the  kingdom  was  to  go  to  its  "  natural  heir," 
and  was  to  remain  free  and  separate,  "  saving  the  rights  of  the  King  of 
England." 

The  little  queen  was  despatched  from  Norway,  but  was  landed  in  the 
Orkneys  only  to  die.  The  law  of  inheritance  was  exceedingly  vague.  In 
England  itself  a  hundred  years  before,  and  in  Normandy,  it  had  been  held 
that  Richard's  youngest  brother  stood  nearer  to  the  throne  than  the  child 
of  an  intervening  brother.  In  Scotland  it  was  possible  to  hark  back  to 
Celtic  custom,  and  argue  that  even  the  vague  feudal  rules  of  succession  did 

THE   SCOTTISH    CROWN 

David  I. 

I 
Henry  of  Huntingdon. 


Malcolm  IV., 

the  Maiden, 

"S3- 


Alexander  i I     1214. 
Alexander  HI. ,  1249. 


Margaret,  m. 
Eric  of  Norway. 

Margaret,  the 

Maid  of  Norway, 

1285. 


Willi  am  the  Lion, 
1165. 


Margaret. 


Devorguilla, 
m.  John  Balliol. 

1 


ui  Balliol 
1292. 

I 

Edward 
Balliol. 


I 

Margaret,  m-. 
John  Comyn. 

John  (the  Red) 
Comyn. 


I 
Isabella,  m. 
Robert  Bruce. 

I 
Robert  Bruce, 
the  Claimant. 


Robert  Bruce. 


Rohert  I. . 
Bruce,  1306. 


David  of  Huntingdon. 


I 

Ada,  m. 

Henry  Hastings. 

Henry  Hastings. 


John  Hastings, 
the  Claimant. 


not  apply  to  the  Crown.  No  fewer  than  thirteen  claimants  now  came 
forward,  each  asserting  some  sort  of  title  to  the  succession.  Of  these  only 
four  counted:  Robert  Bruce,  Earl  of  Annandale,  John  Balliol,  Hastings,  and 
Comyn  of  Badenoch.  All  these  were  descended  in  the  female  line  from 
David  of  Huntingdon,  brother  of  William  the  Lion  ;  and  all  were  of  Norman 
families  holding  lordships  in  England  as  well  as  in  Scotland.  Balliol 
claimed  as  the  grandson  of  David's  eldest  daughter.  Comyn's  claim 
through  the  same  grandmother  could  not  stand  against  Balliol's,  but  he 
also  had  a  claim  as  descending  from  Donalbain,  the  brother  of  Malcolm 
Canmore.  He,  however,  withdrew  from  the  competition.  Bruce  claimed 
as  the  son  of  David's  second  daughter,  and  therefore  as  standing  nearer  to 
the  throne  than  the  grandson  of  the  eldest  daughter.  Hastings  claimed 
through  the  third  daughter,  but  could  only  maintain  that  the  kingdom 
should  be  divided  among  the  descendants  of  the  three  sisters  instead  of 
going  to  the  representative  of  one  of  them. 


134  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

The  magnates  appealed  to  the  King  of  England  to  act  as  arbitrator. 
Edward  agreed,  but  on  condition,  as  he  was  master  of  the  situation, 
that  all  parties  should  acknowledge  his  overlordship.  The  magnates,  faced 
with  a  prospect  not  only  of  civil  war,  but  of  a  forcible  assertion  of  his  own 
claims  by  Edward  in  the  event  of  their  refusal,  accepted  the  situation. 
While  the  arbitration  was  proceeding  Edward  was  to  hold  certain  castles, 
and  was  to  remain  in  possession  until  the  award  settled  who  the  new  king 
was  to  be.  A  strong  committee  of  investigation,  mainly  Scottish  in  its  com- 
position, was  appointed,  and  in  course  of  time  arrived  at  what  seems  the 
moot  obvious  conclusion,  that  Balliol's  claim  was  the  strongest.  He  was 
accordingly  crowned,  and  did  homage  for  the  Scottish  kingdom. 

The  Scots  had  probably  assumed  that  Edward  would  be  content  with  the 
formal  acknowledgment  of  the  suzerainty  which  all  his  predecessors  had 
claimed  and  none  had  attempted  to  enforce.  Neither  the  magnates  in 
general  nor  the  competitors  in  particular  can  be  greatly  blamed  for  yielding 
to  Edward's  demand  ;  and  most  of  the  Norman  barons  in  Scotland,  being 
in  any  case  feudatories  of  Edward  in  respect  of  estates  in  England,  had  no 
inherent  objection  to  recognising  him  as  supreme  overlord  in  Scotland  as 
well.  But  when  Edward  made  it  evident  that  the  overlordship  was  not  to 
be  a  mere  formality  at  all,  the  situation  was  changed.  Appeals  were  carried 
from  Scotland  to  be  decided  by  the  overlord  in  England,  and  Edward  sum- 
moned feudal  levies  from  Scotland  to  aid  in  his  projected  wars  in  France. 
Balliol  was  a  feeble  person,  with  no  capacity  for  asserting  himself.  Two 
years  after  he  became  king  the  Scots  virtually  deposed  him,  and  set  up  a 
Council  of  government,  something  after  the  fashion  of  the  Provisions  of 
Oxford  ;  while  they  repudiated  Edward's  claims,  forced  Balliol  to  the  same 
course,  and  entered  upon  negotiations  with  Philip  IV. 

Edward  summoned  Balliol  to  appear  before  him  as  a  recalcitrant  vassal  ; 
and  early  in  1296,  just  after  the  Model  Parliament,  he  appeared  in  arms 
on  the  Scottish  "border.  Then,  since  Balliol  did  not  present  himself  in 
answer  to  his  summons,  he  fell  upon  Berwick  and  subjected  its  inhabitants  to 
a  massacre.  Balliol  renounced  his  allegiance,  and  Edward  marched  through 
Scotland,  meeting  with  little  resistance.  In  the  summer  Balliol  surrendered, 
and  was  adjudged  to  have  forfeited  the  kingdom,  which  by  feudal  law  re- 
verted to  the  overlord  :  exactly  as  a  short  time  before  Philip  IVo  had  declared 
Gascony  to  be  forfeited  to  the  French  Crown. 

There  should  be  no  new  King  of  Scotland  ;  a  hint  from  Bruce,  that  his 
own  title  might  now  be  recognised,  was  waved  aside.  Edward  himself  was 
to  be  king,  and  would  govern  through  his  own  officers.  He  appointed  Earl 
Warenne  his  Lieutenant,  and  Hugh  Cressingham  Treasurer.  Nearly  every 
prominent  person  in  Scotland  took  the  oath  of  fealty,  and  Edward  withdrew 
to  England  to  devote  his  whole  attention  to  the  Flanders  expedition. 

Edward's  probable  intention  was  ultimately  to  assimilate  the  government 
of  Scotland  with  that  of  England  ;  but  practically  the  government  he  set  up 
was  a  military  occupation   by  the  English  ;  and   the  English  garrison  be- 


Dupplm/?.foor   x 


NATIONALISM   AND   CONSTITUTIONALISM     135 

haved  after  the  arrogant  fashion  of  conquerors.  Whatever  feudal  magnates 
might  do,  the  people  of  Scotland  had  no  mind  to  submit  to  the  tyranny  of 
foreign  masters  :  and  long  before  Edward  had  departed  to  Flanders  popu- 
lar      insurrections  

were  on  foot, 
headed  in  the 
western  lowlands 
by  a  gentleman 
named  William 
Wallace,  round 
whom  large  num- 
bersof  the  common 
folk  promptly 
gathered.  Several 
of  thebarons  joined 
the  insurrection, 
though  their  atti- 
tude was  habitually 
half  -  hearted,  and 
most  of  them  were 
to  be  found  during 
the  following  years 
fighting  alternately 
for  and  against  the 
English  king. 
Warenne  attempted 
to  suppress  the 
rising  ;  but  owing 
to  his  blundering 
incapacity  hisforces 
were  cut  to  pieces 
by  Wallace  at  the 
battle  of  Cambus- 
kenneth  or  Stirling 
Bridge.  Except  for 
two  or  three  castles, 
the  English  forces 
were  swept  out  of 
Scotland;  while  the 

barons  of  England  were  engaged  in  extorting  the  Confirmatio  Cartarum 
from  the  regency  which  Edward,  now  in  Flanders,  had  left  in  England. 

Wallace  was  the  one  man  who  had  openly  and  uncompromisingly  set 
England  at  defiance.  He  had  begun  his  career  by  breaking  the  heads 
of  English  soldiers  and  continued  it  by  what  the  English  called  brigandage  ; 
whereas  such  of  the  barons  as  had  joined  with  him  were  at  least  in  no 


The  battlefields  of  English  and  Scots  in  the  13th  and  14th  centuries. 


136  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

worse  position  than  that  of  mere  rebels  against  feudal  authority.  None  of 
them  was  prepared  openly  to  stand  forth  as  leader  of  a  revolt  in  the  name 
of  King  John  Balliol.  Wallace,  by  what  authority  we  do  not  know,  was 
proclaimed  Protector  of  the  kingdom.  But  six  months  after  Cambuskenneth 
Edward  was  back  in  England,  and  in  July  he  was  in  Scotland  with  a  large 
army. 

Wallace  had  collected  a  large  force,  though  he  had  but  few  archers,  and 
a  mere  handful  of  cavalry,  on  whom  no  reliance  could  be  placed.  Still,  at 
Falkirk  he  gave  battle  to  King  Edward's  host.  The  Scots  fought  after  their 
own  fashion,  and  if  Edward  had  not  drawn  the  moral  from  his  Welsh  wars 
the  Scots  would  have  won.  Wallace  massed  his  men  in  four  solid  bodies 
of  spearmen,  the  formation  known  as  the  "  schiltron."  The  few  archers 
posted  between  the  solid  masses  were  promptly  cut  to  pieces  by  the  charg- 
ing English,  and  the  cavalry  incontinently  took  to  flight.  But  the  chivalry 
of  England  hurled  itself  against  the  mass  of  spears  as  vainly  as  the  Normans 
had  done  at  Hastings,  until  Edward,  coming  up  with  the  main  body  of  his 
army,  advanced  the  archers  within  point-blank  distance  and  bade  them  con- 
centrate their  fire  on  particular  points  in  the  spear-hedge.  The  Scots  could 
only  stand  to  be  shot  at  or  break  their  formation  and  charge.  Great  gaps 
were  made  in  their  ranks,  and  into  these  Edward  hurled  his  cavalry.  The 
stubborn  resistance  was  turned  to  a  rout,  and  thousands  of  Scots  were  left 
dead  on  the  field,  though  Wallace  escaped  and  remxained  at  large. 

For  the  moment  it  seemed  that  the  battle  of  Falkirk  was  decisive. 
Edward  withdrew  ;  but  he  had  only  effected  a  temporary  reconciliation 
with  his  barons,  who  were  still  pressing  to  have  full  effect  given  to  the  Con- 
firmatio  Cartarum.  He  was  too  much  taken  up  with  other  affairs  immedi- 
ately to  organise  the  government  in  Scotland.  Wallace's  power  was  gone, 
and  probably  he  betook  himself  abroad  to  negotiate  with  the  King  of  France 
and  the  Pope  ;  but  the  barons,  who  withheld  their  support  from  a  mere 
gentleman  like  Wallace,  were  more  inclined  to  act  when  Wallace  was  out 
of  the  way.  Hence  in  the  years  following  Falkirk  there  was  little  enough 
sign  of  English  authority  north  of  the  Tweed,  though  no  one  knew  at  any 
given  time  which  of  the  nobles  would  be  posing  as  patriots  and  which  as 
Edward's  men  a  week  later.  Then  came  the  Pope's  intervention,  which 
seemed  to  unite  the  English  barons  in  support  of  Edward  so  far  as  Scotland 
was  concerned. 

The  prospect  of  an  invasion  of  the  country  by  Edward  in  person  brought 
over  some  of  the  Scots  nobles,  including  young  Robert  Bruce,  the  grandson 
of  the  old  claimant,  who  at  this  stage  of  affairs  appears  to  have  changed 
sides  perpetually. 

In  1303  Edward  marched  through  Scotland,  meeting  with  little  resist- 
ance as  usual  ;  and  when  he  again  entered  Scotland  with  an  army  in  1304, 
the  nobles  of  the  national  party  gave  up  the  struggle  and  surrendered  on 
terms.  Edward  was  ready  to  admit  practically  every  one  to  his  peace  with 
the    exception   of  William   Wallace,  who  was  back  again,  though  without 


NATIONALISM    AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM     137 

any  recognised  authority.  Not  long  after,  Wallace  himself  was  caught,  by 
vile  treachery  according  to  common  tradition,  carried  to  London,  and 
hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered  as  a  traitor.  Myths  and  legends  swarm  about 
the  national  hero  who  never  bowed  the  knee  to  the  foreign  usurper.  He 
was  probably  bloodthirsty,  and  he  had  suffered  personal  wrongs  enough  to 
make  his  bloodthirstiness  excusable.  But  he  stands  out  alone  as  conspicu- 
ously the  one  man  who  gave  himself  body  and  soul  to  the  cause  of  Scottish 
liberty,  and  therefore  the  one  who  in  Edward's  eyes  was  guilty  of  unpardon- 
able crime.  It  was  he  and  no  other  who  inspired  the  people  of  Scotland 
with  that  passionate  patriotism  which  was  to  bear  fruit  when  another  leader 
came  to  the  front  who  had  hitherto  shown  little  enough  promise  of  be- 
coming a  national  hero. 

The  capture  of  Wallace  seemed  to  have  removed  the  last  obstacle  to  the 
establishment  of  Edward's  supremacy.  Balhol  was  forgotten  ;  Bruce  and 
Comyn  of  Badenoch,  the  only  possible  pretenders,  had  both  come  into  the 
king's  peace.  At  last,  then,  in  1305,  Edward,  at  peace  with  France,  reconciled 
with  his  own  subjects,  victor  in  his  contest  with  the  archbishop,  was  able  to 
set  about  the  organisation  of  the  Scottish  government.  A  constitution  was 
prepared  something  after  the  Welsh  precedent.  Evidently  it  was  Edward's 
intention  to  leave  Scottish  law  and  custom  unaltered  so  far  as  was  com- 
patible with  the  establishment  of  a  strong  central  government  under  his  own 
royal  control.  There  was  to  be  no  general  substitution  of  English  for 
Scottish  authorities  after  the  manner  of  the  Norman  Conquest.  An  adminis- 
trative system  was  to  be  set  up  which  would  probably  have  proved  excellent 
if  it  could  only  have  won  acceptance  from  the  Scottish  people  ;  if  also  the 
English  who  were  planted  in  Scotland,  forming  necessary  garrisons,  should 
endeavour  to  make  themselves  acceptable  to  the  natives.  While  revolt  was 
leaderless  Scotland  might  have  time  to  accustom  itself  to  the  new  order,  to 
recognise  its  merits,  and  to  settle  down  into  a  peaceable  union  with  the 
southern  kingdom.      But  these  things  were  not  to  be. 

If  a  leader  appeared  it  was  still  probable  that  the  hatred  of  the  English 
burnt  into  the  Scots  by  recent  events  would  rouse  them  to  another  effort  to 
fling  off  the  foreign  suprem.acy.  And  the  leader  appeared  immediately  in 
the  person  of  Robert  Bruce.  In  1306  the  startling  intelligence  was  brought 
to  Edward  that  Bruce  had  met,  in  the  church  of  the  Grey  Friars  of  Dumfries, 
John  Comyn,  who  was  temporarily  acting  for  Edward  as  Lieutenant  of 
Scotland,  had  quarrelled  with  him,  and  slain  him  before  the  high  altar. 
Apart  even  from  the  sacrilege,  the  deed  would  have  been  unpardonable  ;  and 
Bruce  had  left  himself  no  alternative  save  to  make  a  desperate  bid  for  the 
crown  of  an  independent  Scotland  or  to  die  ignominiously  as  a  traitor. 
Probably  he  had  already  made  up  his  mind  to  the  former  course  before  he 
slew  Comyn,  with  whom  he  had  sought  the  meeting  in  order  to  bring  him 
over  to  his  own  cause.  At  any  rate  the  deed  was  done,  and  Robert,  the 
vacillating  turncoat  of  the  past,  perforce  transformed  into  the  champion  of 
Scottish  independence,  redeemed  the  sins  and  faults  of  his  youth  as  the 


138  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION  " 

indomitable  and  magnanimous  hero  who  fought  and  won  against  enormous 
odds  the  victory  of  Scottish  freedom.  Comyn  was  hardly  dead  when 
Bruce  got  himself  crowned  by  a  few  uncompromising  supporters,  declared 
himself  King  of  Scotland,  and  proclaimed  a  war  of  liberation.  It  began  un- 
promisingly  enough,  for  the  king  was  promptly  placed  under  the  ban  of  the 
Church,  and  the  whole  of  the  Comyn  kin  was  roused  against  him.  The 
few  bold  adherents  who  at  once  collected  were  routed  by  a  superior  force 
at  Methven.  He  himself  became  a  fugitive ;  two  of  his  brothers  were 
captured  and  beheaded,  and  his  wife  and  daughter  also  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  English.  Bruce  passed  the  winter  in  hiding,  but  with  the  spring  he 
reappeared  in  his  own  earldom  of  Carrick,  where  he  began  an  energetic 
system  of  raiding  diversified  by  hairbreadth  escapes  ;  while  Edward  was 
collecting  a  large  army  in  the  north  of  England  to  crush  Scottish  resistance 
once  and  for  all.  A  victory  in  the  open  field  at  Loudon  Hill  over  an  English 
force  under  Aymer  de  Valence,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  brought  new  adherents  to 
the  adventurer.  But  Edward's  own  army  of  conquest  was  on  the  point  of 
crossing  the  Border  when  the  great  king  died  at  Burgh-on-Sands.  His 
bones  were  carried  back  to  Westminster,  and  his  tomb  bears  the  significant 
inscription.  Malleus  Scotorum,  "  The  Hammer  of  the  Scots." 


VI 

ASPECTS   OF  THE   POLICY   OF   EDWARD   I 

We  have  seen  that  Edward's  policy  during  the  first  twenty  years  of  his 
reign  tended  to  restrict  the  individual  powers  of  the  great  nobles.  This  was 
the  effect  of  the  legislation  from  the  Statute  of  Gloucester  to  Quia  Emptores. 
A  like  effect  was  produced  by  the  conquest  of  Wales,  so  far  as  the  Marcher 
earldoms  were  concerned ;  since  it  was  no  longer  necessary  to  concede  to 
the  earls  that  freedom  of  action  which  in  practice  was  required  so  long  as  it 
could  be  pleaded  that  the  Marches  were  virtually  in  a  persistent  state  of  war. 
The  same  sort  of  policy  was  observed  by  Edward  during  the  remainder  of 
his  reign.  When  Gloucester  and  Hereford  attempted  to  assert  their  tradi- 
tional authority,  they  were  promptly  taught  that  their  independence  had 
disappeared  with  the  disappearance  of  its  raison  d'etre;  and  that  was  the 
main  cause  of  Hereford's  subsequent  attitude  of  persistent  opposition  to  the 
king. 

Edward,  however,  sought  to  strengthen  the  Crown  as  against  the  great 
feudatories  in  another  way,  by  the  absorption  of  great  estates  into  the 
lordship  of  the  royal  house.  First  Gloucester,  and  afterwards  Hereford's 
successor,  were  compelled,  willingly  or  unwillingly,  to  marry  two  of  the 
king's  daughters,  so  that  the  earls  of  the  next  generation  were  both  of  the 
blood  royal.  The  third  member  of  the  baronage  who  had  stood  in  conspi- 
cuous opposition  to  the  king  was  Roger  Bigod,  Earl  of  Norfolk.      His  estates 


NATIONALISM    AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM     139 

were  entailed  on  the  heirs  of  his  body  ;  and  since  he  was  childless,  they 
passed  on  his  death  to  the  Crown.  In  hke  manner  Cornwall  lapsed  to  the 
Crown  on  the  death  of  its  earl,  the  king's  cousin.  Thomas  of  Lancaster, 
Edward's  nephew,  held  three  earldoms,  to  which  two  more  were  ultimately 
added  by  his  marriage  to  the  daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Lincoln.  The  imme- 
diate effect  was  to  secure  a  great  preponderance  for  the  blood  royal  among 
the  greater  barons.  The  same  policy  with  the  same  end  in  view  was 
pursued  by  the  king's  grandson,  Edward  IIL  ;  although,  as  we  shall  presently 
find,  it  subsequently  bore  fruit  of  a  very  different  kind  from  that  which  had 
been  intended. 

In  the  second  place,  the  king  aimed  at  procuring  authority  for  pronounce- 
ments which  should  secure  to  him  beyond  cavil  powers  of  raising  money 
without  a  direct  appeal  to  the  goodwill  of  his  subjects.  To  that  end  his 
statutes  defined  feudal  aids  and  expressly  authorised  the  levying  of  the 
"Great  and  Ancient  Customs,"  the  fixed  tax  on  exported  wool.  But  he  was 
in  no  haste  to  procure  definitions  which  expressly  limited  his  powers  of  ex- 
action, and  tried  his  hardest  to  avoid  formal  ratifications  of  the  Charters  in 
terms  which  expressly  required  the  assent  of  parliament  to  various  imposts 
such  as  the  tallages  which  had  from  time  to  time  been  levied  from  the 
towns.  The  tallages,  as  we  have  seen,  were  not  formally  surrendered  by  him 
in  his  Confirmation  of  the  Charters,  despite  the  petition  of  the  barons  which 
was  subsequently  treated  as  a  statute.  In  effect,  Edward  devised  or  applied 
various  means  of  raising  money,  to  which  exception  was  taken  sooner  or 
later  as  contravening  the  principle  that  only  specified  taxes  might  be  raised 
without  parliament's  consent.  Thus  under  pressure  of  circumstances  the 
king  seized  the  wool  of  the  merchants,  or  war  supplies,  as  being  within  the 
prerogative  of  the  Crown,  though  of  his  grace  he  consented  to  compensate 
the  sufferers  for  their  losses.  Long  custom  treated  an  estate  of  a  certain 
value  as  being  a  knight's  holding  ;  and  on  it  he  based  a  decree  that  every 
one  in  possession  of  such  a  holding  must  take  up  knighthood,  and  pay  the 
feudal  fee  on  taking  up  knighthood,  on  pain  of  a  heavy  fine.  He  made,  at 
the  very  close  of  his  reign,  a  bargain  with  the  foreign  merchants,  in  accord- 
ance with  which  he  of  his  own  authority  imposed  what  were  afterwards  called 
the  New  and  Small  Customs  as  opposed  to  the  Great  and  Ancient  Customs 
— additional  taxes  on  exported  goods.  On  occasion,  instead  of  applying  to 
parliament,  he  bargained  with  separate  sections  of  the  community  for  par- 
ticular grants.  Hardly  any  of  these  methods  were  decisively  challenged 
at  the  time  ;  but  all  later  provided  bones  of  contention  between  Crown  and 
parliament  when  parliament  learnt  to  think  of  financial  control  as  a  means 
to  the  control  of  policy  and  administration. 

Apart  from  these  various  sources  of  supply,  legitimate  or  otherwise, 
English  kings  in  the  past  had  been  in  the  habit  of  meeting  financial  emer- 
gencies by  borrowing  ;  and  the  source  from  which  alone  they  could  borrow 
was  the  Jewish  community.  The  ethical  standard  upheld  by  the  medieval 
Church  forbade  Christian  men  the  practice  of   usury,  that  is,  of  lending 


I40  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

money  at  interest.  The  Jews  recognised  no  such  moral  restriction,  and 
as  a  body  they  derived  their  wealth  not  from  trading  but  from  financing 
their  neighbours.  Socially  they  were  outside  the  pale  ;  but  the  kings  of 
England  generally  took  them  under  their  own  protection,  because  they 
were  a  useful  source  from  which  the  Crown  could  obtain  supplies  upon 
reasonable  terms,  as  their  protector.  That  proviso  did  not  apply  to 
private  persons  who  found  themselves  driven  to  borrowing  ;  and  the  Jews 
were  detested  both  on  the  ground  of  religious  prejudice  and  as  extortioners. 
Perhaps  the  most  popular  act  of  Edward  was  his  expulsion  of  the  Jews 
from  England  ;  a  measure  which,  while  it.  gratified  popular  prejudice, 
appeared  to  be  conspicuously  disinterested  because  the  Crown  thereby 
deprived  itself  of  the  source  from  which  it  had  hitherto  been  able  to  borrow 


A  13th  century  caricature  upon  the  Jews  of  Norwich. 
[From  the  Jews'  Roll  in  the  Public  Record  Office.] 

on  emergency.  But  in  fact  Edward  found  a  substitute  for  the  Jews.  The 
great  commercial  houses  of  the  cities  of  northern  Italy  had  already  developed 
a  financial  business,  in  spite  of  ecclesiastical  doctrines  as  to  usury,  which 
had  deprived  the  Jews  of  their  monopoly;  and  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews 
made  room  for  the  Lombards  and  Florentines.  The  Crown  in  fact  probably 
lost  little  by  the  exchange. 

Before  the  time  of  King  Edward  the  development  of  national  commerce 
had  not  presented  itself  to  the  kings  as  an  object  of  policy.  The  mere 
expansion  of  trade  developed  the  consciousness  of  common  interests  as 
opposed  to  merely  local  interests  among  the  English  producers,  and  so 
fostered  that  national  idea  which  was  so  prominent  in  Edward's  own  mind  ; 
and  a  similar  notion  is  latent  in  Edward's  habit  of  negotiating  with  mer- 
cantile groups  in  preference  to  individual  boroughs. 

These  beginnings,  however,  of  the  nationalisation  of  commerce  went 
on  side  by  side  with  the  development  of  the  corporate  life  of  the  boroughs 
themselves,   both  being  encouraged  by  the  final   recognition    of   borough 


NATIONALISM    AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM     141 

representatives  as  an  element  of  the  national  parliament.  And  here  we 
may  note  in  the  boroughs,  beside  the  gilds-merchant,  the  growth  of  the 
craft-gilds,  to  which  the  authority  of  the  gilds-merchant  was  gradually 
transferred.  The  craft-gilds  were  associations  of  the  members  of  the 
separate  trades  or  crafts  ;  and  we  must  not  be  led  by  modern  analogies 
to  imagine  that  they  consisted  of  handworkers  in  opposition  to  capitalist 
employers.  In  the  thirteenth  century  the  trader  was  a  master  craftsman 
who  was  already  a  free  burgess.  He  might  or  might  not  have  journeymen 
and  apprentices  in  his  employ,  but  in  any  case  he  was  practically  certain 
to  be  a  worker  himself.  And  every  apprentice  and  nearly  every  journeyman 
looked  forward  to  the  time  when  he  should  himself  become  a  master  crafts- 
man and  a  burgess.  There  was  no  active  antagonism  between  employer 
and  employed  when  the  employed  looked  upon  himself  as  an  employer 
in  the  making.  Nor  was  there  direct  antagonism  between  the  gild-merchant 
and  the  craft-gild,  because  the  master  craftsman  was  of  necessity  a  member 
of  the  gild-merchant — seeing  that  if  he  were  not  so  he  could  not  carry 
on  his  trade.  In  the  main,  the  substitution  of  the  leading  craft-gilds  for 
the  gild-merchant  as  the  local  authority  for  the  regulation  of  trade  was 
not  the  outcome  of  the  struggle  between  rival  organisations  but  merely 
a  matter  of  practical  administrative  convenience. 

The  national  idea  was,  as  we  have  seen, only  in  embryo,  and  the  commercial 
idea  of  breeding  and  accumulating  wealth  was  only  in  embryo.  Commerce 
was  practically  the  local  exchange  of  goods  of  wiiich  there  happened  to 
be  a  superfluity,  for  goods  of  which  there  happened  to  be  a  deficiency, 
and  the  local  producer  was  extremely  jealous  of  the  competition  of  the 
outside  producer,  whom  he  called  a  "  foreigner."  But  Edward  saw  in 
the  development  of  a  national  commerce  a  means  not  only  to  increasing 
the  material  prosperity  of  his  subjects,  but  also  to  filling  the  royal  exchequer. 
By  increasing  the  volume  of  exports  and  imports,  the  produce  of  the 
customs,  new  or  old,  would  be  proportionately  increased.  The  superior 
quality  of  certain  English  products,  notably  wool  and  hides  and  some  other 
raw  materials,  had  created  a  demand  for  them  on  the  Continent,  notably  for 
the  looms  of  Flanders.  The  export  was  to  be  encouraged ;  and  Edward 
sought  to  concentrate  it  at  particular  ports,  partly  because  the  trade  could 
thereby  be  better  supervised  in  the  interests  of  the  traders,  and  partly 
because  the  customs  could  be  more  easily  collected  in  the  interests  of 
the  Crown. 

VII 

ROBERT   BRUCE 

The  death  of  Edward  I.  put  an  entirely  new  complexion  upon  the  pros- 
pect of  Scottish  independence.  The  old  king  had  made  up  his  mind  to 
punish  the  fresh  revolt  with  an  iron  hand  and  to  bring  Scotland  under  his 


142  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

heel.  A  successor  of  the  same  quaHty  as  himself  might  have  carried  out 
his  plan,  though  it  may  be  doubted  whether  he  could  have  effected  a  perma- 
nent pacification  of  Scotland.  But  Edward  II.  was  of  an  altogether  different 
type.  Devoid  of  patriotic  or  kingly  ambition,  the  young  Edward  had  little 
thought  except  for  his  amusements  and  the  gratification  or  the  wealth  of  the 
favourites  by  whom  he  was  surrounded.  Moreover,  as  often  happens  with 
a  masterful  ruler,  the  great  Edward  had  been  served,  latterly  at  least,  by  men 
who  were  efficient  instruments  for  executing  his  will  but  were  not  capable 
of  relieving  his  successor  of  the  responsibilities  of  government.  So  instead 
of  carrying  out  his  father's  plans,  Edward  II.  contented  himself  with  a  mere 
military  parade,  dropped  the  conquest  of  Scotland,  left  its  government  in 
charge  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  and  retired  to  England.  No  one  troubled 
about  Scotland,  since  the  whole  of  the  baronage  immediately  found  them- 
selves entirely  taken  up  with  the  personal  rivalries  and  jealousies  which 
were  let  loose  by  the  conduct  of  the  new  king. 

So  Bruce  continued  his  raiding,  held  in  check  only  by  the  various  castles 
which  the  policy  of  the  first  Edward  had  filled  with  English  garrisons,  and 
by  the  hostility  of  nobles  who  were  either  involved  in  the  blood-feud  with 
the  Comyns  or,  for  one  cause  or  another,  were  irrevocably  committed  to  the 
English  side.  Those  who  were  not  so  committed  either  sat  still  and  awaited 
events,  or,  as  one  success  after  another  attended  the  arms  of  the  adventurer 
and  the  band  of  brilliant  fighting  men  who  had  attached  themselves  to  him, 
became  open  adherents  of  King  Robert.  Each  new  feat  of  arms  achieved 
by  the  king  himself  or  his  brother  Edward,  by  James  Douglas  or  Thomas 
Randolph,  Earl  of  Moray,  brought  in  fresh  supporters  ;  while  no  similar 
successes  attended  the  English,  who  sat  sullenly  in  their  castles  until  one 
after  another  was  surprised,  and,  being  captured,  was  levelled  with  the 
ground.  For  the  Scots  could  not  afford  to  lock  up  their  own  fighting  men 
to  garrison  the  castles,  nor  would  they  run  the  risk  of  their  being  reoccupied 
by  the  English. 

In  13 ID  Edward  was  stirred  up  to  lead  an  invasion  into  Scotland  ;  but 
he  found  no  one  to  fight,  the  country  was  laid  waste  before  him,  and  he 
retired  in  inglorious  discomfiture.  In  1311  and  131 2  the  Scots  took  the 
offensive  and  raided  the  northern  counties  of  England.  Then  Perth  was 
surprised  in  January  131 3,  and  Roxburgh  a  year  later,  by  Bruce  himself  and 
by  Lord  James  Douglas  respectively.  Before  Easter  Randolph  had  surprised 
Edinburgh,  scaling  the  precipitous  rock  by  night.  Stirling  had  already  been 
invested,  and  was  now  the  only  fortress  of  importance  which  remained  in 
English  hands  ;  moreover  the  commandant  had  pledged  himself  to  surrender 
unless  he  were  relieved  by  the  Midsummer  Day  ensuing. 

The  fall  of  Stirling  would  mean  that  the  last  fragment  of  Edward  I.'s 
conquest  of  Scotland  would  vanish.  Even  Edward  II.  awoke  to  the  neces- 
sity for  action.  A  superficial  reconciliation  had  just  been  effected  between 
the  king  and  his  barons  ;  and,  though  some  of  them  still  declined  to  join 
him   in   person  on  a  Scottish    campaign    undertaken  without   the   express 


NATIONALISM    AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM     143 

sanction  of  parliament,  he  led  a  mighty  arm}^  across  the  border  in  June  13 14, 
magnificent  in  equipment  and  attended  by  a  vast  baggage  train.  He  had 
a  short  week  in  which  to  reach  Stirling  before  the  hour  should  arrive  when 
it  was  pledged  to  surrender  unless  relieved.  The  great  host  rolled  to  the 
north-westward  in  a  hasty  and  ill-managed  march.  King  Robert  knew  that 
the  crucial  hour  had  come,  and  posted  his  comparatively  small  force  on  a 
carefully  selected  position,  the  field  of  Bannockburn,  covering  the  immediate 
approach  to  Stirling.     Wal- 


lace  had  staked  all  on  the 
field  of  Falkirk,  which  had 
come  near  to  being  adecisive 
victory  for  the  Scots.  Bruce 
himself  had  been  present  at 
that  battle,  and  fully  under- 
stood how  itwas  that  Edward 
had  turned  it  into  a  decisive 
English  victory.  Falkirk 
was  not  to  be  repeated  at 
Bannockburn,  since  Bruce 
rightly  calculated  that  there 
was  with  the  English  army 
no  commander  possessing 
the  large  experience  and 
the  technical  resource  of 
Edward  I.  It  was  a  moral 
certainty  that  the  English, 
with  their  huge  force  of 
men-at-arms,  would  rely 
upon  the  customary  medie- 
val tactics,  and  endeavour 
to  crush  the  Scottish  in- 
fantry    by     the     shock     of 

charging  squadrons.  He  himself  must  rely,  like  Wallace,  upon  Ihe  stub- 
born valour  of  his  footmen  ;  since  he,  like  Wallace,  had  no  masses  of 
cavalry  and  few  archers.  Therefore  he  had  to  guard  against  the  pos- 
sibility of  having  his  flank  turned,  and  against  a  repetition  of  the  archery 
tactics. 

The  position  chosen  gave  Bruce  what  he  needed,  a  narrow  front  where 
his  soldiery  could  be  massed,  with  broken  and  boggy  ground  on  the  flanks 
which  secured  them  from  being  turned.  Boggy  ground  on  the  front  itself 
would  minimise  the  shock  of  the  charge  ;  and  where  it  was  not  boggy  it  was 
carefully  prepared  with  the  iron  spikes  called  calthrops,  and  with  covered 
pits,  so  as  to  produce  a  similar  effect.  The  bulk  of  Bruce's  cavalry  too  were 
dismounted,  and  disposed  so  as  to  strengthen  the  line  of  infantry,  while  only  • 
a  picked  squadron  was  retained  to  strike  suddenly  and  swiftly  when  occasion 


Plan  of  battle  of  Bannockburn. 


English  main  body. 
[_]        English  arcliers. 


Scottish  forces. 


Scottisli  horse. 


144  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

should  arise.  The  Scots  were  outnumbered  by  more  than  three  to  one,  but 
on  the  field  the  English  could  not  bring  their  numbers  into  play. 

Such  was  Bruce's  plan.  When  the  advancing  hosts  of  the  English 
appeared,  the  incidents  of  the  day  gave  a  foretaste  of  the  coming  struggle. 
A  detachment  of  English  horse  made  a  dash  round  the  Scottish  flank  in 
order  to  reach  Stirling  and  effect  the  technical  relief.  A  detachment  of 
Scottish  foot  was  just  in  time  to  intercept  it  and  drive  it  back  in  rout.  An 
English  knight,  Henry  de  Bohun,  seeing  the  Scottish  king  riding  almost  un- 
armed along  the  Scottish  line,  charged  down  upon  him.  At  the  critical 
instant  Robert  swerved  his  palfrey,  and  as  De  Bohun  crashed  by,  clove  his 
skull  with  his  battle-axe. 

On  the  following  day  the  battle  went  precisely  as  Bruce  had  designed. 
The  masses  of  mail-clad  horsemen  were  hurled  against  the  Scottish  front, 
crashing  vainly  upon  the  serried  spears.  The  archers  were  thrown  forward 
on  the  left,  but  no  steps  were  taken  to  cover  them,  and  almost  with  the  first 
fiight  of  the  arrows  the  small  squadron  of  Scottish  horse  burst  upon  their 
flank  and  cut  them  to  pieces.  With  repeated  charges,  the  English  horse 
became  a  huddled,  unmanageable  mass;  the  Scottish  infantry  rolled  forward 
in  unbroken  line  ;  a  band  of  camp  followers  descending  the  neighbouring 
Gillies'  Hill  was  mistaken  for  a  fresh  Scottish  host  ;  and  the  great  English 
army  broke  in  a  panic  rout.  Never  had  the  English  met  with  a  disaster  so 
overwhelming  ;  the  fugitives  were  slain  in  heaps,  though  the  small  supply 
of  cavalry  made  the  pursuit  only  desultory.  Numbers  of  prisoners  and  vast 
spoils  fell  to  the  conquerors. 

On  the  field  of  Bannockburn  the  independence  of  Scotland  was  de- 
cisively won,  though  fourteen  years  were  still  to  pass  before  England 
acknowledged  the  fact  by  the  treaty  of  Northampton.  During  those  four- 
teen years  the  Scots  became  the  aggressors.  Berwick,  the  only  corner  of 
Scottish  soil  still  held  by  the  English,  was  captured  ;  and  year  after  year 
Douglas  and  Randolph  harried  the  north  of  England,  w^hile  the  unfailing 
misrule  in  the  southern  country  prevented  any  organised  effort  to  retrieve 
what  had  been  lost.  Edward  himself  had  been  murdered,  and  his  queen 
Isabella  with  her  paramour  Mortimer  were  ruling  England  in  the  name  of 
young  Edward  III.,  when  the  government  at  last  bowed  to  the  logic  of  facts, 
and  the  treaty  of  Northampton  acknowledged  Robert  Bruce  as  king  of  the 
independent  Scottish  nation.  But  the  great  liberator's  life  was  already 
drawing  to  a  close,  and  a  year  later  he  died,  leaving  the  crown  to  his  son 
David  II.,  a  child  of  six  years  old, 

A  curious  episode  followed  the  battle  of  Bannockburn.  For  nearly  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  the  King  of  England  had  been  titular  lord  of  Ireland. 
Within  the  small  group  of  counties  known  as  the  English  Pale,  English 
government  and  English  law  and  customs  prevailed.  Outside  the  Pale  the 
north  of  Ireland  remained  almost  entirely  Celtic,  the  De  Burghs,  the  Earls 
of  Ulster,  being  almost  the  only  great  Norman  family.  But,  in  the  south, 
Norman  families,  most  notably  the  Geraldines  and  the   Butlers,  extended 


NATIONALISM    AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM      145 

their  dominions  and  ruled  almost  as  independent  princes  ;  very  much  Celti- 
cised  in  their  sympathies  though  retaining  some  of  their  Norman  traditions. 
Outside  the  Pale  the  central  government  was  practically  powerless.  After 
Bannockburn,  the  O'Neills  and  O'Connells,  the  most  powerful  of  the  northern 
clans,  offered  the  crown  of  Ireland  to  Robert  Bruce.  That  shrewd  prince 
declined,  but  the  proposal  to  substitute  his  brother  Edward  was  accepted. 
The  Bruces  went  over  to  Ireland  to  win  the  crown,  and  obtained  a  very 
[general  support  from  the  native  chiefs.  The  Normans,  however,  stood  by  their 
fealty,  and  while  the  Bruces  were  victorious  in  the  field,  they  were  unable  to 
reduce  the  Norman  strongholds.  Still  Edward  Bruce  got  himself  crowned 
King  of  Ireland,  and  was  left  by  his  brother  to  establish  himself  in  his  king- 
dom. His  reign  was  brief,  for  a  vigorous  English  governor  arrived  in  the 
person  of  Roger  Mortimer,  In  a  fight  at  Dundalk  Edward  was  defeated  and 
slain,  and  Ireland  thereafter  was  more  or  less  reduced  to  submission  ;  but  if 
the  episode  had  any  permanent  effect,  it  was  to  diminish  rather  than  extend 
the  authority  of  the  central  government  ;  and  the  efforts  of  the  English  lieu- 
tenants were  still  mainly  directed  to  vain  attempts  to  prevent  the  Celticising 
of  the  English  in  Ireland. 


VIII 
EDWARD    II 

From  the  English  point  of  view  Bannockburn  was  merely  the  most 
disastrous  incident  in  a  reign  which  presents  us  with  no  incident  and  no 
character  that  Englishmen  can  think  of  with  pride  or  respect.  When  it 
has  been  recorded  that  Edward  of  Carnarvon  was  not  a  bloodthirsty  tyrant, 
or  personally  vicious,  there  is  nothing  left  to  be  said  in  his  favour.  He 
lacked  even  the  personal  valour  in  which  his  grandfather,  Henry  III.,  was 
not  deficient,  as  well  as  the  intellectual  sympathies  and  the  personal  piety 
which  were  at  least  amiable  traits  in  that  monarch's  character.  He  is 
redeemed  from  unmitigated  contempt  rather  than  from  positive  execration 
mainly  by  his  tragic  end. 

His  grim  father's  body  was  hardly  cold  when  the  young  king  was  already 
doing  his  best  to  make  havoc  of  his  policy.  His  first  step  was  to  recall 
to  court  his  boon  companion,  the  young  Gascon  knight,  Piers  Gaveston, 
whom  his  father  had  banished  as  being  no  fit  companion  for  the  heir 
to  the  English  throne.  Gaveston's  sole  merit  lay  in  the  beauty  of  person, 
the  frivolous  wit,  the  showy  accomplishments,  and  the  superficial  cleverness 
which  had  conquered  the  affections  of  the  young  Edward  ;  who  now  made 
haste  to  marry  him  to  his  niece  and  endow  him  with  the  earldom  of 
Cornwall,  which  had  recently  passed  to  the  Crown  by  escheat.  There  was 
a  general  ejection  of  the  old  king's  officials,  who  were  largely  replaced  by 
men  whom   Edward  I.  had  conspicuously  distrusted.     There  was   no  im- 

K 


THE   LANCASTERS 


146  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

mediate  opposition.  The  baronage  had  had  little  enough  sympathy  with 
the  masterful  monarch  whose  strong  hand  had  been  removed  by  death,  and 
were  content  to  await  events.  If  the  young  king  tried  to  play  the  part 
of  Rehoboam,  he  was  not  likely  to  fare  any  better  than  his  prototype. 

With  the  turn  of  the  year,  Edward  proceeded  to  France  to  espouse  the 
youthful  bride,  Isabella,  to  whom  he  was  betrothed.  He  left  the  regency 
in  the  hands  of  the  new  Earl  of  Cornwall,  but  no  open  dissatisfaction  was 
yet  expressed.  Within  two  months,  however,  of  Edward's  return  and  corona- 
tion, the  simmering 
wrath  of  the  barons 
hadreached  boiling- 
point.  Themocking 
tongue  of  the  Gas- 
con upstart  was  not 
to  be  endured.  The 
old  Earl  of  Lincoln 
and  the  young  Earl 
of  Gloucester,  both 
loyal  adherents  of 
the  Crown,  were 
drawn  into  the  circle 
of  disgusted  opposi- 
tion.  A  parliament. 


Henry  HL 

1 

Edward  I. ,  1272. 

Edmund  Crouchback. 

1 

Edward  II. ,  1307. 
Edward  III.,  1327. 

1 

Thomas  of 

Lancaster 

(executed  by 

Edward  II.). 

1 

Henry  of 

Lancaster. 

Henry  of 
Lancaster. 

1 
The  Black  Prince. 

Richard  II. , 
1377. 

Lionel  of 
Clarence. 

1 

House  of 
York. 

John  of  Gaunt 

M.  Blanche 

of  Lancaster. 

Henry  IV.. 

1399- 

1 

i 

^   Blanche,  vi. 
John  of  Gaunt. 

of  the  baronage  only,  met  in  April,  and 


imously  demanded  that  Gaveston 


should  be  banished  and  deprived  of  his  new  earldom  ;  while  the  bishops, 
headed  by  Winchelsea,  threatened  him  with  excommunication.  The  king, 
finding  himself  helpless,  sent  Gaveston  off  to  Ireland  as  Lieutenant.  Twelve 
months  after  the  parliament  of  barons,  Edward's  need  of  supplies  caused 
the  summoning  of  another  parliament  of  the  three  Estates.  The  Estates 
at  once  drew  up  and  presented  a  schedule  of  grievances  ;  and  by  pro- 
mises to  remedy  these  the  king  secured  from  the  magnates  their  assent 
to  the  recall  of  Gaveston — always  excepting  the  implacable  Guy,  Earl  of 
Warwick,  whom  the  favourite  had  nicknamed  the  Black  Dog  of  Arden. 

But  Gaveston  was  as  irritating,  and  the  administration  through  the 
king's  favourites  as  incompetent,  as  ever.  Again  within  twelve  months  the 
parliament  of  the  barons  took  matters  into  their  own  hands.  They  met 
in  arms.  They  demanded  unanimously  the  banishment  of  Gaveston.  But 
they  went  very  much  further ;  reverting  to  the  precedent  of  the  Mad 
Parliament  of  1258,  they  demanded  that  the  government  should  be  placed 
in  the  hands  of  a  committee  of  magnates.  They  set  forth  the  grievances 
of  the  realm.  Like  their  predecessors  fifty-two  years  before,  they  ignored 
the  assembly  of  the  Estates,  and  claimed  in  effect  that  a  baronial  oligarchy 
should  perform  the  functions  of  an  absolute  monarchy.  Backed  as  they 
were  by  the  whole  feudal  force,  and  probably  by  the  whole  popular  senti- 
ment, of  the  nation,  the  king  could  offer  them  no  resistance  ;  and  after 


NATIONALISM    AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM      147 

the  precedent  of  the  Provisions  of  Oxford,  a  committee  of  twenty-one 
'<  Lords  Ordainers "  was  appointed,  with  full  powers  of  government  for 
eighteen  months.  Seven  bishops,  eight  earls,  and  six  barons  made  up  what 
may  be  called  the  Committee  of  Reform.  They  did  not  immediately  strike 
at  Gaveston,  but — at  first,  at  least — endeavoured  seriously  to  deal  with  some 
of  the  more  serious  ills  of  the  administration. 

Edward  spent  the  latter  part  of  the  year  in  an  abortive  expedition  to 
Scotland.  Then  Lincoln,  the  last  of  the  old  king's  trusted  servants,  and  the 
most  powerful  influence  among  the  barons  on  the  side  of 
moderation,  died  ;  and  Thomas  of  Lancaster,  the  king's 
first  cousin,  now  lord  of  five  earldoms,  became  indisput- 
ably the  head  of  the  baronage.  About  Midsummer  the 
Ordainers  had  completed  their  scheme  of  reform,  which 
was  then  submitted  to  a  parliament  of  the  three  Estates. 
Various  laws  in  the  Statute  Book  were  to  be  properly 
enforced.  The  "  New  Customs  "  were  to  be  abolished. 
All  oi^cers  of  State  both  in  England  and  in  Gascony 
were  to  be  appointed  by  counsel  and  consent  of  the 
barons,  and  a  baronial  parliament  was  to  be  summoned 
once  or  twice  annually.  War  and  peace,  even  the  king's 
personal  movements  as  well  as  every  department  of 
government,  were  to  be  under  the  control  of  the  barons. 
Gaveston  and  all  his  kinsfolk  and  following  were  to  be 
banished  ;  so  were  the  Lombards  and  Florentines  who 
had  become  the  financial  agents  of  the  Crown. 

Gaveston  departed,  but  early  in  131 2  he  was  back 
again  in  the  north  of  England,  and  in  the  king's  company.  Five  of  the 
earls,  Lancaster,  Pembroke,  Hereford,  Arundel,  and  Warwick,  joined  by 
Warenne,  who  was  not  one  of  the  Ordainers,  took  up  arms  to  enforce  the 
.Ordinances  of  the  previous  year  and  to  hunt  down  Gaveston^  None  took 
the  king's  side.  Gaveston  surrendered  to  Pembroke  and  Warrene,  under 
promise  of  protection  ;  his  fate  was  to  be  submitted  to  the  decision  of 
parliament.  But  while  Gaveston  was  travelling  south  in  Pembroke's 
custody,  Warwick  captured  him,  and  in  conjunction  with  Lancaster,  Here- 
ford, and  Arundel,  cut  ofT  his  head  on  Blacklow  Hill. 

This  violent  action  split  up  the  Ordainers.  Pembroke,  and  in  a  less 
degree  Warenne,  felt  that  their  honour  was  implicated.  The  young  Earl  of 
Gloucester  had  always  been  opposed  to  extreme  action.  The  king's  hand 
being  thus  strengthened,  the  four  earls  who  had  been  responsible  for 
Gaveston's  death  presently  submitted  to  a  form  of  reconciliation  and 
amnesty  which  was  ratified  at  the  end  of  13 13. 

The  reconciliation  was  celebrated  by  Edward's  great  invasion  of  Scot- 
land, w^hich  ended  with  the  huge  catastrophe  of  Bannockburn,  where 
Gloucester  was  killed  and  Hereford  was  taken  prisoner.  But  Hereford  was 
exchanged  for  the  ladies  of  Bruce's  family,  who  had  been  held  prisoners 


Housewife,  early  14th 
century. 


148 


NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 


Costume  of  ilie  commonalty, 
Edward  II. 


in  England  ever  since  1306.  The  disaster  was  a  political  triumph  for 
Lancaster's  faction.  Lancaster  at  once  became  the  most  powerful  man 
in  the  realm,  and  had  he  been  a  real  statesman,  or  even  a  tolerably 
competent  administrator,  he  would  now  have  had  a  magnificent  opportunity. 
He  was  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  and  anarchy  reigned  from  end  to  end 
of  the  kingdom.  His  supporters  fell  away  ;  and  Pembroke,  who  had  never 
forgiven  the  Gaveston  affair,  devoted  himself  to  forming  a  middle  party, 
which  acquired  a  definite  ascendency  in  13  18  and  gave  the  country  a  less 
desperately  anarchical  government  for  some  three 
years.      More  could  scarcely  be  said  for  it. 

But  Edward  was  incapable  of  learning  wis- 
dom. He  had  found  a  new  favourite  in  Hugh 
Despenser,  the  son  of  an  official  of  some  capacity. 
Honours  were  bestowed  on  the  Despensers,  who 
soon  raised  up  enemies.  The  magnates  united 
to  demand  their  banishment  in  132  i,  when  the 
demand  was  endorsed  by  a  parliament  of  the 
three  Estates.  But  the  union  was  only  superficial. 
On  the  one  hand,  Hereford  and  Roger  Mortimer 
of  Wigmore,  the  head  of  the  Mortimer  connection, 
the  bitterest  foes  of  the  Despensers,  were  sus- 
picious of  the  king's  intention  of  recalling  the 
favourites.  On  the  other  hand,  an  insult  to  the 
queen  produced  a  strong  reaction  in  the  king's  favour.  He  ventured  to 
recall  the  Despensers,  whereupon  the  Marchers  and  Lancaster  rose. 
Edward  marched  to  the  north  ;  the  Lancastrians  were  routed  by  Sir 
Andrew  Harclay,  Commandant  of  Carlisle,  at  Boroughbridge  ;  Lancaster 
himself  was  taken,  and  was  sentenced  and  executed  without  being  allowed 
to  defend  himself.  The  vagaries  of  popular  sentiment  transformed  into  a 
hero  and  a  miracle-working  saint  this  most  powerful  of  the  barons,  who 
in  his  public  life  had  displayed  no  single  virtue  which  entitled  him  to  the 
smallest  respect. 

The  king  and  the  Despensers  had  won  for  the  time  ;  and  the  Despensers 
posed  as  champions  of  popular  as  opposed  to  baronial  rights  ;  an  attitude 
traditionally  appropriate  to  the  descendants  of  a  Despenser  who  had  received 
the  confidence  of  Simon  de  Montfort.  A  parliament  was  promptly  called 
at  York,  in  which  the  commons  were  fully  represented.  The  Ordinances 
were  repealed,  but  the  principle  was  asserted  that  affairs  of  state  should  be 
treated  by  the  king  in  full  parliament  of  the  prelates,  the  baronage,  and 
commonalty.  In  effect  the  Ordainers  were  condemned,  not  for  what  they 
did,  but  for  doing  it  without  the  authority  of  the  assembled  Estates. 

The  Despensers  proved  no  better  than  any  of  the  series  of  inefficient 
administrations  under  which  England  had  suffered  for  fourteen  years  past. 
They  in  their  turn  drove  into  opposition  those  of  the  great  nobles  whose 
temper  inclined  them  to  moderate  counsels.     Such   a  man  was   Henry  of 


^L. 


^ 


NATIONALISM    AND    CONSTITUTIONALISM     149 

Lancaster,  the  brother  and  in  part  the  successor  of  Tliomas.  The  queen, 
Isabella — a  quite  young  woman,  who  had  been  but  sixteen  when  in  13 12 
she  became  the  mother  of  the  future  Edward  III. — 
was  violently  jealous  of  the  young  Despenser's  in- 
fluence with  her  husband,  and  the  humiliations  to 
which  she  was  subjected  would  have  awakened  bitter 
resentment  in  a  far  less  passionate  woman.  The 
Scots  raided  at  will  over  the  northern  counties,  and 
were  only  bought  off  by  an  ignominious  but  practi- 
cally unavoidable  truce.  There  prevailed  every- 
where the  disorder  and  insecurity  which  in  medieval 
times  inevitably  accompanied  a  weak  government. 
In  France,  Charles  IV.,  the  last  king  of  the  old 
direct  line  of  the  Capets,  was  carrying  out  the  old 
policy  of  his  father,  Philip  IV.,  and  re-establishing  in 
Gascony  the  authority  which  that  monarch  had 
filched  from  the  first  Edward  but  had  surrendered 
in  the  closing  years  of  his  reign. 

By  a  master-stroke  of  impolicy,  Isabella  was 
allowed  to  go  to  France  to  negotiate  with  her 
brother  ;  thither  she  was  followed  by  tlie  boy 
Edward,  who  now  bor.e  the  title  of  Duke  of  Aquitaine. 
But  while  the  queen  played  at  diplomacy,  she  was 
more  occupied  in  a  private  intrigue  with  Roger 
Mortimer,  who  had  been  imprisoned  after  Borough- 
bridge  but  had  made  his  escape  to  France.  The 
fruits  of  that  notorious  intrigue  were  made  mani- 
fest when  Isabella  and  Mortimer  landed  in  England 
in  the  autumn  of  1326,  announcing  that  they  had 
come  to  remove  the  now  generally  hated  De- 
spensers.  P^or  the  king  and  his  favourites  scarcely 
a  hand  was  raised,  while  nobles  and  gentry  flocked 
to  the  queen's  standard.  The  king  became  a 
fugitive,  but  was  captured  along  with  the  younger 
Despenser,  who  was  forthwith  put  to  death.  Edward 
himself  was  held  in  honourable  custody  by  Henry 
of  Lancaster.  In  January  a  parliament  of  the  three 
Estates  met,  and  was  invited  to  pronounce  whether 
it  would  have  for  king  Edward  of  Carnarvon  or 
his  son,  the  Duke  of  Aquitaine.  It  pronounced  in 
favour  of  the  boy.  The  king  was  forced  to  abdicate, 
and  Edward  III.  was  proclaimed  and  crowned. 
The  fallen  monarch  was  withdrawn  from  the  charge 
of  Henry  of  Lancaster  and  placed  in  that  of  new  custodians.  When  the 
brutal  treatment  to  which  he  was  now  subjected  failed  to  kill  him,  he  was 


Brass  of  Sir  John  de  Creke,  1325. 


ISO  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

foully  iTMjrdered  in  Berkeley  Castle.  As  in  the  case  of  Thomas  of  Lancaster, 
not  his  virtues  but  the  sins  of  his  enemies  and  the  tragedy  of  his  death 
transformed  the  murdered  king  into  a  popular  saint. 

Practically,  though  not  nominally,  the  government  passed  into  the  hands 
of  the  queen  and  her  paramour,  Roger  Mortimer,  who  was  now  created  Earl 
of  March.  They  also  did  evil  in  the  sight  of  the  nation.  An  attack  on 
Scotland  met  with  the  now  familiar  fate  of  such  attempts.  The  regency 
gave  up  the  futile  struggle  and  disgusted  the  entire  nation  by  the  treaty  of 
Northampton,  which  acknowledged  Scottish  independence.  The  little  Prince 
David  was  married  to  the  little  English  Princess  Joan.  A  year  later  Robert 
Bruce  died,  and  for  a  short  time  the  Scottish  regency  was  placed  in  the 
capable  hands  of  Randolph,  Earl  of  Moray. 

But  Mortimer  in  England,  supported  by  the  besotted  queen  mother, 
had  no  immediate  aim  save  the  accumulation  of  vast  estates  in  his  own 
hands.  A  conspiracy  was  set  on  foot  for  the  overthrow  of  the  regency 
and  the  release  of  the  young  King  Edward  from  a  state  of  practical  sub- 
jection. The  boy  had  been  married  to  Philippa  of  Hainault,  and  the  birth 
of  a  son  in  1330,  when  he  was  seventeen,  made  him  realise  that  he  had 
come  to  man's  estate.  He  joined  with  the  conspirators,  who  on  a  night 
in  October  were  privily  admitted  into  Nottingham  Castle,  where  Mortimer, 
the  queen  mother,  and  the  young  king  were  lying.  Mortimer  was  seized, 
despatched  to  London,  and  hanged.  Isabella  was  sent  into  an  honourable 
retirement — honourable  so  far  as  concerned  her  treatment.  Almost  four 
years  after  his  coronation  Edward  III.  became  King  of  England  in  fact 
as  well  as  in  name. 


Opening  a  joust  in  the  I4lh  century. 


CHAPTER    VI 

EDWARD   III.   AND    RICHARD   II 
I 

BEFORE   THE   HUNDRED   YEARS'  WAR 

Robert  Bruce  had  achieved  the  Hberation  of  Scotland,  and  had  organised 
a  government  which  was  effective  so  long  as  he  hved,  supported  by  the 
able  and  patriotic  captains  who  had  helped  him  to  his  triumph.  But  he 
had  left  the  seeds  of  trouble,  by  the  forfeiture  of  the  estates  of  sundry 
Norman  nobles  who  had  failed  to  support  his  cause.  Moreover,  he  left 
on  the  throne  a  six-year-old  son  by  a  marriage  in  his  later  years,  though 
his  elder  daughter  Margaret  was  the  wife  of  the  hereditary  Steward  of 
Scotland.  The  government  was  safe  in  the  hands  ^^^  ^^  ^^^  ^^^  ,^ 
of  the  Regent   Randolph  ;  but   the  prospect   if  ^>  ,'^ 

he   should   die    was    not    too    promising.     The     '  ijl 

disinherited   nobles,  and   in    particular  Edward  ,i| 

Balliol,    the   son  of    the    old    King   John,   were     ; 
eager   to    find    an    opportunity    for    their    own     ' 
reinstatement.      In   1332  Randolph  died,  leaving 
no   one  with  the   ability  to  take   his  place  ade- 
quately.      Edward    Balliol    at   once   struck    for 
the    Crown,   supported    by    the    "  disinherited "     I 
and   by   many  of    the    Border    lords.      A   force    hfkt' .f,.:/  ,■^J^f'll^ni^^- ■  -^-f~4^ 
sailed    from    England — it    was    not   allowed   to    ^^  ^^ 

,  .  •  ii         -n       J  1       J     1  Edward  III.  and  St.  George. 

make   an    invasion    across   the    Border — landed  ^^^  .     ,  ^      .  ^  „      ° 

[National  Portrait  Gallery.] 

on  the  coast  of  Fife,  and  at  Dupplin  Moor  routed 

a  large  army  collected  by  the  new  regent,  the  Earl  of  Mar.  The  victory 
was  achieved  by  the  combination  of  archers,  this  time,  with  foot  soldiers 
massed  after  the  fashion  of  the  Scots  themselves  ;  while  the  blunder  of 
Bannockburn,  which  had  there  exposed  the  archery  to  destruction  by  the 
attack  of  a  small  body  of  horse,  was  not  repeati^d.  Dupplin  Moor  was 
decisive  for  the  moment,  and  Edward  Balliol  was  crowned.  Three  months 
later  he  was  a  fugitive  ;  but  in  the  interval  he  as  King  of  Scots  had  made 
a  new  treaty  with  England.  This  Edward  was  pleased  to  regard  as 
cancelling  the  treaty  of  Northampton  ;  and  thenceforward,  till  the  course 
of  events  turned  his  attention  from  Scotland  altogether,  he  gave  active 
support  to  the  pretensions  of  Balliol.       In  the  following  year  (1333)  he 


152  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

led  an  army  into  Scotland,  and  Dupplin  Moor  was  repeated  at  Halidon  Hill, 
The  tactics  here  developed,  out  of  those  employed  at  Falkirk  and  Maes 
Madog,  were  destined  to  make  the  English  arms  invincible  for  a  century 
to  come  whenever  they  were  brought  into  play. 

Balliol  was  now  again  King  of  Scots,  placed  on  the  throne  emphatically 
by  the  English  arms  ;  and  he  forthwith  handed  over  half  the  Lowlands  to 
the  King  of  England,  to  whom  he  also  did  homage  for  the  rest  of  the 
kingdom.  The  Scots  declined  to  accept  the  situation.  They  sent  off 
David  and  his  wife  Joan,  the  king  and  queen  whom  they  recognised,  to 
France  for  safety,  and  despite  the  lack  of  a  leader  prepared  to  fight.  The 
Disinherited,  replaced  in  their  estates,  proceeded  to  quarrel.  Instead  of 
fostering  and  strengthening  Edward  Balliol,  Edward  of  England  treated 
him  with  ostentatious  distrust.      In  spite  of  annual  incursions  on  the   part 


A  royal  dinner  party  in  the  14th  century. 


of  the  English,  continued  until  1336,  Balliol's  cause  gained  no  ground; 
the  Scots  avoided  any  pitched  battles  with  the  invaders,  and  reverted 
to  the  guerilla  warfare  so  successfully  practised  by  Robert  Bruce  and  his 
captains;  and  in  1338  Edward's  attention  was  finally  absorbed  by  France 
so  completely  as  to  forbid  the  idea  of  his  again  attempting  effective  interven- 
tion in  Scotland.  A  year  later  Balliol  himself  was  ejected,  and  in  1341 
David  returned  to  his  kingdom  as  its  acknowledged  monarch. 

For  England  itself  these  were  years  of  recovery  from  the  endless  broils, 
revolutions,  and  counter-revolutions  under  which  the  country  had  been 
suffering  ever  since  the  death  of  Edward  I.  The  most  prominent  incident, 
if  it  may  be  called  an  incident,  is  the  record  that  in  1332  and  1333  the 
knights  of  the  shire  became  definitely  associated  with  the  borough  represen- 
tatives in  a  House  of  Commons,  instead  of  with  the  barons,  in  the  parliament 
of  the  three  Estates  ;  though  the  time  when  the  clergy  ceased  to  act  as  an 
Estate  of  parliament  is  uncertain. 

But  in  France  events  were  taking  place  which  were  leading  up  to  the 


THE    FRENCH    CROWN 


Philip  III.,  1270. 

I 


Charles  of  Valois 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    II.  153 

outbreak  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War.  In  1328  the  French  King,  Charles  IV., 
died ;  like  his  brothers,  leaving  no  son  behind  him.  A  child  born  post- 
humously proved  to  be  a  daughter.  From  the  days  of  Hugh  Capet,  the 
first  of  tiie  reigning  line,  son  had  invariably  succeeded  father  except  when, 

failing  a  son,  a 
brother  had  suc- 
ceeded. There  had 
been  no  female 
succession, or  suc- 
cession through  a 
female.  The 
French  now  as- 
sumed the  prin- 
ciple of  the  male 
succession,  and 
forthwith  acknow- 
ledged as  king  Philip  of  Valois,  the  nephew  of  Philip  IV.  and  first  cousin 
of  the  three  brothers  who  had  reigned  since  that  king's  death. 

Now  no  one  disputed  the  doctrine  that  a  woman  was  not  herself  eligible 
for  the  throne  ;  but  laws  of  succession  had  not  been  definitely  and  decisively 
formulated  ;  they  varied  in  different  countries  and  in  different  parts  of  one 
country  ;  and  there  was  a  custom  quite  familiar  in  France,  by  which  the 


I 

Philip  IV.,  the  Fair, 
1285. 

I 

I  I 

Lo?iis  X.,        Philip  v., 


I 
Joan  of  Navarre. 

I 

Charles  the  Bad 

of  Navarre 

{dorn  1332). 


1316. 


Charles  IV., 
1323. 


I 
Isabella,  m. 
Edward  II. 

I 
Edward  III. 


Philip  VI. 
of  Valois, 


Edward  III.  meets  his  Cousin  of  France,  Philip  VI.,  in  1331. 
[  From  a  14th  century  MS.  in  the  British  Museum.] 

succession  to  an  estate  might  pass  on  to  the  son  of  a  woman  who  was 
herself  precluded  from  the  succession  by  her  sex.  Accordingly,  when  Charles 
IV.  died,  his  sister  Isabella,  the  queen  mother  of  England,  made  a  formal 
claim  in  favour  of  her  son,  as  being  nearer  to  the  throne  than  his  cousin  of 
Valois,  There  was  nothing  absurd  or  irregular  about  the  claim,  which  was 
based  upon  one  of  the  recognised  customary  grounds  of  succession.  But 
it  practically  rested  with  the  French  nation  to  choose  at  this  stage  which  of 


154  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

the  various  customs  prevalent  should  be  adopted  in  deciding  permanently 
the  course  of  succession  to  the  French  throne.  They  did  not  greatly  trouble 
themselves  over  the  technical  pleas  with  which  lawyers  subsequently  amused 
themselves  ;  but  finding  that  their  choice  lay  practically  between  the  first 
noble  of  France  and  the  king  of  a  foreign  country,  they  did  not  for  a 
moment  hesitate  in  choosing  Philip.  It  is  not  without  interest  in  this  con- 
nection to  notice  that,  a  century  and  a  half  later,  Henry  VII.  claimed  the 
throne  of  England  through  his  mother,  but  for  himself,  not  for  her ;  and 
although  succession  in  the  female  line  was  maintained,  it  was  held  until  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII.  to  be  a  matter  of  doubt  whether  a  woman  could  in  her 
own  person  succeed  to  the  throne. 

In  1328  Isabella's  claim  on  behalf  of  her  son  was  rejected  by  the  French 
baronage,  and  was  unsupported  even  by  the  barons  of  Aquitaine.  It  is  to 
be  observed,  however,  that  even  at  this  stage  the  cities  of  Flanders,  whose 
Count  was  a  vassal  of  the  French  Crown,  were  prepared  for  reasons  of  their 
own  to  support  Edward's  title.  War  on  this  account  was,  however,  out  of 
the  question  ;  Edward  accepted  the  accomplished  fact,  and  did  homage  to 
Philip  for  his  French  possessions  ;  and  outwardly  the  two  kings  became 
very  good  friends.  Nevertheless  two  bones  of  contention  remained.  Philip 
would  not  abandon  his  friendly  attitude  to  the  Bruces,  and  gave  young 
David  shelter  in  his  court  when  Edward  BaUiol  was  reigning  as  de  facto  King 
of  Scotland.  Also  the  conflicting  rights  of  the  King  of  France  and  of 
Edward,  as  Duke  of  Aquitaine,  remained  unsettled.  The  differences,  in  fact, 
over  Aquitaine  were  such  that  they  could  hardly  in  any  case  have  been  settled 
except  by  the  arbitrament  of  war.  There  was  njD  reconcihng  the  irreducible 
minimum  of  the  respective  claims.  So  in  1336  Edward  was  already  en- 
gaged in  diplomatic  efforts  to  secure  the  alliance  of  the  Counts  of  the 
Netherlands,  Flanders,  Brabant,  Hainault,  and  others,  and  of  the  German 
Emperor  Lewis  of  Bavaria  himself.  At  the  end  of  1337,  Edward  renounced 
the  homage  which  he  had  rendered  while  still  a  minor  to  Philip,  and  again 
put  forward  his  own  claim  to  the  French  Crown.  Hostilities  of  an  informal 
character  opened  with  conflicts  in  the  Channel  and  on  the  Channel  coasts 
between  the  seamen  of  England  and  of  Normandy.  In  1338  Edward  had 
secured  Brabant,  and  his  alliance  with  the  German  Emperor  was  ostenta- 
tiously established.  In  1339  the  long-drawn-out  preliminaries  came  to  an 
end,  and  the  contest  known  as  the  Hundred  Years'  War  was  fairly  joined. 


II 

THE   ERA   OF  VICTORIES 

The  old  idea  that  the  Hundred  Years'  War  was  a  piece  of  wanton  aggres- 
sion on  the  part  of  King  Edward,  having  for  its  object  the  usurpation  of  the 
French  Crown,  has  long  been  abandoned.     The   real  point  at   issue,  the 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    II.  155 

matter  which  made  war  inevitable,  was  the  question  of  Aquitaine  ;  over 
which  Edward  I.  and  Phihp  the  Fair  had  wrangled  at  the  end  of  the  last 
century.  A  settlement  had  then  been  arrived  at  which  outwardly  satisfied 
both  parties  ;  but  during  the  incapable  rule  of  Edward  II.  the  French  kings 
had  continued  the  old  insidious  policy  of  procuring  and  acting  upon  excuses 
for  confiscation,  until  the  Duke  of  Aquitaine  was  effectively  lord  of  only  a 
small  part  of  that  inheritance  which  was  legitimately  his.  But  for  that, 
other  differences  might  have  been  adjusted. 

But  war  being  inevitable  and  not  unwelcome,  Edward  for  diplomatic 
purposes  asserted  a  claim  to  the  French  Crown  which  in  the  then  existing 
uncertainties  of  the  law  of  succession  was  by  no  means  without  plausi- 
bility, at  least  in  the  year  1328,  when  it  was  first  put  forward.  Had  it  not 
been  asserted  at  that  time,  it  would  have  been  vitiated  later  by  the  birth 
in  1332  of  Charles  of  Navarre,  called  the  Bad;  for  Charles  was  the  son  of 
a  daughter  of  Louis  X.,  the  immediate  successor  of  Philip  the  Fair,  and  the 
child's  claim  was  therefore  stronger  than  that  of  Edward  as  the  son  of  a 
sister  of  Louis.  But  his  birth  did  not  vitiate  Edward's  claim  to  have  been 
dejnrc  king  four  years  before  that  event.  It  is  therefore  only  fair  to  recognise 
that  Edward's  title  was  one  which  could  be  maintained  by  a  perfectly  con- 
scientious lawyer,  although  the  weight  of  legal  opinion  would  undoubtedly 
have  supported  the  title  of  Philip  VI. 

Political  issues,  however,  not  the  dynastic  issues,  provided  the  real 
motive  of  the  contest  ;  and  among  these  were  very  important  commercial 
issues.  The  commerce  between  England  and  Gascony  was  of  great  value 
to  both  countries,  and  was  hampered  by  the  relations  between  the  King  of 
P'rance  and  the  Duke  of  Aquitaine.  The  commerce  between  England  and 
Flanders  was  still  more  important,  and  was  endangered  by  the  complicated 
relations  between  the  cities  of  Flanders,  the  Count  of  Flanders,  and  the 
French  king,  which  made  the  Flemish  cities  desirous  of  having  the  King  of 
England  for  their  supreme  overlord  rather  than  Philip  of  Valois.  It  was 
this  more  than  anything  else  which  caused  Edward  to  give  prominence  to 
his  claim  to  the  French  Crown  among  the  reasons  for  the  war. 

The  opening  campaigns  were  futile.  Philip  and  Edward  challenged 
each  other  to  meet  in  the  open  field,  but  carefully  evaded  any  actual  collision 
in  force.  The  armies  ranged  along  the  north-eastern  marches  of  France, 
and  desolated  the  country  without  accomplishing  anything.  But  in  1340 
Edward  made  formal  alliance  with  the  cities  of  Flanders,  and  explicitly  took 
upon  himself  the  title  of  King  of  France.  In  the  course  of  the  year  was 
fought  the  great  naval  engagement  of  Sluys  which  decisively  gave  to  the 
English  the  mastery  of  the  Channel,  hitherto  disputed  by  the  sailors  of 
Normandy.  At  that  time  Sluys  had  a  large  open  harbour,  w'here  a  great 
fleet,  chiefly  Norman,  was  gathered.  Here  they  were  engaged  by  a  great 
English  fleet,  the  ships  grappling  each  other  ;  and  the  fierce  hand-to-hand 
fighting  resulted  in  the  complete  victory  of  the  English.  The  king  took  part 
in  the  engagement,  which  at  once  established  his  reputation  as  a  warrior. 


156  NATIONAL    CONSOLIDATION 

But  the  hind  campaign  was  as  futile  as  the  last,  and  a  truce  was  signed  which 
remained  in  force  till  1345.  Edward,  who  had  lavished  large  subsidies  on 
his  German  allies,  who  made  little  enough  practical  return  for  them,  was 
already  in  serious  financial  difficulties,  and  had  incurred  heavy  debts  to  the 
Flemish  cities  ;  and  it  was  only  by  the  ignominious  expedient  of  secret  flight 
that  he  was  able,  after  signing  the  truce,  to  escape  to  England,  leaving  his 
debts  unpaid.  Attributing  his  embarrassments  to  the  neglect  of  the  officials 
whom  he  had  left  in  charge  of  affairs  in  England,  he  attacked  Archbishop 
Stratford,  who,  however,  was  able  successfully  to  assert  his  title  to  be  tried 


A  sea  fight  about  the  time  of  the  battle  of  Sluys. 
[From  a  MS.  in  the  British  Museum.] 

by  his  peers,  and  to   procure  a  statute  rendering  the  king's  ministers  re- 
sponsible to  parliament. 

We  may,  however,  set  aside  constitutional  questions  at  present  and  pro- 
ceed with  the  story  of  the  war,  which  was  in  effect  continued  in  spite  of 
the  truce.  Theoretically  France  and  England  were  at  peace  ;  but  a  question 
of  succession  arose  in  Brittany  between  John  de  Montfort  and  Charles  of 
Blois.  The  two  kings  supported  the  rival  claimants  ;  each  of  them  as 
regards  Brittany  reversing  the  doctrines  of  succession  by  which  he  himself 
claimed  the  throne  of  France.  From  the  English  point  of  view  this  phase 
of  the  contest  is  chiefly  notable  on  account  of  the  battle  of  Morlaix,  where 
the  Earl  of  Northampton,  in  command  of  the  English,  won  a  victory  over 
superior  forces,  by  employing  the  archery  tactics  of  Halidon  Hill  and 
Dupplin  Moor  for  the  first  time  on  Continental  soil.  However,  under  these 
conditions  the  pretence  of  truce  could  not  long  be  maintained.  In  1345 
it  came  to  an  end. 


English  men-or-orms . 
I       I    English   Archers 
ooo  Welsh  light  armed  troops 
C2a   Genoese    Crossbonmen 
^H  Frencfi  mountea  men-at-arms 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    II.  157 

The  king,  now  in  dire  need  of  money,  cheerfully  repudiated  his  enormous 
debts  to  the  iinancial  houses  of  Florence;  thereby  very  nearly  ruining  that 
city  and  cutting  himself  off  from  the  sources  from  which  he  had  hitherto 
managed  to  borrow. 
A  new  campaign  was 
opened,  this  time  in 
Gascon y  ;  but  the 
great  interest  centres 
in  the  northern  cam- 
paign of  1346.  In 
that  year  Edward  in- 
vaded Normandy, 
and  within  two 
months  had  advanced 
almost  to  the  walls  of 
Paris.  But  Philip 
had  collected  a  very 
much  larger  army, 
and  Edward  resolved 
to    fall   back    to 


English  and  French  at  Crccy. 


Flanders,  with  the  French  in  pursuit.  Having  with  great  difficulty  effected 
the  passage  of  the  Somme,  he  took  up  his  position,  on  August  26th,  on 
the  famous  field  of  Crecy,  where  he  turned  to  bay. 

Cr^cy  typifies  the  English  tactics  which  found  their  origin  in  the  Welsh 
and  Scottish  wars  of  Edward  I.  and  were  now 
perfected  by  Edward  III.  The  approaching 
French  outnumbered  by  four  to  one  the  English, 
who  would  have  been  doomed  to  destruction  in  a 
contest  on  the  normal  medieval  principles,  which 
decided  battles  by  the  v;eight  of  charging  masses 
of  heavily  armoured  horsemen.  But  the  Fleniings 
and  Scots  had  both  proved  that  massed  bodies 
of  spearmen  could  stand  their  ground  against  any 
cavalry  charge,  though  their  resistance  could  be 
shattered,  as  at  Falkirk  and  Halidon  Hill,  by 
bringing  archery  into  play.  Edward  III.  was  now 
to  prove  that  the  combination  of  infantry  with 
archery  could  not  only  beat  off  but  could  an- 
nihilate an  attack  which  relied  wholly  on  cavalry. 
Like  Bruce  at  Bannockburn,  Edward  drew  up 
his  forces  with  a  narrow  front,  flanked  by  ground  not  available  for  cavalry. 
The  front  was  ranged  in  two  divisions,  a  third  being  held  in  reserve  ; 
while  archers  were  thrown  forward  on  either  flank  of  each  division,  where, 
if  attacked,  they  could  fall  back  to  cover.  The  regular  foot  soldiers 
were   strengthened    by  dismounted    horsemen,   again    as   at    Bannockburn, 


An  archer  of  14th  century. 


158  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

while  only  a  few  mounted  men  were  held  in  reserve.  The  French, 
though  they  arrived  late  in  the  day,  resolved  on  an  immediate  attack. 
They  advanced  troops  of  Genoese  cross-bow  men,  but  the  cross-bow  was 
helpless  against  the  long-bow^.  The  Genoese  were  shot  down  before  they 
had  the  English  within  range.  The  chivalry  of  France  clamoured  for  the 
charge,  and  crashed  forward,  riding  down  the  hapless  Genoese.  A  storm 
of  arrows  poured  upon  the  flanks  of  the  charging  columns,  driving  them 
instinctively  to  huddle  together,  and  rolling  over  horse  and  man,  so  that 

they  were  already  in 
helpless  confusion 
long  before  they 
reached  the  masses  of 
heavy  infantry.  Again 
and  again  they 
-^r^^-===;,^  charged  with  desper- 

Cro.s-bowandquarrellasusedatCrecy.  ^^e    Valour,    but    Only 

for  a  brief  moment 
did  any  of  them  succeed  in  breaking  into  the  English  lines.  Light-armed 
Welshmen  dashed  out  to  slaughter  and  strip  the  fallen  ;  the  rout  was  as 
complete  as  that  of  Bannockburn  ;  vast  numbers  were  slain  ;  the  flower  of 
the  French  nobility  were  either  taken  prisoners  or  left  dead  on  the  field. 

Complete  though  the  victory  was,  Edward  could  make  no  use  of  it 
except  to  continue  his  march  to  the  coast  unmolested.  There,  however, 
he  settled  down  to  besiege  Calais  ;  a  port  from  which  English  shipping 
had  suffered  much  injury,  while  its  capture  would  provide  a  permanent 
gateway  for  entering  France.  For  almost  a  year  Calais  held  out  stubbornly, 
but  was  finally  starved  into  a  surrender  more  famous  for  its  medieval 
picturesqueness  than  even  for  its  political  importance  ;  a  story  too  familiar 
to  be  repeated  here. 

In  the  interval  another  success  attended  the  English  arms.  As  the 
ally  of  France,  David  of  Scotland,  who  had  recovered  his  throne  in  1341, 
seized  the  opportunity  in  the  autumn  of  1346  to  invade  the  north  of  Eng- 
land while  Edward  was  in  France.  The  invasion  failed  to  relieve  David's 
ally  by  drawing  back  troops,  as  was  intended,  for  the  defence  of  the  north  ; 
which  very  successfully  took  care  of  itself.  At  the  battle  of  Neville's  Cross 
the  Scots  were  routed  and  David  was  taken  prisoner. 

But  in  spite  of  brilliant  victories  the  financial  strain  of  the  war  was  too 
great  for  Edward's  resources,  and  in  England  taxation  had  reached  the 
limit  of  popular  endurance,  although  the  general  prosperity  had  been 
increasing  so  rapidly  that  the  nation  could  have  borne  much  heavier 
burdens  without  serious  suffering.  Moreover,  Edward's  allies  were  doing 
him  no  service  ;  so,  having  secured  Calais  and  transformed  it  into  an 
English  town,  the  English  king  agreed  to  a  truce  in  September  1347.  The 
truce  continued  for  eight  years,  although  miscellaneous  fighting  was  going 
on  all  the  time.      In    1354   the   Pope   nearly  succeeded    in    negotiating  a 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    II.  159 

definitive  peace,  which  would  undoubtedly  have  been  welcomed  by  the  peoples 
of  both  France  and  of  England.  Edward  was  prepared  to  resign  his  claim 
to  the  French  Crown  if  the  quarrel  over  Aquitaine  were  settled  by  the 
grant  of  full  sovereignty  in  Guienne  and  the  disputed  provinces.  But  the 
French  king  refused  to  give  way,  and  the  English  Estates  supported  Edward 
in  reviving  the  war  in  1355. 

Military  operations  were  renewed  on  an  extensive  scale.  The  king's 
son,  Edward  the  "  Black  Prince,"  who  had  won  his  spurs  at  Crecy,  was 
despatched  to  Aquitaine,  while  the  king  himself  in- 
tended to  operate  from  Calais.  The  second  move- 
ment, however,  was  paralj^sed,  since  the  Scots  effected 
a  successful  diversion  by  capturing  Berwick  and 
drawing  Edward  back  to  England  in  haste.  But  that 
winter  the  Black  Prince  devastated  French  territory 
in  the  south,  while  the  king  himself  carried  fire  and 
sword  over  the  south  of  Scotland  in  the  raid  known  as 
the  Burnt  Candlemas,  Also  he  resumed  his  grand- 
father's title  as  not  only  overlord  but  actual  King 
of  Scotland  in  place  of  Edward  Balliol,  who  formally 
resigned  his  own  futile  pretensions  in  his  favour. 
Then  in  Normandy  and  Brittany  the  tide  of  war  surged     ^'^^^^  ^"^  arbalestier, 

•J  -J  o  century. 

to  and  fro,  mainly  in  favour  of  the  English.      But  the 

grand  event  of  the  year  1356  was  the  Black  Prince's  incursion  from 
Bordeaux  into  the  regions  of  the  Loire,  which  culminated  in  the  brilliant 
victory  of  Poictiers.  On  this  occasion,  as  in  many  other  of  the  French 
battles,  the  force  commanded  by  the  prince  was  immensely  outnumbered  by 
the  French  ;  while  it  was  largely  Gascon,  not  English,  and  was  accompanied 
by  only  a  few  archers.  The  details  of  the  battle  are  unusually  obscure. 
Almost  for  the  first  time  both  sides  fought  on  foot,  but  the  English  had  the 
advantage  of  the  slope.  The  decisive  blow,  however,  was  struck  when 
Edward  executed  an  unsuspected  turning  movement  with  the  reserve  force 
of  mounted  men,  who  instead  of  having  fled  as  was  generally  supposed, 
appeared  suddenly  on  the  French  rear,  fell  upon  them,  and  turned  what 
was  already  almost  an  assured  repulse  into  a  total  route.  Both  the  French 
King  John  and  his  youngest  son  Philip,  afterwards  Duke  of  Burgundy,  were 
taken  prisoners. 

With  the  two  kings  of  France  and  Scotland  in  his  hands  Edward  was 
now  in  a  strong  position  for  dictating  terms.  France  fell  into  a  condition 
of  anarchy.  English  soldiers  fought  for  their  own  hand  as  captains  of 
"free  companies."  The  peasantry  broke  out  in  the  desperate  revolt  known 
as  the  Jacquerie.  Edward  released  David  of  Scotland  for  a  ransom  which 
the  Scots  king  was  never  actually  able  to  pay  in  full  ;  but  the  terms  of  peace 
for  France  included  not  only  a  huge  ransom  to  the  king,  but  practically  the 
cession  in  full  sovereignty  of  all  that  had  ever  been  held  in  France  by  an 
Angevin  King  of  England.      In  spite  of  her  miseries  France  would  not  yield. 


i6o  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

In  the  winter  and  spring  of  1359-60  the  war  was  renewed  with  increased 
fury  ;  but  in  May  the  hostihties  were  stopped  by  the  temporary  treaty  of 
Bretigny.  Edward  renounced  his  claim  to  the  French  throne,  and  John  his 
claim  to  the  allegiance  of  the  disputed  districts  of  Aquitaine.  All  Aquitaine, 
and  in  addition  the  substantial  north-eastern  district  which  came  to  be  known 
as  the  Calais  Pale,  was  ceded  in  full  sovereignty  to  the  English  king  ;  but  in 
the  final  treaty  of  Calais  the  first-mentioned  clauses  of  the  treaty  of  Bretigny 
were  not  actually  embodied.      Peace,  it  seemed,  had  come  at  last. 


Ill 

THE  ERA   OF   FAILURES 

Edward  III.  stood  now  at  the  height  of  his  renown.  In  popular  estima- 
tion he  was  by  far  the  greatest  captain  of  his  day  ;  having,  indeed,  no  rival 
except  his  own  son,  the  Black  Prince,  who  was  still  little  more  than  thirty 
years  of  age.  Of  neither  does  the  military  reputation  stand  so  high  with 
posterity  as  it  did  in  their  own  day.  Neither  was  in  any  sense  a  master  of 
strategy ;  both  planned  even  the  campaigns  in  which  they  achieved  their 
greatest  triumphs  as  if  the  one  object  of  generalship  was  successful  raid- 
ing. But  both  were  masters  of  the  art  of  handling  troops  on  the  field  of 
battle  ;  both  knew  how  to  inspire  their  men  with  complete  confidence  in 
their  leader  and  in  themselves.  Under  them  the  English  fought  to  win, 
whatever  the  odds  might  be.  And  Edward  III.  has  the  credit  for  having 
perfected  that  form  of  battle  array  which  did  in  practice  repeatedly  give  the 
English  victory  in  the  face  of  immense  odds.  It  is  not  without  interest  to 
observe  that  the  principle  of  breaking  up  cavalry  charges  by  a  flank  fire, 
which  won  the  day  at  Cr^cy,  reappeared  with  decisive  effect  nearly  five 
hundred  years  later  at  the  battle  of  Waterloo. 

But  neither  the  conqueror's  day  of  glory  nor  the  triumphant  peace 
which  he  seemed  to  have  achieved  were  to  be  of  long  duration.  France, 
indeed,  had  never  formed  a  united  nation,  and  Gascony  felt  no  sense  of 
alienation  in  being  parted  from  the  French  Crown.  But  there  were  other 
portions  of  the  dukedom  of  Aquitaine  which  resented  the  overlordship  of 
the  English  king;  also  there  were  French  districts  of  which  sundry 
captains  of  free  companies  had  made  themselves  masters,  and  these  were  by 
no  means  minded  to  surrender  what  they  had  won  with  their  own  swords 
merely  because  the  Kings  of  England  and  France  had  made  a  treaty. 
Therefore  the  process  of  establishing  the  supremacy  of  King  Edward  and 
King  John  in  the  regions  assigned  to  them  respectively  by  the  treaty  was  by 
no  means  a  simple  one,  and  was  attended  by  a  large  amount  of  free  fight- 
ing. Moreover,  while  the  renunciatory  clauses  of  the  treaty  of  Bretigny 
had  been  omitted  from  the  definitive  treaty  of  Calais,  it  was  with  the  under- 
standing that  they  were  to  be  given  effect  later  ;  which  completion  of  the 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    II.  i6i 

treaty  was  evaded  by  both  parties.  Hence  large  opportunities  were 
presented,  which  might  be  seized  by  one  party  or  the  other,  for  denouncing 
it  altogether. 

The  King  of  France,  John  the  Good,  a  mirror  of  knightly  faith  and 
honour,  made  every  effort  to  fulfil  his  own  obHgations,  even  to  the  extent  of 
vohmtarily  returning  to  his  captivity  in 
Enghind  wlien  the  payment  of  his  ransom 
fell  into  arrear.  The  Edwards  were  equally 
punctilious  in  performing  all  that  the  laws 
of  chivalry  had  demanded  ;  their  courtesy 
and  generosity  were  proverbial  ;  but  neither 
Edward  nor  John's  successor,  Charles  V., 
had  any  qualms  about  evading  a  promise 
if  Ihey  could  find  a  plausible  excuse  for 
doing  so.  Hence  those  renunciatory  clauses 
were  never  formally  ratified.  Charles,  a 
very  much  shrewder  man  than  his  father, 
set  about  the  pacification  of  his  realm  with 
considerable  success. 

Troubles  in  Spain  to  a  great  extent 
relieved  France  of  the  free  companies,  who 
with  a  light  heart  joined  the  stout  French 
warrior  Bertrand  du  Guesclin  in  supporting 
the  revolt  of  Henry  of  Trastamare  against 
Pedro  the  Cruel,  King  of  Castile.  But 
Pedro  fled  to  the  Black  Prince,  whose 
father  had  now  instituted  him  the  indepen- 
dent lord  of  Aquitaine.  The  prince's  curi- 
ously distorted  views  of  his  chivalric  devoir 
led  him  to  take  up  the  cause  of  the  exiled 
tyrant.  He  crossed  the  Pyrenees  with  a 
large  army,  won  the  great  victory  of 
Navarette,  and  reinstated  Pedro  the  Cruel. 
But  he  ruined  his  own  health  and  that  of 
his  entire  force,  besides  exhausting  the 
finances  of  Aquitaine  on  the  enterprise  and 
incurring  immense  debts.  Pedro,  having  won  his  crown,  repudiated  his 
obligations  to  his  ally  ;  who  returned  to  Bordeaux,  and  unwillingly  enough 
taxed  his  subjects  that  he  might  pay  his  debts.  The  towns  and  the  com- 
monalty of  Aquitaine  had  found  in  the  prince  a  ruler  who  treated  them  fairly 
enough,  and  were  now  ready  to  submit  to  his  exactions  ;  but  the  barons,  who 
had  found  their  privileges  curtailed,  and  preferred  for  their  suzerain  a  very 
much  hampered  King  of  France  to  a  vigorous  duke  in  Bordeaux,  took  the 
opportunity  to  appeal  against  the  taxes  to  Charles  as  their  suzerain. 
Charles  admitted  the  right  of  appeal,  on  the  ground  that  King  Edward  had 


A  temporary  besieging  fort  of  limber. 
[From  Froissart's  "  Chronicles  of  England."] 


1 62  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

never  formally  renounced  his  claim  to  the  French  Crown  :  and  cited  the 
Black  Prince  to  his  court.  The  result  was  defiance  from  the  Black  Prince 
and  the  formal  resuscitation  of  his  father's  claim  to  the  French  Crown. 

So  once  more  France  and  England  were  at  war,  but  under  very  much 
altered  conditions.      For  the  once  mighty  Edward  III.,  though  still  far  short 


France  and  the  Angevin  Dominion. 
.g — ®_  Boundary  of  France. 


Boundary  of  the  dominion  of  Henry  II. 
J^^nglish  Boundary  at  Bretigny. 


of  sixty,  was  already  falling  into  a  premature  old  age,  and  the  Black 
Prince's  powers  were  wrecked  by  disease.  The  English  king  had  obtained 
little  enough  practical  help  from  his  allies  in  the  past  ;  but  now  the  German 
Empire  had  passed  to  the  house  of  Luxemburg^  and  the  marriages  of  the 
last  generation  had  so  changed  the  interests  of  counts  and  princes  that  the 
French  king  now  had  allies  where  before  he  had  enemies. 

The  renewal  of  war,  then,  in  1369  was  attended  by  a  series  of  successes 
for  the  French  arms,  while  all  that  the  Black  Prince  could  effect  was 
the   capture   of   Limoges,   the   sack  and  destruction   of    the  city,  and  the 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    II.  163 

massacre  of  its  inhabitants.  This  was  in  1370;  and  it  did  much  more  to 
aUenate  the  population  of  Aquitaine  than  to  terrorise  them  into  submission 
to  the  duke.  A  year  later  the  Black  Prince  himself  was  in  England,  having 
neither  the  health  to  lead  his  soldiers  nor  money  to  pay  them.  Again,  a 
year  later,  a  British  fleet  met  with  an  overwhelming  defeat  off  La  Rochellc, 
thereby  losing  the  command  of  the  sea  which  had  been  held  for  more  than 
thirty  years.  The  war  had  no  redeeming  features  ;  and  the  defeat  at  La 
Rochelle  effectively  cut  Aquitaine  off  from  England.  Edward's  second  sur- 
viving son,  John  of  Gaunt,  Duke  of  Lan- 
caster, led  an  expedition  through  France  ; 
but  the  French  avoided  pitched  battles 
after  the  manner  of  the  Scots,  wasted  the 
country  before  the  invaders,  worried  them 
on  flank  and  rear,  and  raided  their  com- 
munications. Without  having  fought  a 
single  serious  engagement,  it  was  but  a 
wreck  of  John  of  Gaunt's  army  which 
finally  struggled  into  Bordeaux.  The  re- 
cord of  exhaustion  and  futility  was  only 
brought  to  a  close  by  a  truce  which  covered 
the  two  last  years  of  the  old  king's  life  ; 
when  England  was  in  practical  possession 
of  little  more  than  Calais  and  Guisnes,  the 
"  Calais  Pale,"  in  the  north-east  corner  of 
France,  and  Bordeaux  on  the  south-west. 

Disaster  abroad  was  accompanied  by 
faction  and  discord  at  home.  Parlia- 
ment readily  endorsed  Edward's  resolve  to  renew  the  war,  but  disgust 
took  the  place  of  enthusiasm  as  disaster  followed  disaster.  At  the  demand 
of  parliament  the  king  dismissed  in  1371  the  clerical  ministers  whose  mis- 
management was  popularly  held  to  be  responsible  ;  but  the  new  anti-clerical 
ministry  brought  no  improvement.  Pembroke,  who  had  led  the  opposition, 
was  defeated  and  captured  at  La  Rochelle,  and  John  of  Gaunt,  who  had 
identified  himself  with  the  same  party,  got  nothing  but  discredit  out  of  his 
expedition  in  the  following  year.  Anti-clericalism  became  the  party  cry  of 
John  of  Gaunt's  faction  ;  while  the  party  now  in  opposition  was  headed 
nominally  by  the  dying  Black  Prince  and  more  actively  by  Edmund  Mortimer, 
Earl  of  March.  Mortimer  had  married  the  daughter  of  Edward's  second 
son,  Lionel  of  Clarence,  recently  dead  ;  so  that  his  infant  son  Roger  stood 
next  in  succession  to  the  Black  Prince's  own  son  Richard.  The  Anti-clericals 
called  in  to  their  aid  the  learned  doctor  John  Wiclif ;  who  held  austere 
views  as  to  the  iniquity  of  wealth  and  worldliness  among  the  clergy,  and  was 
further  promulgating  unaccustomed  doctrines,  which  were  presently  to  be 
denounced  by  the  Church  as  heretical  and  by  politicians  as  anarchical. 

The  parliament,  summoned  after  a  somewhat  unusual  interval  of  three 


English  man-at-arms  and  archer. 

[From  Froissart.] 


164 


NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 


years  in  1376,  gave  the  temporary  victory  to  the  Black  Prince's  party,  who 
had  honestly  enough  adopted  the  role  of  constitutionalists.  A  vigorous 
attack  was  made  on  the  Anti-clerical  or  Court  party.  The  trial  and  im- 
prisonment of  Lord  Latimer  and  other  ministers  are  regarded  as  the  first 
example  of  im-peachment — the  process  under  which  officers  of  state  are 
arraigned  before  the  House  of  Lords  by  the  House  of  Commons.  At 
this  juncture  the  Black  Prince  himself  died.  John  of  Gaunt  made  the 
mistake  of  inviting  the  Commons  to  make  a  declaration  in  favour  of  the 
French  rule  of  succession,  which  would  have 
given  to  himself  and  his  son  priority  over  young 
Roger  Mortimer,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  claimed 
through  his  mother  to  stand  next  after  Richard 
in  the  succession.  Lancaster's  proposal  was 
emphatically  rejected,  but  he  had  given  colour 
to  the  belief  that  he  was  really  playing  for  the 
Crown.  Although  his  own  position  had  been 
strengthened  by  the  death  of  his  elder  brother, 
he  could  not  resist  the  demand  of  the  Commons 
that  the  control  of  the  government  should  be 
placed  in  the  hands  of  a  nominated  council. 
Nevertheless,  he  succeeded  in  packing  a  new 
parliament,  which  met  at  tlie  beginning  of  the 
A  14th  century  abbot  preaching.  ^^^^^  ^^^^^  ^^,j^,^  partisans  of  his  own  ;  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  last  or  "Good"  Parliament  were  reversed,  and  Lancaster 
forcibly  protected  Wiclif  against  the  attacks  of  the  clerical  party,  though 
these  were  supported  by  the  citizens  of  London.  Conciliatory  counsels, 
however,  averted  the  outbreak  of  a  civil  war  at  the  moment  when  the 
old  king  was  dying  neglected  and  almost  forgotten.  Whatever  Lancaster's 
ambitions  were,  actual  disloyalty  was  not  among  his  sins,  and  the  Black 
Prince's  son  Richard,  young  as  he  was,  succeeded  to  the  throne  without 
opposition  in  June  1377. 

The  accession  of  the  young  king,  a  boy  of  eleven,  was  accompanied 
by  a  general  reconciliation,  which  found  its  expression  in  the  personnel  of 
the  Council  of  Twelve  who  were  placed  in  control  of  the  government. 
Both  paities  were  represented.  Though  neither  Lancaster  himself  nor 
his  younger  brothers,  Edmund  of  Langley  and  Thomas  of  Woodstock,  were 
members  of  the  Council,  Lancaster's  vast  estates  left  him  individually  the 
most  powerful  man  in  the  kingdom.  A  government  thus  constituted  was 
hardly  fitted  to  deal  effectively  with  a  crisis.  The  truce  with  France  had 
come  to  an  end,  and  matters  went  ill  both  in  Aquitaine  and  on  the  seas. 
A  new  parliament  was  summoned  in  January  which  reverted  defuiitely  to  the 
attitude  of  the  Good  Parliament,  turned  some  of  the  Lancastrians  out  of 
the  Council,  and  claimed  definitely  that  no  Act  passed  in  parliament  should 
be  repealed  without  consent  of  parliament.  The  House  then  proceeded 
to  vote  supplies  expressly  for  the  war,  and   required  the  appointment  of 


n. 


11 


-rt^imw  M 


ENGLISH    LIFE    IN    THE    EARLY    FOURTEENTH    CENTURY 

Drawings  from  the  beautiful  Luttrell  Psalter  (made  before  1346).     Those  in  the  upper  half  illustrate  the  domestic 
preparations  for  a  great  feast  in  Sir  Geoffrey  Luttrell's  house  ;  in  the  lower  half  are  husbandry  scenes. 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    11.  165 

special  auditors,  who  should  see  to  it  that  the  money  was  expended  on 
the  war  and  on  nothing  else — the  first  definite  instance  of  the  principle  of 
''  appropriation  of  supply." 

Still  the  spirit  of  conciliation  was  abroad,  and  Lancaster,  in  spite  of  his 
political  defeat,  was  entrusted  with  the  control  of  naval  and  military 
operations,  which  as  usual  he  mismanaged.  The  treasury  was  exhausted  ; 
and  to  raise  more  money  the  Commons  agreed  to  a  poll-tax,  graduated 
according  to  wealth,  and  ranging  from  a  groat  up  to  six  pounds.  The  tax 
brought  in  less  than  half  of  what  had  been  expected,  and  the  fleet  on 
which  it  was  expended  was  shattered  by  a  gale.  There  was  another  re- 
construction of  the  ministry,  but  no  improvement  in  efficiency.  Once 
more  additional  taxation  was  demanded,  and  again  the  reluctant  Commons 
assented  to  a  poll-tax,  which  this  time  was  not  graduated,  but  was  assessed 
at  a  shilling  a  head  on  the  whole  adult  population.  Although  an  attempt 
was  made  to  introduce  a  sort  of  local  graduation,  so  that  in  each  district 
the  wealthier  men  should  pay  more  than  the  poor,  the  practical  effect  was 
only  to  make  the  tax  more  severely  felt  in  the  poorer  districts,  since  the 
average  of  a  shilling  a  head  over  the  district  had  to  be  maintained.  This 
second  poll-tax  was  the  occasion,  though  not  the  cause,  of  the  conflagration 
of  138 1,  known  as  the  Peasants'  Revolt  or  Wat  Tyler's  Rebellion. 


IV 

CROWN,   COMMERCE,    AND    PARLIAMENT 

Edward  L  established  the  parliament  of  the  three  Estates  in  the  closing 
years  of  his  reign  ;  but  that  parliament  had  not  learnt  to  assert  itself  gener- 
ally, and  offered  no  resistance  when  the  earls  and  the  greater  barons  took 
upon  themselves  the  office  of  controlling  the  king's  government.  The  Good 
Parliament  at  the  close  of  Edward  III.'s  reign  shows  the  Commons  taking 
a  much  more  active  part  in  affairs  of  state.  Petitions  and  protests  were  freely 
put  forward  by  the  knights  of  the  shire  ;  and  the  overseers  appointed  at  the 
beginning  of  the  reign  of  Richard  IL  to  control  the  accounts  were  neither 
ministers  of  the  king  nor  members  of  the  baronage,  but  two  leading  citizens 
of  London. 

The  change  that  had  taken  place  meant  that  the  Commons  had  been  step 
by  step  throughout  the  reign  of  Edward  III.  acquiring  the  effective  power 
of  the  purse  ;  because  the  enormous  expenditure,  involved  primarily  by  the 
wars,  made  the  Crown  more  and  more  dependent  upon  supplies  voluntarily 
granted  by  the  Commons  ;  and  at  the  same  time  the  Commons  grew  more 
and  more  jealous  of  methods  of  raising  revenue  which  were  not  dependent 
upon  their  goodwill.  They  had  not  at  first  made  their  control  effective.  They 
were  strong  enough  to  refuse  money  unless  the  king  would  make  satisfactory 
promises  ;    but  they  were  still  without  effective  means  of  compelling  the 


1 66  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

king  to  carry  out  his  promises  when  he  had  made  them.  For  parliamentary 
supremacy,  the  first  necessary  stage  was  for  parliament  to  have  the  power 
of  withholding  the  supplies  necessary  to  the  carrying  out  of  the  king's  policy  ; 
the  second  step  was  the  application  of  that  power  to 
the  control  of  legislation  ;  and  the  third,  still  very 
remote,  was  its  further  application  to  the  control  of 
tlie  Executive. 

Accordingly  the  reign  shows  the  Crown  becoming 
more  and  more  dependent  for  funds  on  the  goodwill 
of  parliament  ;  while  the  doctrine  is  gaining  ground 
that  legislation,  to  be  permanent,  requires  parliamentary 
sanction  ;  though  parliament  is  only  beginning  to 
assume  the  initiative  by  expressing  in  petitions  the 
principles  which  it  wishes  to  see  enacted.  Its  attempts 
to  influence  the  administration  are  still  more  embryonic. 
Only  under  extreme  circumstances  and  at  the  very  end 
of  the  reign  does  parliament,  as  distinct  from  a 
baronial  faction,  take  upon  itself  to  attack  the  king's 
ministers  or  to  demand  powers  of  supervision. 

Edward  was  perfectly  conscious  that  the  policy 
on  which  he  was  embarking  when  he  entered  upon 
the  French  war  involved  his  own  dependence  upon 
parliament,  and  he  took  care  that  parliament  should 
expressly  commit  itself  to  endorsing  his  policy  ;  although 
by  so  doing  he  encouraged  the  development  of  the  idea, 
which  as  yet  existed  only  in  germ,  that  parliament  was 
entitled  to  a  voice  in  the  direction  of  policy.  At  the 
same  time  it  was  an  object  with  him,  as  it  had  been 
with  his  grandfather,  to  minimise  that  dependence. 
He  endeavoured,  therefore,  to  develop  independent 
sources  of  revenue.  Something  which  may  be  called 
a  commercial  policy  had  first  become  operative  in  the 
time  of  his  grandfather  ;  partly  because  Edward  as 
a  nationalist  statesman  had  began  to  recognise  in 
commercial  expansion  one  of  the  roads  to  national 
welfare  and  national  strength ;  partly  because  he 
hoped  to  obtain  from  it  an  increase  of  the  royal 
revenue  which  should  not  involve  direct  reference  to 
tiie  Estates.  Like  aims  caused  the  third  Edward  to 
develop  a  commercial  policy  so  energetic  that  he  has  been  called  the 
Father  of  English  commerce. 

We  have  seen  that  until  the  reign  of  Edward  III.  foreign  commerce  was 
extremely  limited.  Every  borough  and  every  district  aimed  at  being  self- 
sufficing  ;  so  also  did  the  nation.  The  enterprising  foreigner  sought  a 
market  for  his  own  goods  in   England  and  purchased  raw  materials  from 


A  merchant  of  1367. 
[  I-'i  om  a  brass  at  Lynn.  ] 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    II.  167 

England  ;  but  the  Englishman  hardly  attempted  to  seek  a  foreign  market 
for  his  own  goods  or  to  procure  from  foreign  countries  goods  which  he 
could  sell  again  at  a  profit  at  home.  The  wine  and  the  cloths  which  he 
had  not  learnt  to  manufacture  at  home  the  foreigner  would  bring  to  his 
doors  ;  and  if  the  foreigner  chose  to  bring  his  goods  for  sale,  he  must  spend 
the  purchase-money  in  buying  other  goods  from  Englishmen. 

But  the  Englishman  was  now  progressing  beyond  this  passive  attitude. 
He  was  beginning  to  produce  with  an  eye  to  the  foreign  purchaser  ;  even 
to   exporting  on  his    own 


account,  instead  of  merely 
selling  to  the  foreigner 
who  came  to  buy.  And 
because  Englishmen  were 
prospering  they  were  also 
inclined  to  buy  more  of 
the  goods  which  were  only 
to  be  had  from  the  for- 
eigner. It  was  realised 
that  prosperity  comes  to 
those  who  seek  a  market. 

The  Crown  perceived  that  ^  goldsmith's  shop  In  the  14th  century. 

if  energy  were  devoted  to  facilitating  the  expansion  of  trade,  it  could  take 
its  own  toll  at  the  same  time  without  discouraging  enterprise  ;  and  the 
more  trade  expanded  the  bigger  the  ^.oll  would  be.  Hence  the  value 
attaching  to  the  commerce  with  Flanders  and  the  commerce  with  his 
own  Gascon  dominions  materially  influenced  Edward  III.  in  his  French 
policy.  English  wool  growers  and  Gascon  wine  growers  would  flourish  ; 
and  the  more  they  flourished  the  more  the  royal  exchequer  would  extract 
as  the  price  of  the  privileges  of  exporting  wool  and  importing  wine.  It 
followed  that  the  king  sought  to  strain  to  the  utmost  the  royal  prerogative 
of  imposing  customs  nominally  for  the  regulation  of  trade,  and  of  bargain- 
ing with  the  merchants  for  their  assent  to  such  impositions  without  referring 
to  parliament.  And  when  parliament  realised  what  was  going  on,  parlia- 
ment in  turn  insisted  that  its  own  assent  was  necessary  to  the  imposition  of 
customs.  In  spite  of  repeated  etTorts  to  evade  the  principle,  Edward  found 
himself  obliged  to  give  way.  The  Crown's  right  to  the  ''  Ancient  Customs  " 
in  accordance  with  the  statute  of  1275  was  unchallenged  ;  but  it  was  estab- 
lished during  the  reign  that  other  duties,  even  if  they  became  habitual,  re- 
quired the  assent  of  parlianient  for  their  imposition  ;  and  even  if  their 
renewal  might  be  practically  relied  upon,  it  was  on  each  occasion  made  only 
for  a  definite  period. 

In  the  conditions  of  medieval  society,  both  the  expansion  of  trade  and 
the  collection  of  revenue  were  facilitated  by  the  famous  institution  of  the 
Merchants  of  the  Staple.  In  modern  times,  laisses  /aire  doctrine  condemns 
the  regulation  of  commerce  by  the  State  on  the  ground  that  private  enter- 


1 68  NATIONAL,   CONSOLIDATION 

prise  is  hampered  thereby.     When  the  State  gives  the  individual  protection 
against  violence  and  fraud  it  has  discharged  its  proper  function.      But  in  the 


Lincoln  o 

-T — 

No^^(^gham© 

•Derby 
Shrewsbury©         Leice5^e^®        ^ 

®Cove^^^y         J 
.   « Warwick  aE-ly 

Worcesher,   /      ^     Camtridge* 
Tewkesbury  e^y         Bedford* 
©Carmarrhen       |^_,^GIoucesfer- 


The  towns  undciiincil  ;iic  "Towns  of  tlie  Staple 


middle  ages  the  great  danger  to  private  enterprise  was  insecurity  against 
violence  and  fraud.  For  security,  State  or  municipal  supervision  was  a 
necessity.     The  export  trade  in  English  staple  products,  wool,  wool-fells. 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    11.  169 

hides,  leather  and  some  others,  was  made  a  monopoly  of  the  merchants  of 
the  staple.  Membership  was  open  on  the  payment  of  fees,  and  was  condi- 
tional only  on  the  observance  of  the  company's  regulations  ;  while  the 
members  traded  severally  on  their  own  account — not  after  the  fashion  of  a 
modern  joint  Stock  Company,  in  which  the  society  does  the  trading  and 
distributes  the  profits.  The  trading  was  confined  to  specified  towns  con- 
nected with  specified  ports  in  England  ;  and  also  to  specified  towns  on  the 
Continent,  though  ultimately  the  monopoly  was  given  to  Calais.  It  was  thus 
possible  to  compel  all  traders  to  conform  to  definite  regulations,  and  to  pro- 
vide security  for  the  purchaser  in  respect  of  the  bulk  and  quality  of  the 
goods  purchased.  At  the  same  time  the  collection  of  the  customs  was  very 
much  simplified. 

But  Edward  was  not  satisfied  with  the  encouragement  of  exports.  He 
also  encouraged  imports  by  offering  privileges  to  traders  from  Gascony 
and  the  Low  Countries  ;  to  the  Gascons,  with  an  eye  to  the  wealth  of 
Gascony  rather  than  of  England  ;  to  the  Flemings,  with  an  eye  to  reciprocal 
privileges  ;  to  both  with  an  eye  to  the  revenue  derivable  from  customs. 
Edward  is  not  to  be  credited  with  any  anticipation  of  Free  Trade  doctrines 
as  to  the  economic  advantage  of  buying  in  the  cheapest  market  ;  he  probably 
looked  very  little  beyond  the  opportunity  presented  of  taking  a  toll  for 
himself  from  the  traders.  The  doctrine  was  fully  accepted  that  money, 
a  scarce  and  valuable  commodity,  should  not  be  carried  out  of  the  kingdom 
in  exchange  for  the  goods  brought  in.  The  foreigner  in  England  could 
only  trade  as  member  of  an  association  under  strict  regulation  and  super- 
vision, at  particular  times  and  particular  places  ;  and  he  was  obliged  to  buy 
goods  to  the  value  of  those  he  sold.  But  he  was  encouraged  to  sell  as 
well  as  to  buy  ;  and  the  volume  of  trade  and  the  amount  of  material  wealth 
in  the  country  increased  rapidly. 

In  one  particular  Edward  appears  to  have  been  moved  by  more  definite 
economic  considerations.  He  encouraged  foreigners  to  settle  in  England 
and  carry  on  industries  which  had  not  taken  a  natural  root  in  the  country. 
F'rom  the  foreigners  in  their  midst  the  English  learnt  industrial  arts  which 
they  had  hitherto  ignored ;  and  during  the  fourteenth  century  the  English 
became  not  merely  wool-growers  but  manufacturers  of  the  cloth  which  had 
hitherto  been  imported  from  the  Low  Countries.  So  much  advance  was 
made  in  this  industry  that  regulations  were  made  to  limit  or  even  prohibit 
the  export  of  wool  in  order  to  keep  down  the  price  for  the  benefit  of 
English  cloth-makers.  Before  the  end  of  the  century  English  cloths  were 
in  full  competition  with  those  of  Flanders. 

The  customs  then  provided  a  source  of  revenue  which  in  previous 
centuries  had  hardly  been  taken  into  account ;  but  it  was  one  which  the 
king  could  only  to  a  very  limited  extent  claim  as  falling  within  his  control. 
Except  as  concerned  the  "  Ancient  Customs,"  it  was  a  source  of  supply  which 
it  was  technically  v/ithin  the  power  of  parliament  to  cut  off,  although  in 
practice  an  authority  to  levy  particular  customs,  frequently  renewed,  was 


Gold  rose-noble  of  Edward  III. 


170  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

likely  to  become  permanent  as  a  matter  of  course  if  not  as  a  matter  of 
technical  right.  Thus  the  impost  called  tonnage  and  poundage,  a  fixed 
tax  upon  every  ton  of  wine  and  every  pound  of  merchandise  imported,  was 
first  sanctioned  towards  the  close  of  Edward's  reign,  renewed  for  periods  of 
two  or  three  years,  and  gradually  became  a  practically  assured  source  of 
income  ;  until  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VI.  it  was  granted  to  the  king  for 
life,  and  continued  to  be  so  granted  at  the  beginning  of  each  reign  until 
the  accession  of  Charles  I.     Similarly,  Edward  I.  had  laid  tallages  upon  the 

towns,  and  bargained  with 
the  merchants  for  subsidies 
on  wool.  Both  practices  had 
been  challenged,  but  neither 
had  been  definitely  pro- 
hibited ;  and  Edward  III. 
made  use  of  both.  But  both 
were  finally  prohibited  in  his 
reign  by  statute,  the  tallages 
ill  1340  and  the  wool  sub- 
sidies in  1362. 
Practically  the  permanent  expenditure  so  far  exceeded  what  the  king 
could  meet  out  of  revenue  under  his  own  control  that  he  was  in  constant 
need  of  specific  grants  from  parhament  ;  especially  after  the  ruin  of  the 
Florentine  bankers,  by  Edward's  repudiation  of  his  debt,  made  it  impossible 
for  him  to  borrow  on  a  large  scale.  The  form  followed  was  for  the  king 
to  invite  the  Estates  to  grant  him  what  was  needful  ;  they  responded  each 
according  to  its  own  willingness  and  capacity,  the  barons,  the  clergy,  the 
shires  and  the  cities  taxing  themselves  severally.  Thus  it  became  the 
custom  with  the  Commons  to  make  a  tenth  and  a  fifteenth  the  standard 
subsidy  ;  which  on  occasion  might  be  raised  to  two-tenths  and  two-fifteenths. 
But  the  right  was  reserved  of  presenting  petitions  for  legislation  as  a  con- 
dition preliminary  to  the  grant  being  made.  It  did  not,  however,  follow 
that  the  statute  actually  promulgated  was  a  precise  fulfilment  of  the  petition 
presented.  That  principle  was  not  formally  laid  down  until  the  reign 
of  Henry  V. 

In  1341,  at  the  time  of  the  quarrel  with  Stratford,  the  king  to  obtain 
funds  accepted  the  demands  of  parliament  ;  yet  a  few  months  later  he 
repudiated  his  promise  and  cancelled  his  concessions.  But  when  parlia- 
ment again  met,  its  formal  assent  to  that  cancellation  was  obtained,  and  the 
king  did  not  repeat  the  experiment.  When,  five  and  thirty  years  later,  John 
of  Gaunt  on  his  own  authority  cancelled  the  Acts  of  the  Good  Parliament 
after  its  dissolution,  although  the  parliament  immediately  following  endorsed 
his  action,  it  was  subsequently  enacted  formally  that  Acts  of  parliament 
could  only  be  repealed  by  Act  of  parliament. 

Of  the  legislation  of  the  reign  an  important  portion  consists  in  the 
various  declaratory  Acts  defining  and  limiting  the  rights  of  the  Crown  as  to 


EDWARD    111.    AND    RICHARD    II.  171 

raising  revenue  ;  much  as  we  saw  that  precise  definition  was  the  object  of 
a  great  deal  of  the  legislation  of  Edward  I.  In  the  same  way  the  direct 
outcome  of  the  quarrel  with  Stratford  was  the  final  definiteness  of  the 
assertion  of  the  principle  of  trial  by  peers.  To  the  same  category  of  defin- 
ing Acts  belongs  the  important  Statute  of  Treasons,  which  for  the  first  time 
set  forth  precisely  that  the  crime  of  tre.-^  on  consisted  in  the  compassing  of 
the  death  of  the  king,  the  queen,  or  the  heir  apparent,  and  in  levying  war 
against  the  king  or  assisting  his 
enemies.  With  these  were  included 
the  slaying  of  the  king's  ministers 
or  judges,  and  counterfeiting  the 
king's  coinage  or  the  Great  Seal. 
In  another  field,  legislation  pointed 
to  the  increase  of  anti-clerical  feeling 
marked  by  the  Statutes  of  Provisors 
and  of  Praemunire  ;  the  first  directed 
against  the  usurpation  by  the  Pope 
of  the  right  to  make  ecclesiastical 
appointments,  and  the  second,against 
the  ecclesiastical  custom  of  carrying 
appeals  to  Rome.  In  both  cases 
the  principles  asserted  were  those 
which  no  kings  of  England  had  sur- 
rendered until  the  submission  of 
King  John  to  Innocent  III.  Even 
Edward  I.,  however,  had  only  suc- 
ceeded in  resisting  papal  claims 
which  were  new  in  his  own  day  ; 
he  had  not  recovered  the  ground 
which  his  father  and  grandfather 
lost.  But  throughout  the  fourteenth 
century  papal  authority  and  eccle- 
siastical influence  were  losing  w^eight  ;  because  for  three-fourths  of  the 
century  the  headquarters  of  the  papacy  were  at  Avignon  instead  of  at 
Rome,  and  the  Popes,  instead  of  standing  forth  as  the  theocratic  heads  of 
Cliristendom,  were  politically  to  a  great  extent  subservient  to  the  French 
Crown.  Moreover,  when  at  last  the  captivity  at  Avignon  came  to  an  end,  it 
was  followed  by  the  Great  Schism,  when  there  were  constantly  two  rival 
popes,  one  of  whom  was  supported  by  one-half  of  Western  Christendom 
and  the  other  by  the  other  half.  The  awe  and  reverence  inspired  for  two 
hundred  years  by  the  successors  of  Hildebrand  faded  ;  the  ground  was 
being  prepared  for  the  great  revolt  against  the  papacy  which  culminated  in 
the  Reformation,  of  which  Wiclif  was  already  sowing  the  seed  before 
Edward   III.  was  in  his  grave. 

One  more  feature  of  the  reign  remains  to  be  noted  in  connection  wnth 


A  bishop's  court. 
[From  a  14th  century  MS.] 


172  NATIONAL    CONSOLIDATION 

the  relations  of  the  Crown  with  the  baronage.  Edward  III.  carried  to  a 
much  higher  pitch  his  grandfather's  plan  of  creating  a  dominant  baronage  of 
the  blood  royal  by  the  absorption  of  earldoms  and  great  estates  in  the  hands 
of  members  of  the  royal  family.  The  great  territorial  possessions  of  the 
house  of  Lancaster,  itself  sprung  from  the  brother  of  Edward  I.,  passed  to 
the  king's  third  son,  John  of  Gaunt,  who  became  Duke  of  Lancaster,  by  his 
marriage  with  Blanche,  the  heiress  of  Lancaster.  At  the  time  of  Edward's 
death  there  was  no  one  else  bearing  the  title  of  Duke.  Another  group  of 
earldoms  went  to  the  king's  second  son,  Lionel  of  Clarence,  and  passed  on 
his  death  to  the  house  of  Mortimer  through  his  daughter,  the  wife  of  the 
Earl  of  March.  Two  other  sons  survived,  of  whom  one,  Edmund,  was 
later  made  Duke  of  York,  and  the  other,  Thomas,  Duke  of  Gloucester.  At 
the  close  of  Edward's  reign  the  hereditary  peers  summoned  to  the  Lords' 
chamber  were  little  more  than  half  as  many  as  those  summoned  to  the 
Model  Parliament ;  and  the  process  continued  during  the  following  reigns. 
The  old  principle  of  preventing  the  accumulation  of  great  estates  was 
abandoned  for  that  of  accumulating  them  in  the  hands  of  the  royal  kin  ; 
with  results  which  presently  proved  disastrous. 


A  state-carriage  of  about  1330. 
[From  the  Lultrell  Psalter.] 


THE   BLACK    DEATH   AND   THE   PEASANT   REVOLT 


We  turn  now  to  the  social  conditions  and  the  events  which  led  up 
to  the  great  Peasants'  Revolt  of  1381,  the  story  of  the  revolt  itself,  and 
the  examination  of  its  importance  in  the  social  and  economic  progress  of 
the  country. 

We  saw  that  at  the  time  of  the  Norman  Conquest  the  soil  was  divided 
into  the  demesne  lands  or  private  estates  of  lords  of  the  manor  and  the 
holdings  of  ceorls  politically  free,  though  the  great  bulk  of  them  held  their 
plots — "yards"  or  "virgates  "  of  thirty  acres,  half  virgates  of  fifteen  acres, 
or  still  smaller  holdings — by  payment  of  agricultural  service,  or  rent,  or 
both,  to  the  lord  of  the  manor.  We  saw  further  that  by  the  reign  of 
Henry  II.  the  bulk  of  these  occupiers  holding  by  service  had  become  serfs 
bound  to  the  soil,  this  whole  class  bearing  the  general  name  of  villeins  ; 
among  whom  were  not  generally  included  those  who  paid  rent  but  not 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    11.  173 

service,  nor  all  of  those  who  paid  service.  With  the  enforcement  of  the  habit 
of  law  and  order  wliich  characterised  the  Plantagenet  rule,  the  condition  of 
the  villeins  steadily  improved.  They  were  permitted  to  commute  service 
for  rent,  though  this  did  not  free  them  from  the  technical  status  of  serfdom  ; 


'   -=i^^^te^.x 


Penshurst,  the  hall  of  a  14th  century  Baron. 
[Built  about  1340.] 


and  it  followed  that  the  old  forced  services  were  largely  replaced  by  labour 
for  which  wages  were  paid.  Thus  there  grew  up  a  class  of  wage-earning 
agricultural  labourers,  consisting  of  landless  men  and  small  cottars,  who 
were  still  technically  bound  to  the  soil,  though  in  practice  some  degree  of 
liberty  of  migration  was   permitted.     The  process  continued  steadily  and 


174  NATIONAL    CONSOLIDATION 

almost  unconsciously  for  nearly  two  centuries ;  so  that  in  the  early  years 
of  Edward  III.  the  superior  villeins  were  materially  little  if  at  all  worse  off 
than  the  yeomanry,  that  is  free-holders  or  holders  by  free  tenure,  although 
they  were  socially  inferior  ;  while  the  inferior  villeins  made  their  subsistence 
mainly  as  wage-earning  labourers,  enjoying  while  in  full  employment  wages 
sufficient  to  feed  and  house  and  clothe  them  very  much  better  than  their 
contemporaries  in  France  and  elsewhere — though  they  probably  found  life 
hard  enough  in  winter  and  in  seasons  of  scarcity  or  pestilence. 

But  in  the  years  which  followed  the  battle  of  Crecy,  England,  in  common 
with  Europe  in  general,  was  visited  by  the  appalling  pestilence  known  as 
the  Black  Death.  It  appeared  in  England  in  1347  and  1348,  and  recurred 
at  intervals  during  the  next  twenty  years.  So  terrible  was  the  visitation 
that  in  the  rural  districts  it  may  be  estimated  from  the  evidence  that  not 
less  than  one-third — perhaps  a  full  half — of  the  population  was  swept 
away.  The  fields  were  left  unfilled,  and  there  was  a  terrible  scarcity  of 
food.  The  demand  fur  labour  greatly  exceeded  the  supply,  while  the  price 
of  provisions  rose.  The  labourer  demanded  higher  wages.  High  wages 
and  high  cost  of  living  reacted  on  each  other  ;  the  men  would  not  work 
except  at  prices  which  from  the  landowners'  point  of  view  were  extor- 
tionate. 

In  1350  the  government  intervened  with  an  ordinance  which  was 
ratified  by  parliament  as  the  Statute  of  Labourers.  The  knights  of  the  shire, 
the  most  influential  section  of  the  House  of  Commons,  were  themselves 
landowners  with  whom  the  landowners'  point  of  view  inevitably  prevailed, 
though  they  had  no  intention  of  acting  unjustly  or  in  the  interests  of  a 
class.  The  Statute  ordained  that  food  should  be  sold  at  the  prices  ruling 
before  the  coming  of  the  Black  Death,  and  that  the  labourer  should  work 
for  the  same  wages.  For  infractions  of  the  law  both  parties  were  to  be 
penalised,  those  who  demanded  and  those  who  paid  more  than  legal  wages 
and  prices.  Further,  the  law  which  bound  the  villeins  to  the  soil  was  to 
be  enforced,  and  the  labourer  might  on  no  account  migrate  from  his 
manor  to  seek  higher  wages  elsewhere.  But  if  the  landowners  had  the  law 
behind  them,  the  labourers  were  for  the  most  part  practically  masters  of  the 
situation.  The  law  was  only  partially  successful  in  checking  the  high 
prices  and  the  high  wages.  In  the  circumstances  it  was  inevitable  that 
many  of  the  landowners  should  fall  back  upon  any  technical  rights  they 
possessed.  In  many  cases  the  commutation  of  service  for  rent  had  been 
merely  an  act  of  grace  ;  that  is  to  say,  it  had  not  been  secured  by  any  proper 
legal  bond.  Landlords  and  their  agents  strained  the  technical  point  of  law 
to  claim  unpaid  service  from  the  villeins. 

It  is  quite  superfluous  to  accuse  either  landlords  or  labourers  of  a 
monstrous  reversion  to  an  obsolete  tyranny  or  of  a  monstrous  attempt  to 
take  an  immoral  advantage  of  a  national  disaster.  Both  could  easily  con- 
vince themselves  that  reason  and  justice  were  all  on  their  own  side  and  not 
at  all  on  the  side  of  the  other  party.    A  bitter  class  hatred  sprang  into  being, 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    II.  175 

which  may  well  have  been  fostered  by  appalling  tales  brought  back  from 
France  of  the  Jacquerie,  the  horrible  sufferings  of  the  French  peasantry,  and 
the  horrible  doings  which  attended  their  revolt  and  their  suppression.  More- 
over, the  peasantry  learnt  a  new  antagonism  to  the  existing  social  order  from 
the  consciousness  that  the  greatest  of  the  English  victories  had  been  won 
by  men  not  of  knightly  rank  but  practically  of  their  own  class,  the  yeomanry 
from  whom  the  archers  of  England  were  drawn. 

It  does  not  appear  that  the  growing  discontent  and  bitterness  were  due 
to  any  extreme  destitution  among  the  peasantry.  William  Langland,  the 
writer  of  the  great  contemporary  allegory,  the  Vision  of  Piers  Plowman  ^  paints 
an  ugly  enough  picture  of  the  doings  of  some  of  the  lords  of  the  manor 
and  their  agents ;  but  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  such  oppression  and 
chicanery  were  more  than  occasional.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  Langland 
does  not  spare  the  lash  in  describing  the  unthrift  of  the  peasants,  their  self- 
indulgence,  and  their  love  of  shirking  legitimate  toil.  His  indignation  was 
begotten  of  the  moral  deficiencies  which  he  saw  in  every  class,  and  must  be 
discounted,  like  the  indignation  of  embittered  moralists  in  all  ages.  But  the 
mere  fact  that  the  accustomed  conditions  of  labour  and  of  food  production 
were  hopelessly  disorganised  by  the  great  pestilence,  and  were  kept  in  a 
state  of  disorganisation  by  its  occasional  recrudescence,  necessarily  prevented 
the  country  from  recovering  its  former  sense  of  easy  prosperity  ;  while  the 
moral  atmosphere  was  made  worse  by  the  depression  and  disgust  attending 
the  later  phases  of  the  war  with  France.  The  soil  thus  prepared  was 
eminently  fitted  for  revolutionary  doctrines  to  take  root  in. 

And  revolutionary  doctrines  were  in  the  air.  Without  any  idea  of  stirring 
up  the  commonalty  against  the  gentry,  John  Wiclif  was  playing  a  part  not 
without  its  analogy  to  that  of  the  French  Encyclopaedists  before  the  French 
Revolution,  four  centuries  later.  As  a  theologian  he  propounded  the  view 
that  *'  Dominion  is  of  Grace  "  ;  whereof  the  practical  interpretation  is  that 
power  is  given  by  God  for  the  furtherance  of  His  glory,  and  those  who  use 
their  power  for  other  ends  have  no  right  to  it  ;  from  which  it  again  follows 
that  power  misused  may  lawfully  be  resisted  and  even  forcibly  taken  away. 
As  a  Christian  reformer  of  morals  Wiclif  preached  self-denial  and  taught 
of  human  brotherhood.  Such  doctrines  are  easily  translated  into  either 
Socialism  or  Anarchism. 

Nor  may  it  be  forgotten  that  the  villeins  as  a  class  had  a  real  though  not 
a  new  grievance  in  the  rankling  sense  that  they  were  not  free  men  ;  that 
they  were  treated  as  servile  and  inferior  to  free  men  ;  that  the  process  by 
which  they  had  been  gradually  passing  into  the  ranks  of  free  men  and 
escaping  degrading  conditions  of  tenure  had  met  with  an  ominous  check  ; 
that  even  those  who  were  now  technically  free  were  in  danger  of  falling  back 
into  a  servile  condition.  Then  to  crown  their  grievances  came  the  second 
poll-tax,  which  appeared  as  an  intolerable  and  unjust  burden  upon  the  poor 
while  it  was  comparatively  unfelt  by  the  rich. 

According  to  tradition  an  accidental  spark  fired  the  flame.      A  collector 


176  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

of  the  unpopular  tax  insulted  the  daughter  of  a  peasant,  Wat  Tyler,  who 
struck  him  down.  Other  peasants  gathered  to  support  their  comrade,  and 
on  a  sudden  all  Kent  was  up  in  arms,  the  counties  north-east  of  London 
following  suit.  From  Kent  on  the  south,  from  Norfolk,  Suffolk,  Essex, 
and  Hertfordshire  on  the  north,  the  gathering  bands  of  insurgents  marched 
on  the  capital. 

In  many  localities  actual  incidents  of  villeinage,  legal  rights  of  a  lord — 
the  "  lord  "  being  often  a  monastery — legal  wrongs  of  villeins,  were  the  motive 

of  the  outbreak  ;  there  was  much  clamour- 
ing against  the  name  of  serf,  and  the  most 
general  demand  was  that  for  the  right  to 
occupy  land  at  w^hat  the  peasants  regarded 
as  a  reasonable  rent.  The  prominence  of 
these  facts  has  obscured  another  ;  namely, 
that  the  rural  population  of  Kent  were 
not  villeins  at  all  but  free  men  not  hold- 
ing by  servile  tenure  ;  while  the  eastern 
counties  with  their  large  Danish  element 
were  notoriously  those  in  which  there  was 
the  largest  proportion  of  free  tenants. 
Although  the  insurrection  spread  sporadi- 
cally to  other  districts,  those  in  which 
?,^^  villeinage  was  most  universal  w^ere  the 
least  conspicuously  disturbed.  Contem- 
porary annalists  declare  that  the  Kentish 
leader  who  also  bore  the  nan-e  of  Wat 
Tyler  was  meditating  a  political  and  social  programme  of  an  exceedingly 
advanced  type,  aimed  not  at  the  destruction  of  the  monarchy  but  at  a 
very  democratic  control  of  the  government  ;  in  which  there  was  no  room 
for  baronage,  gentry,  law-yers,  and  prelates.  One  of  its  most  fervent 
prophets  was  the  fanatical  and  entirely  honest  priest,  John  Ball,  who 
to-day  would  undoubtedly  have  called  himself  a  Christian  Socialist.  It 
is  therefore  a  tenable  proposition  that  the  revolt  was  organised  and 
engineered  by  real  democratic  revolutionaries,  with  whom  the  mere  griev- 
ances of  villeins  as  such  were  a  secondary  consideration,  utilised  as  means 
to  a  more  important  end. 

The  Londoners  opened  their  gates  to  the  Kentish  insurgents  ;  more 
than  half  of  those  who  were  afterwards  listed  as  ringleaders  were  Londoners  ; 
facts  which  again  suggest  that  the  grievances  of  villeins  as  such  w^ere  not 
at  the  root  of  the  matter. 

Masses  of  the  Essex  insurgents  were  already  encamped  outside  the 
city  on  the  northern  side.  The  young  king  and  some  of  the  Council  were  at 
the  Tower  ;  but  both  they  and  the  city  authorities  appear  to  have  been 
paralysed,  and  although  nearly  a  fortnight  had  elapsed  since  the  first  out- 
break, no  defensive  measure  had  been   taken.      Both  the  great  bodies  of 


John  Ball  haranguii 
[From  Froissart.] 


I 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    II.  177 

insurgents  pillaged  the  houses  of  particularly  obnoxious  persons  and  killed 
a  few  obnoxious  individuals  ;  but  their  leaders  had  other  objects  than 
immediate  pillage,  and  on  the  whole  kept  their  men  in  hand.  When  Tyler 
and  his  following  entered  London,  they  wrecked  John  of  Gaunl's  palace 
of  the  Savoy  and  the  houses  of  others  who  were  especially  unpopular, 
besides  breaking  open  and  burning  the  Fleet  Prison  and  Newgate  ;  but  they 
refrained  from  looting. 

Richard  from  the  Tower  gave  out  that  he  would  meet  the  insurgent 
leaders  at  a  conference  at  Mile-end.  He  fulfilled  his  promise,  and  in  effect 
conceded  all  the  demands  which  the  insurgent  leaders  formulated.  Villein- 
age and  feudal  services  were  to  be  abolished,  and  there  was  to  be  a  general 
amnesty,  though  the  king  would  not  pledge  himself  to  punish  those  whom 
the  insurgents  stigmatised  as  traitors.  But  while  the  conference  was  going 
on  there  was  an  outbreak  of  violence  on  the  part  of  those  who  had  remained 
in  the  city,  in  the  course  of  which  Archbishop  Sudbury  and  Hales  the 
Treasurer  were  both  murdered.  It  is  noteworthy  that  much  of  the  popular 
resentment  was  directed  against  the  aliens,  represented  by  the  colony  of 
Flemings. 

On  the  same  day  the  king  issued  a  number  of  the  promised  pardons, 
and  many  of  the' insurgents  began  to  disperse.  Many  thousands,  however, 
still  remained  with  the  leaders,  who  were  by  no  means  satisfied  with  the 
concessions  already  made.  During  the  night  and  the  next  morning  there 
were  further  scenes  of  violence,  and  the  king  announced  that  he  would 
again  meet  the  leaders  at  Smithfield.  The  boy  of  fourteen  was  no  coward, 
and  probably  enjoyed  the  theatrical  character  if  not  the  actual  danger  of 
the  proceedings.  With  an  escort  of  two  hundred  men  in  civil  array  he 
rode  to  Smithfield,  where  the  masses  of  the  insurgents  were  drawn  up.  Tyler 
rode  out  to  meet  him — insolently  enough,  it  may  be  presumed.  He  had  a 
new  list  of  grievances  which  must  be  remedied.  The  accounts  vary  as  to 
the  details  of  what  then  occurred  ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  every 
one  of  them  was  written  from  a  point  of  view  vehemently  hostile  to  Tyler. 
It  is  agreed,  however,  that  Tyler,  for  whatever  cause,  laid  hand  on  his  dagger, 
and  the  movement  was  interpreted  as  a  threat  to  the  king's  person,  Wal- 
worth, the  Mayor  of  London,  who  was  riding  by  the  king,  drew  upon  Tyler 
and  cut  him  down.  The  cry  rang  down  the  ranks  of  the  peasants, ''  Treason  ! 
they  have  slain  our  captain  1 "  Bows  were  bent  ;  it  seemed  certain  that  the 
whole  of  the  king's  company  would  be  overwhelmed  and  sliughtered  by 
the  enraged  insurgents.  But  the  boy's  courage  and  presence  of  mind  saved 
the  situation.  Setting  spurs  to  his  horse,  before  any  one  could  stop  him 
he  dashed  forward  alone  across  the  open  space  towards  the  rebel  ranks. 
"  Will  you  shoot  your  king  ? "  he  called.  "  I  will  be  your  captain  and 
leader.  Follow  me."  His  horse  paced  slowly  towards  the  open  fields  to 
the  north.  Bows  were  unbent.  Astonished  and  fascinated,  the  great  array 
followed,  the  king's  retinue  hurrying  to  join  them.  But  the  mayor  slipped 
back  to  the  city  and  called  every  loyal  citizen  to  arms.     The  promptitude 

M 


178  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

with  which  the  appeal  was  answered  seems  to  prove  that  the  orderly  element 
had  only  been  waiting  for  a  leader  to  assert  itself.  So  quickly  was  a 
powerful  force  collected  that  when  it  arrived  on  the  scene  the  king  was 
still  holding  the  insurgents  in  parley. 

With  the  troop  now  at  his  back  the  king's  person  was  safe  ;  the  insur- 
gents recognised  that  the  fighting  odds  were  no  longer  in  their  favour. 
Richard  proclaimed  that  they  all  had  leave  to  depart  and  disperse  to  their 
homes  ;  and  they  took  him  at  his  word.     The  boy  king,  and  he  alone,  had 

won  a  purely  personal  triumph, 
from  which  men  were  warranted 
in  auguring  great  things  for  the 
Black  Prince's  son. 

But  the  promises  Richard 
had  made  he  probably  never 
intended  to  fulfil  ;  nor  was  it 
in  his  power  to  carry  them 
out  save  by  assent  of  the 
Estates.  The  insurgents  had 
scarcely  dispersed,  the  writing 
on  the  promised  pardons  and 
charters  was  scarcely  dry,  when 
the  king  repudiated  his  pro- 
mises in  most  unmistakable 
terms.  Apart,  however,  from 
people  killed  in  actual  riots, 
or  in  conflicts  between  armed 
bands  of  insurgents  and  loyal- 
ists, or  as  a  consequence  of 
such  conflicts,  it  does  not  seem 
that  many  more  than  a  hundred 
persons  were  actually  put  to 
death.  Parliament  met  in  the 
winter,  and  emphatically  en- 
dorsed Richard's  repudiation  of  his  promises.  Those  promises,  they  said, 
were  invalid  and  illegal  until  confirmed  by  parliament,  and  parliament 
absolutely  refused  to  confirm  them.  No  concessions  whatever  were  made 
in  favour  of  the  peasants. 

It  has  often  been  maintained  that,  although  the  revolt  was  crushed,  the 
peasant  rising  actually  brought  victory  to  the  peasants'  cause.  As  a  matter 
of  historical  fact  this  does  not  seem  to  have  been  the  case.  Down  to  the 
time  of  the  Black  Death  a  natural  movement  had  been  in  progress,  tending 
towards  the  gradual  disappearance  of  serfdom  through  the  substitution  of 
rent  and  wages  for  forced  services  ;  a  process  which  under  normal  condi- 
tions was  proving  advantageous  to  lords  and  to  villeins  alike.  The  natural 
process  was  checked  by  a  cataclysm  ;  the  Black  Death  made  the  conditions 


Richard  II. 
[From  the  contemporary  painting  belonging  to  the  Earl  of  Pembroke.] 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    II.  179 

abnormal  ;  and  of  those  abnormal  conditions  the  revolt  was  the  last  start- 
ling phase.  It  accomplished  nothing  whatever  ;  but  after  it  was  all  over  and 
there  was  no  recurrence  of  the  pestilence,  the  economic  conditions  reverted 
practically  to  what  they  had  been  before  the  Black  Death  ;  and  as  they 
again  became  normal,  the  old  causes  again  operated  and  the  old  natural 
process  of  liberation  naturally  revived.  Prices  fell  ;  the  wage  labourer  was 
consequently  content  with  a  lower  money  wage  ;  and  again  the  employer 
found  that  a  money  rent  and  voluntary  paid  labour  paid  him  better  than 
forced  labour  and  tenure  by  service.  Hence  in  the  course  of  the  next  half 
century  villeinage  did  practically  disappear,  forced  service  became  a  merely 
local  survival,  and  the  villein  became  a  tenant  paying  a  small  fixed  rent 
with  security  of  tenure.  The  security  of  tenure  had  always  been  his,  since 
the  lord  had  no  power  to  eject  the  villein  from  his  holding  so  long  as  he 
rendered  the  recognised  services  ;  and  the  recognised  services  were  now 
commuted  for  a  recognised  rent,  which  left  the  tenant  the  same  security. 

As  a  democratic  movement  the  revolt  led  to  nothing  ;  and  the  parlia- 
ments remained,  as  before,  representative  of  the  landed  and  commercial 
interests. 


VI 
THE   REIGN   OF   RICHARD   II 

In  the  Peasant  Revolt  the  young  Richard  had  displayed  the  qualities  of 
courage,  self-reliance,  and  readiness  in  emergency  in  a  very  high  degree.  But 
he  was  still  only  a  half-grown  boy,  the  direction  of  affairs  was  virtually  in 
the  hands  of  his  Council,  and  the  effective  head  of  the  government  was 
his  eldest  uncle,  the  Duke  of  Lancaster,  who,  fortunately  for  himself, 
was  absent  in  Scotland  at  the  time  of  the  revolt.  But  Lancaster's  adminis- 
tration through  these  first  years  of  the  new  reign  continued  to  be  inefficient  ; 
he  was  extremely  unpopular,  and  the  high-spirited  boy  resented  his  control. 
By  way,  perhaps,  of  counterbalancing  him,  his  brothers  were  now  made 
Dukes  of  York  and  Gloucester,  but  the  young  king  did  not  place  himself  in 
their  hands,  giving  his  confidence  instead  to  a  young  favourite,  the  Earl  of 
Oxford,  and  more  wisely,  to  an  experienced  official,  Michael  de  la  Pole,  who 
was  made  Earl  of  Suffolk — the  first  instance  of  a  mercantile  family  being 
raised  to  the  baronage. 

An  invasion  of  Scotland  of  the  usual  type,  in  1385,  on  which  Lancaster 
was  accompanied  by  the  young  king,  did  nothing  to  improve  the  duke's 
position  ;  and  immediately  after  it  he  retired  from  England,  in  the  hope  of 
enforcing  his  own  claim  to  the  crown  of  Castile  through  his  wife,  a  daughter 
of  Pedro  the  Cruel,  who  had  ultimately  been  ejected  by  Henry  of  Trasta- 
mare.  But  Lancaster's  departure  did  not  improve  matters  for  the  king, 
since  it  gave  Gloucester  an  opening  to  place   himself  at  the  head  of  the 


i8o  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

opposition  to  De  la  Pole,  whom  the  baronage  regarded  as  an  upstart. 
Moreover,  the  king  made  himself  unpopular  by  the  honours  and  the  wealth 
which  he  lavished  on  his  favourite,  the  Earl  of  Oxford,  whom  he  made 
Duke  of  Ireland,  whereas  Gloucester  made  it  his  business  to  court  that 
popularity  which  had  never  been  sought  by  his  brother  of  Lancaster.  An 
alarm  of  a  French  invasion  roused  popular  anger  against  tlie  administration 
which  had  rendered  such  a  thing  possible  ;  and  it  was  easy  enough  to  make 
the  king's  favourite  counsellors  the  objects  of  pubhc  indignation,  though 
Suffolk  was  perhaps  the  last  person  who  deserved  it.  The  baronage,  headed 
by  Gloucester  and  supported  by  the  Commons,  refused  supplies  unless  the 
obnoxious  "favourites"  were  removed  from  their  offices;  and  ominous 
references  were  made  to  the  deposition  of  Edward  II. 

The  king  ostensibly  surrendered,  and  according  to  precedent  a  Council 
was  nominated  to  control  the  administration.  But  Richard's  apparent 
surrender  was  merely  a  temporising  expedient.  In  the  following  year  he 
called  an  irregular  assembly  at  Nottingham,  attended  by  the  judges,  which 
pronounced  that  the  proceedings  of  the  late  parliament  were  unconstitutional 
and  invalid.  Gloucester  and  his  allies  at  once  took  up  arms  "to  deliver 
the  king  from  evil  counsellors,"  according  to  the  familiar  formula.  Five  of 
them  proceeded  to  "appeal"  five  of  the  said  evil  counsellors  of  treason,  and 
hence  became  known  as  the  Lords  Appellant.  The  king  and  his  friends 
could  make  no  corresponding  display  of  force.  The  Duke  of  Ireland  suc- 
ceeded in  making  his  escape  from  the  country  ;  so  in  course  of  time  did 
Suffolk.  The  king  himself  became  practically  a  prisoner,  and  the  Lords 
Appellant  were  complete  masters  of  the  situation. 

However,  they  continued  their  professions  of  loyalty  to  the  king  himself, 
and  summoned  what  is  sometimes  called  the  Wonderful  and  sometimes  the 
Merciless  Parliament.  The  five  "evil  counsellors"  who  had  been  appealed 
were  impeached  ;  so  were  the  judges  who  at  the  Council  of  Nottingham  had 
pronounced  the  proceedings  of  the  previous  parliament  invalid.  Other 
victims  were  added,  although  one  at  least  of  the  Lords  Appellant,  Henry 
Earl  of  Derby,  the  son  of  the  still  absent  Duke  of  Lancaster,  endeavoured  to 
check  the  vindictiveness  of  Gloucester. 

And  yet,  in  spite  of  the  completeness  of  his  defeat,  the  king  in  the  follow- 
ing year  again  effected  a  revolution.  In  1388,  the  year  of  the  Wonderful 
Parliament,  he  was  not  yet  of  full  age.  But  in  1389  he  reminded  the 
Council  that  he  was  now  twenty-one,  and  being  no  longer  a  minor  was  en- 
titled to  follow  his  own  counsel ;  he  would  dispense  with  their  further 
services.  Strangely  enough,  they  acquiesced  in  the  dismissal.  Probably  the 
Appellants  knew  that  the  use  they  had  made  of  their  power  had  lost  them 
the  popular  favour  which  had  at  first  made  them  irresistible.  At  the  same 
time  the  king  was  wise  enough  to  avoid  their  blunder,  and  to  abstain  from 
retaliatory  measures,  which  would  have  made  Gloucester  and  the  rest  turn 
to  bay.  But  he  recalled  his  uncle  of  Lancaster,  on  whose  loyalty  at  least 
he  knew  he  could  depend,  whatever  his  faults  might  be.      Lancaster  had  at 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    II.  i8i 

last  learnt  the  futility  of  his  enterprise  in  Castile,  and  his  presence  would 
effectively  muzzle  the  Duke  of  Gloucester. 

The  French  war  had  worn  itself  out,  and  the  desultory  raids  and  counter- 
raids  on  the  Scottish  border  were  brought  to  an  end.  Richard,  after  all, 
made  no  violent  changes  in  the  personnel  of  his  ministers  and  his  Council, 
and  for  some  years  the  government  was  continued  on  orderly  and  constitu- 
tional lines.  To  these  years  belong  the  amendments  to  the  Anti-clerical 
statutes  of  Provisors,  Mortmain,  and  Prasmunire  which  made  them  more 
stringent  ;  while  the  new  form  taken  by  the  last  statute  ultimately  made  it 
a  most  effective  instrument  in  the  final  contest  with  Rome.  These  measures 
were  significant  of  the  constant  growth  of  the  Anti-ecclesiastical  sentiment 
and  of  the  multiplication  of  the  disciples  of  Wiclif,  who  were  now  known  as 
Lollards.     On  the  theological  side  this  movement  was  beginning  to  develop 


Ladies  hawking. 


the  advocacy  of  novel  doctrines,  which  were  very  shortly  to  be  pronounced 
heretical  ;  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  most  of  what  passed  for  Lollardry  at 
this  time  had  but  little  to  do  with  theology,  and  was  directed  almost  entirely 
against  the  clerical  wealth  and  clerical  worldliness  which  scandalised  a  laity 
by  no  means  unprosperous  or  eager  on  its  own  part  to  renounce  the  world 
and  the  flesh. 

Unhappily,  Richard's  self-restraint  and  moderation  were  only  assumed, 
cloaking  a  self-willed  and  vindictive  spirit.  He  was  biding  his  time,  and  in 
1397  ^^  thought  that  his  time  had  come.  Gloucester's  conduct  laid  him 
open  to  suspicions  of  treasonable  intrigues.  Suddenly  the  king  struck. 
Gloucester  was  arrested  and  sent  off  to  Calais  under  the  charge  of  Thomas 
Mowbray,  Earl  of  Nottingham,  one  of  the  Lords  Appellant  who,  like  Henry 
of  Bolingbroke  or  Derby,  had  acted  as  a  restraining  influence  on  the  other 
three.  At  the  same  time  with  Gloucester,  the  other  two  Lords  Appellant, 
Warwick  and  Arundel,  were  arrested.  In  effect  no  new  charges  were  brought 
against  any  of  the  three ;  the  real  ground  of  the  attack  was  their  conduct 
at  the  time  of  the  Merciless  Parliament.     Arundel  was  tried  and  executed ; 


1 82  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

his  brother  the  Archbishop  was  impeached  and  sentenced  to  confiscation 
and  banishment.  Warwick  confessed  his  old  guilt  and  was  banished. 
But  Gloucester  did  not  appear  to  answer  the  charges  ;  Mowbray  announced 
that  he  had  fallen  ill  and  died  at  Calais.  Public  rumour  of  course  affirmed 
that  Mowbray  had  put  him  to  death  by  the  king's  orders ;  and  the  circum- 
stances were  at  least  suspicious  enough,  though  the  truth  of  the  report  was 
never  proved.  Perhaps  the  strongest  .argument  against  the  belief  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that,  if  it  was  impolitic  to  run  the  risk  of  openly  putting 
Gloucester  to  death  as  a  traitor  after  fair  trial,  it  was  still  more  impolitic  to 
risk  the  suspicion  of  a  secret  assassination. 

Nottingham  and  Derby,  whose  conduct  from  the  very  beginning  had 
distinguished  them  favourably  among  the  Lords  Appellant,  were  treated 
with  conspicuous  favour,  and  were  made  Dukes  of  Norfolk  and  Hereford 
respectively  ;  still,  both  of  them  must  have  suspected  that  danger  lurked 
behind  the  king's  show  of  friendliness.      A  parliament,  however,  was  sum- 


?f€fe 


>JS^^£^.y^: 


Ladies  shooting  rabbits. 


moned  in  1397  '^^  Shrewsbury,  and  Richard  found  that  it  represented  a 
marked  reaction  of  sentiment  in  his  favour.  The  country  may  well  have 
imagined  that  the  elaborate  machinery  for  the  curtailment  of  the  royal 
power  had  been  warranted  when  the  king  was  a  boy  but  was  superfluous 
now  that  he  was  a  man  experienced  in  affairs,  who  certainly  possessed 
kingly  qualities,  and,  since  his  coming  of  age,  appeared  to  have  learnt  self- 
mastery  and  moderation.  Even  his  recent  proceedings  could  hardly  be 
called  vindictive.  So  the  Shrewsbury  Parliament  showed  itself  ready  to  re- 
establish the  royal  power  free  from  the  trammels  which  had  been  imposed 
during  Richard's  reign.  The  proceedings  of  the  Wonderful  Parliament 
were  formally  condemned,  while  the  pronouncements  of  the  Nottingham 
Council  were  confirmed.  It  was  even  resolved  by  this  assembly  that  no 
restraint  set  upon  the  king  could  be  legal,  and  that  any  one  hereafter 
attempting  to  reverse  its  own  proceedings  would  be  guilty  of  treason, 
^"inally  it  took  the  fatal  step  of  surrendering  its  own  powers  to  a  committee 
of  eighteen,  which  would  thenceforth  be  able  to  act  in  the  place  of  parlia- 
ment ;  the  committee  being  virtually  Richard's  own  nominees. 

But  Richard  was  still  unsatisfied ;  the  field  was  not  yet  clear  so  long  as 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    II.  1^3 

Norfolk  and  Hereford  were  in  the  country.  The  two  dukes  played  into 
his  hands.  Norfolk  confided  to  Hereford  his  own  suspicion  of  Richard's 
sinister  intentions  ;  Hereford  communicated  this  confidence  to  the  king, 
who  invited  him  to  charge  Norfolk  publicly  with  what  he  had  said.  Norfolk 
gave  Hereford  the  lie,  and  the  question  was  referred  to  ordeal  by  battle. 
Thousands  of  spectators  assembled  to  witness  the  fight  ;  the  lists  were 
prepared  and  the  combatants  ready  ;  when  Richard  suddenly  stopped  the 
proceedings  and  pronounced  his  own  award  that  both  should  be  banished, 
Norfolk  for  life  and  Hereford  for  ten  years,  though  without  prejudice  to  his 
own  estates  or  to  his  rights  of  succession  when  his  father,  John  of  Gaunt, 
should  die.  And  now  it  seemed  that  nothing  stood  between  Richard  and 
such  an  absolutism  as  no  King  of  England  had  ever  enjoyed. 

But  his  finishing  stroke  had  been  an  act  so  arbitrary,  so  utterly  impos- 
sible to  reconcile  with  equity,  so  manifestly  and  essentially  tyrannical,  that 
any  pretence  of  constitutionalism  on  Richard's  part  was  rendered  absurd. 
For  the  brief  remainder  of  his  reign  Richard  acted  as  an  unqualified  despot. 
To  procure  money  he  raised  forced  loans  and  imposed  heavy  fines  upon 
individuals  and  upon  districts  which  had  been  in  any  way  implicated 
in  any  of  the  so-called  treasons  of  the  Lords  Appellant.  With  the  funds 
thus  procured  he  raised  and  maintained  a  great  bodyguard  of  archers,  who 
in  effect  formed  a  not  inconsiderable  standing  army  at  his  own  immediate 
disposal.  The  old  Duke  of  Lancaster  died  and  the  king  seized  the  inherit- 
ance. And  then  he  betook  himself  out  of  England  to  quell  an  insurrection 
in  Ireland. 

The  last  step  was  fatal.  Henry  of  Hereford,  robbed  of  his  duchy  of 
Lancaster,  returned  to  England,  landing  at  Ravenspur  in  Yorkshire  and 
bringing  with  him  the  exiled  Archbishop  Arundel.  He  at  once  proclaimed 
that  he  had  come  to  demand  only  his  lawful  inheritance  of  Lancaster.  He 
was  promptly  joined  by  the  Earls  of  Northumberland  and  Westmorland. 
The  Duke  of  York,  acting  for  the  absent  Richard,  gathered  a  large  force. 
But  public  sympathy  was  entirely  on  the  side  of  the  duke,  unjustly  banished 
and  unjustly  robbed  ;  York's  musters  refused  to  march  against  Lancaster. 
York  hurried  to  the  west,  while  Henry  marched  in  the  same  direction, 
gathering  fresh  adherents,  still  proclaiming  that  for  himself  he  sought  only 
his  inheritance,  though  to  this  demand  was  now  added  that  of  the  removal 
of  Richard's  evil  counsellors.  York  parleyed  ;  York  was  convinced  ; 
York  went  over  to  Lancaster.  The  few  leading  adherents  of  the  king  in 
the  west  were  captured  and  executed. 

From  Ireland  the  Earl  of  Salisbury  hurried  back  to  raise  forces  for 
the  king  in  Wales  ;  but  when  Richard  himself  arrived  a  fortnight  later, 
it  was  only  to  find  that  Salisbury's  levies  had  dispersed  again.  Then  came 
the  Earl  of  Northumberland  on  Henry's  behalf  with  a  proffer  of  terms — 
the  trial  of  Henry's  prominent  supporters  before  parliament,  and  the 
appointment  of  Henry  himself  as  Grand  Justiciar.  The  proposals  were 
obvjously  impossible  ;   but  Northumberland  effected  his  real  object,  which 


1 84  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

was  to  draw  Richard  into  an  ambush  of  his  own  followers.  The  unlucky 
king  was  carried  off  to  Flint  Castle,  thence  to  Chester,  and  thence  to  the 
Tower.  A  parliament  was  summoned,  and  the  king  was  forced  to  sign 
an  Act  of  Abdication. 

An  Act  of  parliament  was  passed  setting  forth  the  reasons  for  the 
deposition.  Henry  then  advanced  and  claimed  the  throne  for  himself  on 
the  somewhat  amazing  plea  of  his  descent,  not  from  Edward  III.  through 
his  father,  but  through  his  mother  from  Edmund  Crouchback  of  Lancaster, 


ii»sssi^siai 


Ricliaid  II.,  having  landed  at  Milford  Haven,  goes  to  his  friends  at  Conway  Castle. 
[From  a  14th  century  MS.  life  of  Richard.] 


the  brother  of  Edward  I.;  the  pretence  being  that  Edmund  was  the  elder 
broth.er,  but  had  been  set  aside  on  account  of  deformity.  Obviously  the 
legitimate  heir  of  Edward  III.,  if  Richard  were  set  aside,  was  the  child 
Edmund  Mortimer,  the  great-grandson  and  representative  of  Edward's  second 
son,  Lionel  of  Clarence  ;  for  it  could  hardly  be  pretended  that  English  law 
or  custom  rejected  descent  through  the  female  line.  Hence  this  curious 
attempt  to  create  a  technical  claim  going  back  to  Henry  III.  Parliament 
proceeded  to  pronounce  Henry  to  be  the  rightful  King  of  England  ;  but 
it  was  the  patent  fact  that  technicalities  had  been  set  aside,  and  that  Henry 
was  king  because  parliament  for  whatever  reasons  chose  that  he  should 
be  king — not    because   he  stood   next  to  the  Crown  in   blood.      Edmund 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    11.  185 

Mortimer  was  quietly  ignored,  although  his  father  Roger,  recently  slain 
in  Ireland,  had  been  recognised  before  his  death  as  heir-presumptive  by 
Richard  himself. 


VII 


SCOTLAND 


THE   BRUGES   AND    STEWARTS 

Robert  I. ,  Bruce, 

1306. 

I 


Marjory,  ;;/. 
Walter  Fitzalan, 
the  High  Steward. 

1 

Robert  II..  Stewart, 

1370. 

I 


David  II. 
1329. 


Robert  of  Albany 
(Regent),  1406. 


David,  Duke  of 
Rothesay. 


I 

James  1. 

1423- 

1 


Murdach  of 

Albany 

(Regent),  1419. 


John,  Earl  of  Buchan 
(Victor  of  Bauge). 


The  period  of  David  Bruce's  minority  in  Scotland  was  mainly  occupied 
with  Edward  Balliol's  attempt  to  supplant  the  Bruce  dynasty  by  the  help 
of  the  King  of  England,  and  on  terms  of  subjection  to  the  sovereignty 
of  England.  The  great  King  Robert  had  effected  the  task  of  liberation, 
and  the  people  of  Scot- 
land were  resolved  that, 
whatever  it  cost  them, 
they  would  not  submit 
to  a  foreign  yoke.  After 
Randolph's  death  no 
statesman  and  no  soldier 
appeared  capable  of  or- 
ganising the  govern- 
ment or  of  repeating  Robert  in.  (John) 
the  military  triumphs  of  | 

Bruce  and  his  captains. 
When  Scottish  and 
English  armies  met  in 
the  field,  the  Scots 
leaders  invariably  failed  to  apply  the  lessons  of  Bannockburn  ;  and  the 
Scots  people  would  not  learn  the  use  of  the  bow.  The  victory  was 
always  won  by  the  English  archers.  But  if  they  were  beaten  in  the 
field,  the  Scots  still  carried  on  the  stubborn  guerilla  warfare  at  which  they 
had  become  adepts  ;  and  the  moment  that  active  English  aid  was  with- 
drawn from  Balliol  he  was  again  driven  out  of  the  country. 

Five  years  after  his  return  to  Scotland,  David  Bruce  as  the  ally  of 
France  invaded  the  north  of  England,  whereupon  his  army  was  routed  and 
he  himself  was  taken  prisoner,  at  the  battle  of  Neville's  Cross.  For  eleven 
years  he  remained  a  captive  in  England.  During  that  time  the  government 
of  Scotland  was  in  the  hands  of  his  nephew,  Robert  Fitzalan  the  Steward, 
the  son  of  his  elder  sister  Marjory  Bruce,  and  heir  to  the  throne  if  David 
should  predecease  him  without  leaving  offspring.  Robert  was  not  a  strong 
ruler,  and  was  powerless  to  check  the  dangers  of  that  development  of 
feudansm  in  Scotland  which  defied  all  efforts  to  establish  a  strong  central 
government.  The  nobles  were  individually  too  powerful  and  too  jealous 
of  each  other  to  devote  themselves  to  national  interests  ;  there  were  always 
some  among  them  ready  to  enter  into  a  "  band  "  against  any  government 


i86 


NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 


in  which  they  were  not  themselves  predominant  ;  ready  even  to  intrigue 
with  England  for  their  own  ends.  There  were  always  others  who  were 
ready  to  reconcile  private  enmities  in  the  face  of  an  English  attack — but  for 
no  other  reason.  But  below  the  ranks  of  the  nobility,  the  Scottish  people, 
the  most  independent  in  the  world,  were  absolutely  resolved  to  fight  to 
the  last  gasp  against  English  dominion.  And  it  was  to  this  fact  that 
Scotland  owed  the  preservation  of  her  independence. 

While  the  truce  lasted  between  England  and  France  there  was  truce 
also  between  England  and  Scotland.  In  1354 
terms  were  also  arrived  at  for  the  liberation  of 
King  David.  But  in  the  next  year  the  French 
war  broke  out  again,  the  Scots  attacked 
Berwick,  and  in  1356  the  King  of  England 
took  his  revenge  in  the  Burnt  Candlemas. 
This  was  at  last  followed  by  a  treaty  which 
set  David  free  but  bound  Scotland  to  pay  a 
ransom  of  a  hundred  thousand  marks.  Tre- 
mendous as  was  the  taxation  involved  for  a 
country  so  poor  as  Scotland,  David  never- 
theless made  matters  worse  by  indulging  him- 
self in  the  most  extravagant  expenditure.  The 
king  even  went  so  far  as  to  propose  the 
purchase  of  the  remission  of  the  ransom  by 
recognising  as  his  heir  Lionel  of  Clarence,  the 
second  son  of  the  King  of  England,  in  place 
of  Robert  the  Steward  or  Stewart  ;  but  the 
proposal  was  received  by  the  Estates  with  a 
flat  refusal  which  demonstrated  once  for  all 
the  intensity  of  the  national  feeling  on  the 
subject. 

The   pressure  of  taxation,  and  the   king's 

ave  to  the  Scottish  Estates  new  powers  of  control,  as 

The   Scots  parliament,  however,   was   not 


Edward  III.  and  David  of  Scotland 
[From  the  Articles  of  the  Peace  of  1357.] 


need  of  money, 

with   the   English  parliament. 

organised   like   that   of    England,  and    tended    to    delegate  its   powers   to 

committees  which  for   practical  purposes  replaced  the  assemblies   of  the 

Estates  ;  and  thus  the  political  functions  of  parliament  came  gradually  to 

be  exercised  by  a  standing  committee  known  as  the  Lords  of  the  Articles. 

In  1 371  David  died  without  legitimate  offspring,  and  was  succeeded  by 
Robert  II.,  the  first-  of  the  Stewart  line.  Robert's  father  was  Walter 
Fitzalan,  the  husband  of  the  great  King  Robert's  daughter  Marjory,  and 
hereditary  High  Steward  of  the  kingdom  ;  of  Norman  lineage,  connected 
with  the  English  house  of  Arundel.  For  twelve  years  there  was  nominally 
truce  with  England  ;  but  both  at  sea  and  on  the  borders  almost  perpetual 
warfare  prevailed  in  practice,  which  was  officially  condemned  but  was 
allowed  to   take   its   course  by   both    governments.      It    was   with   a  view 


EDWARD    III.    AND    RICHARD    II.  187 

to  terminating  this  unsatisfactory  state  of  things  that  John  of  Gaunt  had 
gone  to  Scotland  when  the  Peasant  Revolt  broke  out  in  England.  Robert 
himself  was  anxious  to  preserve  peace,  but  was  unable  to  restrain  the 
nobles.  Raids  and  counter  raids  in  1384  and  1385  were  followed  by 
Richard's  invasion  in  company  with  Lancaster  ;  when  the  Scots  lords  left 
the  English  to  follow  their  own  devices,  but  themselves  carried  out  a  very 
effective  counter  raid  in  Cumberland  and  Westmorland.  In  the  following 
year  the  Scots  were  the  aggressors,  and  the  campaign  culminated  in  the 
famous  moonlight  fight  of  Otterburn,  celebrated  without  much  regard  to 
strict  historical  accuracy  in  the  ballads  of  Otterburn  and  Chevy  Chace.  The 
victory  lay  with  the  Scots,  who  carried  off  among  their  prisoners  Harry 
Hotspur,  the  son  of  the  Earl  of  Northumberland,  though  their  own  leader, 
James  Douglas,  was  slain  on  the  field.  Soon  after  this  there  was  a  new 
treaty  of  peace,  which  was  not  preserved  immaculately  but  terminated  open 
hostilities  on  a  large  scale. 

In  1390  the  old  king  died,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  eldest  son  John, 
who  took  the  name  of  Robert  III.  to  avert  the  ill-luck  associated  with  the 
names  of  the  three  kings  who  bore  the  name  of  John  in  England,  France, 
and  Scotland.  To  his  melancholy  reign  belong  the  events  celebrated  in 
Sir  Walter  Scott's  Fair  Maid  of  Per  thy  the  battle  on  the  North  Inch  between 
the  clans  Chattan  and  Kay,  and  the  death  of  the  king's  eldest  son,  David 
Duke  of  Rothesay,  who  was  popularly  believed  to  have  been  starved  to 
death  by  his  uncle,  the  king's  brother,  Robert  Duke  of  Albany.  This  event 
took  place  in  1402,  shortly  after  the  accession  of  Henry  IV.  in  England, 
and  made  the  king's  second  son,  the  child  James,  heir  to  the  throne  of 
Scotland. 


CHAPTER    VII 

LANCASTER   AND  YORK 

I 

HENRY  IV 

Henry  Duke  of  Lancaster  was  in  plain  terms  a  usurper  who  seized  the 
Crown  by  violence  and  secured  it,  so  far  as  it  was  secured,  by  a  parlia- 
mentary title.  The  lawful  king  was  deposed  and  the  nearest  lawful  heir 
was  passed  over.  No  one  believed  the  fiction  concerning  Edmund 
Crouchback ;  a  name  which  in  fact  merely  meant  that  that  prince  had 
worn  the  Cross  of  the  Crusaders  on  his  back,  not  that  he  was  deformed. 
Nobody  denied  tiiat  in  England  the  succession  to  the  Crown  had  followed 
the  female  line.  The  first  Plantagenet  had  succeeded  because  his  mother 
was  a  daughter  of  the  King  of  England.  The  last  Plantagenet  but  one  had 
claimed  the  French  Crov/n  because  his  mother  was  the  daughter  of  a  King 
of  France.  If,  therefore,  Henry's  title  was  valid  at  all,  it  was  on  the  ancient 
principle  that  the  Great  Council  of  the  realm  was  entitled  to  fix  the 
succession,  though  precisely  two  hundred  years  had  passed  since  it  had 
exercised  that  power  by  preferring  John  to  his  elder  brother's  son.  The 
power  of  deposition  was  also  implied  in  the  circumstances.  Since,  then, 
Henry  occupied  the  throne  by  favour  of  parliament,  it  was  imperative  that 
he  should  retain  the  favour  of  parliament.  The  Lancastrian  kings  did  not 
wish  to  strengthen  parliament  as  against  the  royal  powers  ;  but  they  could 
not  escape  from  the  necessity  of  keeping  parliament  on  their  own  side. 

"  Uneasy  lies  the  head  that  wears  a  crown  " — the  more  so  when  the  Crown 
has  been  usurped.  Henry  owed  his  victory  very  largely  to  the  Earls  of 
Northumberland  and  Westmorland,  a  Percy  and  a  Neville,  with  the  Arundels 
and  the  Staffords  ;  the  last  family  representing  the  house  of  Thomas  of 
Gloucester.  For  the  moment  all  these  were  loyal  to  the  king  they  had  set 
up.  But  within  a  few  weeks  Richard's  closest  supporters  were  conspiring 
for  his  restoration — the  Hollands,  stepsons  of  the  Black  Prince,  who  held 
the  earldoms  of  Kent  and  of  Huntingdon,  Salisbury  and  others.  The  plot 
was  betrayed  by  their  half-hearted  confederate,  Edward  Earl  of  Rutland,  son 
of  the  Duke  of  York.  The  conspirators  were  captured  and  beheaded.  But 
in  the  meantime  Richard  himself  was  dead  ;  there  is  no  real  doubt  that  he 
had  in  fact  been  murdered  ;  and  his  body  was  now  exposed  to  public  view 
in  order  to  demonstrate  his  decease.     The  fact  did  not  prevent  a  fictitious 


LANCASTER   AND    YORK  189 

Richard  from  appearing  later  as  a  pretender  ;  since  a  report  was  put  about 
that  the  corpse  exposed  had  been  that  of  a  chaplain  of  the  former  king,  to 
whom  he  had  borne  an  extraordinary  personal  resemblance. 

Next  came  a  rising  of  the  Welsh,  with  whom  Richard  had  been  popular. 
They  were  led  by  Owen  Glen  dower,  a  gentleman  of  the  house  of  Llewelyn, 
who  proclaimed  himself  Prince  of  North  Wales  and  the  loyal  vassal  of  King 
Richard,  whose  death  he  denied.  His  sway  was  recognised  over  the  greater 
part  of  the  principality,  and  Henry  never  succeeded  in  putting  him  down 
thoroughly.  France  and  Scotland  were  astir  again,  the  French  court  having 
for  excuse  the  fact  that  Richard,  shortly  before  his  fall,  had  married  a  French 
princess.  The  Scots  gathered  a  great  force,  led  by  Murdach  of  Albany,  King 
Robert's  nephew.  At  Homildon  Hill  they  were  utterly  routed  in  much  the 
same  fashion  as  at  Halidon  Hill  some  seventy  years  before;  Murdach  of 
Albany,  Douglas,  and  two  other  earls  were  taken  prisoner  by  the  Percies. 
Henry  was  badly  in  want  of  money,  and  desperately  anxious  to  avoid  irritat- 
ing parliament  by  asking  for  it.  The  Percies  were  presuming  on  the  help 
they  had  given  him,  and  their  achievement  at  Homildon  Hill  was  by  no 
means  to  the  king's  liking.  He  required  them  to  hand  over  their  Scottish 
prisoners,  and  claimed  the  ransoms  for  himself. 

The  Percies  took  the  act  as  a  warning  or  a  challenge,  released  Douglas 
unransomed,  and  entered  upon  a  bond  with  him  and  Glendower  to  over- 
turn Henry,  and  make  young  Edmund  Mortimer  king,  if  Richard  w^as  really 
dead.  Hotspur's  wife  was  herself  a  Mortimer.  Thomas  Percy,  Earl  of 
Worcester,  joined  with  his  kinsmen  of  Northumberland.  Hotspur  and 
Douglas  marched  to  join  forces  with  Glendower  ;  but  Henry  caught  the 
northern  force  at  Shrewsbury  before  the  junction  could  be  effected  ;  and  an 
extremely  sanguinary  battle  ended  with  a  decisive  victory  for  the  king. 
Hotspur  was  slain  on  the  field,  Douglas  was  for  the  second  time  made 
captive,  and  Worcester  also  was  taken  and  executed.  Young  Prince  Henry 
of  Wales,  a  boy  of  fifteen,  here  saw  his  first  stricken  field.  Shakespeare 
treated  the  episode  as  a  dramatist,  not  as  a  historian.  Hotspur  did  not  fall 
in  single  combat  with  Prince  Hal  ;  a  stray  arrow  killed  him. 

The  Earl  of  Northumberland  had  not  marched  v.^ith  Hotspur  ;  he 
succeeded  in  making  his  peace  with  the  king  by  payment  of  a  heavy  fine. 
But  he  was  still  meditating  revenge,  and  in  1405,  two  years  after  Shrews- 
bury, he  worked  up  afresh  rebellion  with  the  aid  of  the  Earl  of  Nottingham, 
the  son  of  Henry's  old  colleague  and  opponent  Thomas  Mowbray  of  Norfolk, 
and  the  Archbishop  of  York,  whose  cousin,  the  Earl  of  Wiltshire,  Henry  had 
executed  as  one  of  Richard's  "  evil  counsellors."  By  fair  words  and  promises, 
however,  the  rebels  were  persuaded  to  disband  their  forces  ;  whereupon 
they  were  arrested  and  executed.  Northumberland  himself  effected  his 
escape,  but  only  to  fall  two  years  later  at  Bramham  Moor  in  a  third 
attempt  at  insurrection. 

The  danger  which  had  threatened  from  France  soon  came  to  an  end, 
since  that  country  fell  into  a  miserable  state  of  anarchy  and  internrl  discord 


I90  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

under  the  nominal  rule  of  a  king  who  was  generally  quite  insane  and  at  his 
best  was  an  imbecile.  The  Orleanist  and  Burgundian  branches  of  the  royal 
family  intrigued  and  fought  for  supremacy  with  every  circumstance  of 
treachery  and  violence.  Scotland  was  paralysed  for  action  by  an  accident. 
The  old  king  sent  off  the  Crown  Prince  James  to  be  educated  in  France, 
fearing,  perhaps,  that  he  would  meet  with  the  same  fate  as  Rothesay  at  the 
hands  of  his  ambitious  uncle  of  Albany.  The  boy  did  not  reach  France, 
as  the  ship  in  which  he  sailed  was  captured  by  the  English  ;  and  young 
James  was  detained,  and  held  for  eighteen  years  as  a  hostage  for  Scotland's 
good  behaviour.  The  unexpected  blow  killed  old  King  Robert  ;  Albany  as 
a  matter  of  course  became  regent,  and  Albany  did  not  in  the  least  wish  to 
see  his  nephew  at  liberty.  After  the  crushing  of  two  rebellions  there  was 
no  great  danger  that  a  third  would  be  successful  ;  and  after  Bramham  Moor 
the  persistent  defiance  of  Glendower  in  Wales  remained  the  only  constant 
source  whence  danger  might  suddenly  spring.  There  were  no  more  active 
insurrections.  Edmund  Mortimer  was  in  the  king's  hands,  so  that  a  revolt  in 
the  boy's  favour  was  out  of  the  question. 

Throughout  the  first  year  of  his  reign  it  was  of  vital  importance  to 
Henry  to  secure  both  clerical  and  popular  support.  We  have  remarked 
on  the  increase  of  anti-clericalism  and  the  spread  of  Lollardry  during 
Richard's  reign  ;  and  it  might  at  first  sight  appear  that  clerical  and  popular 
favour  could  hardly  be  associated.  But  the  popular  Lollardry  did  not 
concern  itself  with  theology.  The  followers  of  Wiclif  might  be  attacked 
for  their  heresies  without  offending  popular  feeling,  and  with  the  entire 
approval  of  the  clergy.  Hence  the  second  year  of  Henry's  reign  saw 
the  passing  of  the  Act  De  Herctico  Comhiirendo,  by  which  for  the  first  time 
death  at  the  stake  was  introduced  as  the  punishment  for  heresy.  Even 
while  the  Act  was  being  passed  its  first  victim,  William  Sawtre,  was  martyred. 
Archbishop  Arundel,  the  prime  mover,  was  constant  in  urging  that  in  fact 
Lollardry  was  an  offence  not  merely  against  the  Church  but  against  society, 
that  it  was  not  merely  heresy  but  anarchism.  It  was  only  twenty  years 
since  the  Peasant  Revolt,  and  the  propertied  classes  felt  the  force  of  the 
appeal.  The  persecution  of  heresy  did  not  as  yet  become  systematic  ;  it 
aroused  no  antagonism  ;  it  satisfied  the  clergy  that  Henry  was  a  loyal 
son  of  the  Church;  but  it  did  not  mean  that  the  clergy  had  become 
popular.  The  orthodox  Commons,  who  were  quite  ready  to  burn  their 
neighbours  for  unorthodox  views  on  abstract  questions,  did  not  in  conse- 
quence relax  the  austerity  of  their  opinions  as  to  clerical  worldliness,  or 
their  conviction  that  the  Church  was  disproportionately  endowed  with  this 
world's  goods.  Twice  during  the  reign  proposals  were  brought  forward 
by  the  Commons  for  wholesale  confiscations  of  ecclesiastical  property, 
though  their  petitions  were  rejected. 

The  Commons,  in  fact,  took  very  good  care  to  make  the  king  feel  his 
dependence  upon  them.  They  grumbled  over  every  appeal  for  financial 
aid,  while  the  interminable  operations  against  Glendower  in  Wales  were  a 


LANCASTER   AND   YORK  191 

perpetual  drain  upon  the  Treasury.  Henry  was  obliged  at  their  instance  to 
submit  to  the  appointment  of  a  Council,  which  at  least  seriously  curtailed 
his  freedom  of  action.  They  insisted  successfully  on  their  right  to  examine 
the  account  of  the  expenditure  of  their  grants.  They  insisted,  too,  on  their 
exclusive  right  to  originate  money  grants,  when  the  king  had  ventured 
to  name  the  amount  of  the  tax  which  he  thought  advisable.  The  Commons, 
in  fact,  during  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.  claimed  and  exercised  an  unprece- 
dented amount  of  control,  which  the  weakness  of 
the  king's  title  compelled  him  to  concede. 

In  the  latter  years  of  the  reign,  the  Prince  of 
Wales  took  an  exceedingly  active  part  in  politics  ; 
and  it  was  certainly  due  to  his  personal  energy  that 
the  irrepressible  Glendower  was  held  in  check, 
and  reduced  from  the  position  of  an  almost  in- 
dependent prince  to  that  of  a  troublesome  outlaw. 
The  legends  of  the  doings  of  the  wild  Prince 
Hal  immortalised  by  Shakespeare  are  not  to  be 
simply  set  on  one  side.  Contemporary  chroniclers 
are  quite  definite  in  declaring  that  his  character 
changed  when  he  came  to  the  throne,  that  his 
accession  was  viewed  with  some  anxiety,  and  that 
lie  was  given  to  a  wildness  which  contrasted  with 
the  personal  austerity  of  his  later  life.  The  legend  of  his  behaviour  to  Judge 
Gascoigne  is  almost  certainly  a  fiction,  based  upon  an  actual  incident  in  the 
life  of  Edward  II.  But  such  legends,  however  inaccurate  in  detail,  can  only 
be  accounted  for  because  they  were  appropriate  to  the  character  popularly 
attributed  to  the  Prince  ;  and  such  popular  estimates  are  apt  to  be  funda- 
mentally sound.  Still  it  is  absolutely  clear  that  the  Prince  indulged  himself 
only  in  the  intervals  of  strenuous  and  responsible  work ;  that  he  was  not  a 
wildly  irresponsible  boy  who  merely  showed  himself  capable  of  better 
things  on  an  occasional  emergency.  Henry  V.  had  many  of  the  qualities 
of  a  Puritan  fanatic,  which  are  by  no  means  inconsistent  with  a  degree  of 
youthful  dissipation  ;  and  to  Henry,  as  to  many  a  Puritan,  came  a  moment 
which  marked  a  decisive  change  in  the  manner  of  his  life  ;  the  moment 
when  his  father  died  worn  out  by  disease,  and  he  himself  became  King  of 
England  at  the  age  of  five  and  twenty. 


An  abbot  trnvelling. 


II 

HENRY  V 


Richard  II.,  Henry  V.,  and  Richard  III.  will  remain  for  all  time  in 
popular  imagination  the  kings  conceived  by  Shakespeare.  We  may  explain, 
we  may  criticise,  we  may  demonstrate  anything  we  like  as  logically  as  we 


192  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

please,  but  Shakespeare  will  remain  convincing.  Shakespeare  elected  to 
draw  Henry  V.  on  traditional  lines,  and  there  is  no  character,  certainly  no 
male  character,  in  all  the  plays  in  whom  the  great  dramatist  took  a  more 
unqualified  delight.  He  is  Shakespeare's  "  Happy  Warrior,"  though  we 
may  find  some  difficulty  in  exactly  appropriating  Wordsworth's  lines  to  him. 
Shakespeare's  play  is  a  panegyric  of  the  hero  king. 

Nevertheless  the  historian  is  apt  to  resent  such  panegyrics,  to  suggest 
that  the  ambition  of  Henry  V.,  like  the  wrath  of  Achilles,  was  the  cause  of 
woes  unnumbered,  and  quite  needlessly  despatched  to  Hades  many  valiant 
souls  of  heroes.  Some  historians  go  further  and  denounce  in  Henry  a  type 
of  false  ideals,  honoured  only  by  reason  of  the  deceptive  glamour  which 
attends  the  achievement  of  brilliant  feats  of  arms  ;  finding  in  him  nothing 
better  than  a  re-incarnation  of  Edward  HI.  But  in  fact  it  is  possible  to 
admit  that  Shakespeare  idealised  his  hero,  and  at  the  same  time  to  realise 
that  essentially  much  of  the  criticism  is  beside  the  mark. 

Of  Henry's  reign  there  are  two  prominent  features,  the  persecution  of 
Lollardry,  and  the  French  war.  Concerning  the  former  Shakespeare  has 
nothing  to  say  ;  but  if  we  have  read  Henry  correctly,  both  were  the  out- 
come of  the  same  conviction,  crystallised  in  Henry's  mind  when  he  became 
actually  King  of  England,  that  he  was  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the 
Almighty.  Reigning  in  virtue  of  his  father's  usurpation  of  the  throne, 
conscious  that  the  throne  had  been  won  in  defiance  of  legality,  mere  legality 
counted  for  very  little  in  his  eyes.  The  Almighty  had  set  him  on  the 
throne  of  England  because  He  had  chosen  him  to  accomplish  His  work. 
The  work  to  be  accomplished  was  for  a  mind  of  Henry's  type  promptly 
identified  with  the  work  which  ambition  suggested.  France  had  fallen  upon 
evil  days  and  the  iniquities  of  her  rulers  cried  to  Heaven.  Henry  was  the 
instrument  whereby  those  iniquities  were  to  be  punished  ;  France  was 
to  be  brought  under  a  righteous  rule,  and  then  probably  France  and 
England,  led  by  one  Christian  king,  were  to  turn  their  arms  against  the 
Turk,  drive  him  from  Europe,  and  recover  the  Holy  Land  for  Christendom. 
As  for  legality,  any  colour  of  it  would  suffice  for  his  purposes  ;  though  for 
form's  sake  some  pretence  of  legal  right  had  to  be  asserted.  Here  was  the 
work  of  God's  appointed  champion,  and  the  methods  by  which  it  must  be 
carried  out  were  those  of  statecraft  and  soldiership.  Given  the  point  of 
view  there  is  little  difficulty  in  understanding  that  from  first  to  last  Henry 
was  perfectly  satisfied  as  to  the  righteousness  both  of  his  ends  and  of 
his  methods.  His  persecution  of  Lollardry  was  an  incidental  necessity. 
It  was  the  stern  duty  of  God's  champion  to  stamp  out  heresy  ;  the  persecu- 
tion was  not  as  with  his  father  a  mere  political  expedient  for  conciliating 
the  Church,  In  carrying  out  his  task  the  hand  of  Justice  should  be  ruth- 
less— but  it  should  be  the  hand  of  Justice. 

Critics  have  seen  in  Henry's  French  war  mere  wanton  aggression  in- 
spired by  the  weakness  of  the  neighbouring  country;  and  a  total  lack  of 
statesmanship,  since  the  union  of  France  and  England  as  a  single  dominion, 


LANCASTER    AND   YORK  19^, 

was  wholly  impracticable.  It  was  in  fact  impracticable  because  it  ran 
counter  to  the  idea  of  nationalism,  an  insuperable  natural  dividing  force  ; 
or  a  force  which  at  the  present  day  seems  to  be  insuperable,  because 
we  live  at  a  time  when  nationalism  dominates  European  politics.  But 
nationalism  had  not  dominated  European  politics  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  England,  Scotland,  and  France  had  indeed  developed 
the  spirit  of  nationality,  but  the  idea  that  nationalities,  however  diverse, 
could  not  be  effectively  combined  in  a  single  dominion,  would  have 
appealed  to  no  medieval  statesman  ;  and  it  is  somewhat  absurd  to  deny 
statesmanship  to  a  medieval  monarch  because  he  had  not  grasped  the 
truth  which  half  the  chancellories  of  Europe  were  still  unable  to  recognise 
four  hundred  years  afterwards.  Only  a  hundred  years  before,  Edward  I. 
had  made  with  regard  to  Scotland  the  same  mistake  which  Henry  made 
with  regard  to  France  ;  and  English  historians  at  least  are  not  in  the  habit 
of  denying  the  name  of  statesman  to  Edward  I. 

Henry's  attack  on  Lollardry  is  apt  to  escape  attention  chiefly  because  it 
was  systematic,  brief,  and  effective.  His  father  had  merely  allowed  the 
churchmen  to  strike  down  a  few  insignificant  persons.  Lollardry  in  high 
places  was  winked  at.  The  new  king  struck  at  once  at  Lord  Cobham,  the 
one  peer  who  had  identified  himself  with  the  new  doctrines.  Cobham  was 
tried,  condemned,  and  thrown  into  prison.  He  broke  prison  and  escaped 
into  hiding.  His  escape  was  immediately  followed  by  a  wild  plot  on  the 
part  of  the  Lollards,  who  planned  an  insurrection.  The  young  king  got 
wind  of  the  plot  and  effected  a  night  surprise  of  the  mustering  rebels,  of 
whom  thirty-seven  were  promptly  hanged.  It  was  immediately  realised 
that  the  law  against  heresy  would  be  enforced  with  vigour,  and  the  voices 
of  the  Lollards  were  practically  silenced,  although  it  was  not  till  some  time 
later  that  Cobham  himself  was  captured  for  the  second  time,  and  died  a 
martyr. 

But  the  Crown  of  France  was  the  great  prize  which  Henry  had  set  him- 
self to  win.  That  country  was  rent  by  the  two  factions  of  the  Orleanists 
and  Burgundians.  Each  during  the  last  reign  had  sought  the  help  of  the 
King  of  England  by  promising  the  restitution  of  provinces  in  France.  Some 
inadequate  help  had  been  given  first  to  one  and  then  to  the  other.  But 
Henry  V.  had  no  idea  of  being  satisfied  with  what  one  party  or  the  other 
would  surrender  as  the  price  of  his  support.  Before  he  had  been  a  year  on 
the  throne  he  put  forward  the  old  claim  of  the  King  of  England  to  the 
Crown  of  France ;  though  this  was  made  ridiculous  by  the  fact  that  the 
law  of  succession  on  which  that  claim  was  based  would  have  placed  on 
the  French  throne,  not  Henry,  but  his  cousin  the  Earl  of  March.  Hou'ever, 
he  professed  himself  willing  to  withdraw  that  claim  if  France  ceded  to  him 
something  more  than  all  the  territories  ever  held  in  France  by  any  Planta- 
genet,  together  with  the  hand  of  the  French  princess  Catherine.  In  return 
the  French  government  made  very  extensive  proffers  ;  but  they  could  not 
have  baulked  Henry  by  anything  short  of  taking  him  at  his  word,  and  con- 

N  ' 


194  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

ceding  the  whole  of  his  alternative  demand — which  was  obviously  out  of  the 
question.  He  had  made  it  simply  because  he  knew  that  to  concede  it  was 
out  of  the  question.  He  rejected  the  French  terms,  and  announced  solemnly 
that  the  responsibility  for  what  was  to  follow  lay  with  France. 

Meanwhile  parliament  had  endorsed  the  king's  designs  by  making  a  very 
substantial  grant.  There  was  no  difficulty  in  raising  forces,  for  the  war  was 
popular.  Nothing  was  to  be  feared  from  Scotland,  since  Albany  and  his 
supporters  were  afraid  of  having  King  James  returned  on  their  hands  if  they 
offended  the  King  of  England,  while  their  enemies  were  afraid  that  the 
captive  monarch  would  be  made  to  pay  the  penalty  if  they  attacked  England. 
In  Wales,  though  Glendower  was  still  alive,  he  had  now  ceased  to  be  danger- 
ous ;  so  Henry  had  a  clear  field  for  his  French  operations.      He  could  even 


THE    HOUSES   OF   YORK   AND    LANCASTER 


Edward  III. 

I 


Lionel  of  Clarence. 


I 
John  of  Gaunt. 


Philippa,  m. 

Edmund 

Mortimer. 

I 

Roger 

Mortimer, 

I 


Edmund, 
Earl  of 
March. 


Henry  IV., 

1399- 

I 

Henry  V. 

1413- 

Henry  VI., 
1422. 


Anne,  m. 

Richard, 

Earl  of 

Cambridge. 

Richard,  Duke  of 
York.  -> 


Reauforts. 


Henty  VII. 


Edmund  of  York. 


Edward, 
Duke  of 

York. 


I 

Richard, 

Earl  of 

Cambridge,  w. 

Anne  Mortimer. 

I 

Richard,  Duke 

of  York. 


Edward  IV., 
1461. 


Thomas  of  Woodstock, 

or  Gloucester. 

I 

Anne,  m. 

Earl  of  Stafford. 

I 

Duke  of  Buckingham. 


count  on  the  loyalty  of  the  young  Earl  of  March  ;  and  so  long  as  that  was 
the  case  conspiracies  against  the  Lancastrian  dynasty  could  not  constitute  a 
serious  danger. 

Such  a  conspiracy  was,  however,  actually  formed  by  Richard,  Earl  of 
Cambridge,  brother  of  the  Duke  of  York  of  whom  mention  was  made  in  the 
last  reign  when  he  was  Earl  of  Rutland — the  son  of  the  old  Duke  Edmund  of 
York,  the  uncle  of  Richard  H.  Richard  of  Cambridge  had  married  Anne 
Mortimer,  sister  of  the  Earl  of  March,  so  that  as  it  happened  the  Mortimer 
claim  to  the  Crown  ultimately  passed  to  his  own  offspring.  March,  however, 
on  being  invited  to  join  the  plot,  which  without  his  approval  was  bound  to 
come  to  nothing,  refused,  and  carried  the  matter  to  the  king  ;  and  the  con- 
spirators were  seized,  tried  by  their  peers,  and  executed. 

A  week  later  Henry's  army  of  invasion  set  sail  from  Southampton,  and 
immediately  sat  down  to  besiege  Harfleur. 

Henry  had  no  idea  of  miscellaneous  raiding.  With  a  military  instinct 
far  superior  to  that  of  his  predecessors,  he  aimed  at  a  systematic  war  of 


A  meJieval  siege  enirine. 


LANCASTER   AND   YORK  195 

conquest  ;  of  bringing  the  land  into  his  obedience  piecemeal.      He  antici- 
pated a  war  of  sieges  ;  but  he  did  not  anticipate  stout  resistance,  because 
Burgundy  was  half   disposed  in  his  favour  and  would  certainly  lend  no 
appreciable    help    to    the    Orleanists    with 
whom  the  Dauphin   Louis  had  thrown    in 
his  lot.     After  a  three  weeks'  siege  Harflem- 
surrendered. 

Henry's  army,  however,  had  suffered 
very  severely,  not  from  fighting,  but  from 
disease.  Though  no  attempt  had  been 
made  to  relieve  Harfleur,  the  Dauphin  and 
Orleans  had  collected  a  considerable  force, 
and  it  was  clear  that  Henry,  after  garrison- 
ing Harfleur,  would  have  an  army  quite 
inadequate  to  carrying  out  his  original  pro- 
gramme. The  obvious  course  in  the  cir- 
cumstances was  to  make  Harfleur  secure 
and  withdraw  the  rest  of  the  army  to 
England ;  but  Henry  resolved  that  instead 
of  simply  embarking  his  troops  he  would 
march  through  Normandy  to  Calais.  The 
motive  is  not  clear.     Probably  he  reckoned 

on  winning  prestige  for  him.self  and  bringing  discredit  on  the  French 
government  by  making  the  march  unmolested.  He  may  have  had  with 
him,  at  the  highest  estimate,  eight  thousand  men,  five-sixths  of  the  force 
being  archers,  and  many  of  these  must  have  been  suffering  from  sickness. 

Something  very  like  the  Crecy 
record    was    repeated.      The 
French    army,    though    very 
much  larger,  did  not  attempt 
to  force  a  battle,  but  endea- 
voured to  prevent  the  passage 
oftheSomme.    But  when  this 
was  effected  at  an  unguarded 
spot,  Orleans  felt  that  he  must 
strike.    The  march  had  given 
time  for   large   French   rein- 
forcementsto  come  up, and  on 
the  night  of  October  24th  the 
English  found  their  advance 
blocked  by  the  French  masses. 
On  the  day  of  battle  the  English  were  formed  very  much  as  at  Crecy  ; 
the  French  also  were  dismounted,  and  in  three  masses,  one  behind  the 
other,  since  the  ground  did  not  permit  of  an  extended  front  or  of  a  flank 
movement.     On    their  front,  however,  were  two  squadrons  of  horse,  who 


A  battering-ram  and  its  use. 


196  NATIONAL    CONSOLIDATION 

were  intended  to  charge  upon  the  archers.  Between  the  two  armies  lay 
heavy  plough  land.  Neither  at  first  would  advance  to  the  attack,  but 
Henry  knew  that  he  must  force  a  battle  or  perish.  The  English  line  began 
to  move  forward.  But  the  French  would  no  longer  be  restrained.  The 
cavalry  attempted  to  charge,  the  French  van  rolling  on  behind  them.  But 
the  archers  were  prepared  with  an  improvised  palisade  of  pointed  stakes. 
They  halted,  thrust  these  into  the  soft  ground,  and  from  behind  them 
began  to  pour  forth  their  arrows  on  the  advancing  masses.     The  cavalry 

were  rolled  over ; 
the  heavy  armed  in- 
fantry pressing  for- 
ward were  flung  into 
confusion.  The 
English  archers  and 
men-at-arms  fell 
upon  them,  hewed 
them  dov.'n,  and 
hurled  themselves 
upon  the  second  line, 
which  in  turn  broke 
and  scattered  after 
a  brief  resistance. 
The  third  line  was 
seized  with  panic.  A 
the  English  baggage  and 
be  given  that  every  man 


BATTLE    OF 

AGINCOURT 


C4^: 


i       I  French  men-at-arms  dismounted 

S  French  men-at-armi  mounted. 

▲  English    Archers 

Cid  English  men-at-arms   dismounted 


Disposition  of  English  and  French  forces  at  Agincourt. 


report  that  the  French  force  had  fallen  upon 
was  threatening  the  rear  caused  the  order  to 
was  to  slay  his  prisoners  ;  an  order  which  it  is  possible  to  condone, 
seeing  that  the  prisoners  were  at  least  as  numerous  as  the  captors.  But 
the  result  was  a  tremendous  slaughter.  The  French  slain  outnumbered  the 
entire  English  force,  and  among  them  were  fifteen  hundred  nobles  or 
knights.  It  seems  practically  certain  that  of  the  English  not  more  than  six 
score  were  killed  all  told :  York  and  Suffolk  were  the  only  noblemen. 
Henry  continued  his  march  to  Calais,  and  was  received  in  London  with 
a  wild  burst  of  enthusiasm. 

Almost  two  years  had  passed  before  Henry  was  ready  for  his  second 
invasion.  The  first  had  taught  him  the  magnitude  of  his  task  ;  and  the 
fame  he  had  won  at  Agincourt  made  anything  more  in  the  shape  of  fool- 
hardy feats  of  arms  entirely  superfluous.  This  time  conquest  was  to  be 
systematic  and  thorough.  Meanwhile  two  French  Dauphins  had  died, 
and  a  third  brother,  Charles,  now  heir  to  the  French  throne,  was  as 
completely  in  the  hands  of  the  Armagnacs,  as  the  Orleanists  were  now 
termed,  as  his  predecessors.  Orleans  himself  was  one  of  the  comparatively 
few  prisoners  whose  lives  had  been  preserved  at  Agincoiut.  Burgundy's 
neutrality  at  least  could  be  relied  on,  and  he  was  in  fact  at  open  war  with 
the    Armagnac    government.     When    Henry   landed    again    in    Normandy, 


LANCASTER   AND    YORK 


197 


there  was  no  present  prospect  that  the  army  of  France  would  interfere 
with  him.  What  he  had  to  do  was  to  subdue  Normandy.  He  set  about 
the  conquest  city  by  city.  He  kept  his  troops  under  a  disciphne  almost 
without  parallel  in  medieval  warfare,  and  punished  anything  in  the  shape 
of  outrages  on  the  civil  population  with  a  heavy  hand.  In  a  couple  of 
months  half  the  towns  of  Normandy  had  surrendered,  and  the  French 
queen  had  joined  Burgundy, 
claiming  the  regency  for  her- 
self in  priority  to  the  Dauphin, 
whom  she  detested.  The  con- 
quest of  Normandy  continued, 
and  while  Henry  garrisoned 
town  after  town  he  made  no 
infringement  on  their  accus- 
tomed liberties  or  rights. 

In  the  summer  he  began 
the  siege  of  Rouen,  the  capital 
of  the  duchy.  Summer  waned, 
the  autumn  advanced, andpassed 
into  winter;  the  warring  factions 
of  France  both  endeavoured  to 
negotiate,  and  while  they  negoti- 
ated Rouen  was  drawing  nearer 
to  the  starvation  point.  The 
only  attempt  at  relief  was  a 
raid  easily  beaten  off.  The  in- 
habitants of  Rouen  drove  some 
thousands  of  non-combatants 
out  of  their  gates.  Henry  re- 
fused to  let  them  through  his 
lines,  and  the  merciless  business 
of  starvation  went  on,  relieved 
only  when  the  English  king 
provided  the  miserable  people 
with  a  Christmas  dinner.  In 
January  Rouen  surrendered,  and  after  that  the  rest  of  Normandy  gave 
little  serious  trouble,  though  there  remained  fortresses  which  still  held  out 
for  some  months. 

Burgundy  renewed  negotiations,  but  the  more  that  he  and  the  queen 
seemed  inclined  to  concede,  the  higher  grew  the  terms  demanded  by 
Henry.  At  last  Burgundy  resolved  to  have  done  with  it  and  to  make  his 
peace  with  the  Armagnacs.  There  was  an  apparent  reconciliation  between 
Burgundy  and  Charles ;  but  immediately  afterwards  the  Duke  w-as  foully 
murdered  by  the  treachery  of  the  Dauphin  at  Montereau.  In  his  young 
successor   Philip,    and  indeed  among  all  the   Burgundians,  the   desire  for 


The  siege  of  Rouen  by  Henry  V. 


198  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

revenge  mastered  every  other  sentiment.  They  immediately  concluded  for 
their  own  part  a  truce  with  the  King  of  England  so  far  as  all  Burgundian 
territories  were  affected.  The  queen  was  on  their  side,  the  crazy  king  and 
the  princess  Catherine  were  both  in  their  hands.  In  the  spring  of  next 
year,  1420,  they  concluded  with  Henry  the  treaty  of  Troyes,  under  which 
he  received  Catherine  as  his  bride,  the  guardianship  of  the  kingdom  during 
the  life  of  the  reigning  King  Charles  VI.,  and  the  promise  of  the  succession 
for  himself  and  his  heirs  after  the  king's  death,  to  the  displacement  of  the 
Dauphin.  France  was  to  retain  her  own  laws,  customs,  and  government  ; 
there  was  merely  to  be  an  ultimate  union  of  crowns  like  that  which 
took  place  between  England  and  Scotland,  not  in  1707,  but  in  1603. 

A  few  months  later  Henry  withdrew  to  England,  leaving  in  charge  his 
next  brother,  Thomas,  Duke  of  Clarence.  His  long  absence  was  being  felt 
at  home.  Nevertheless  he  was  back  in  six  months  again  ;  for  Clarence  by 
a  rash  movement  brought  upon  himself  an  overwhelming  defeat  and  lost 
his  own  life  at  the  battle  of  Bauge,  a  victory  mainly  won  by  a  large 
contingent  of  Scots  who  had  taken  service  with  the  French.  New  life  was 
given  to  the  party  of  the  Dauphin  ;  through  the  latter  part  of  the  year  and 
the  first  half  of  the  following  year,  1422,  Henry  was  engaged  in  pushing 
forward  his  conquest.  In  the  meantime  Catherine  had  borne  him  a  son. 
He  himself  was  a  young  man  not  yet  five  and  thirty,  and  it  is  impossible  to 
guess  what  he  might  have  effected  if  he  had  lived  another  twenty  years  in 
full  vigour.  But  the  hand  of  death  was  upon  him.  He  contracted  a  fatal 
disease,  of  which  he  died  in  August  of  the  same  year,  leaving  instructions 
that  his  next  brother,  John,  Duke  of  Bedford,  should  act  as  a  regent  of 
France,  and  his  younger  brother,  Humphrey  of  Gloucester,  as  regent  of 
England. 

Ill 

THE   LOSS   OF  FRANCE 

Whether  Henry  V.,  if  he  had  lived  to  the  age  of  Edward  I.,  could  have 
succeeded  in  the  policy  of  uniting  England  and  France  on  the  lines  of  the  treaty 
of  Troyes,  is  sufficiently  doubtful  ;  when  he  died  at  the  age  of  thirty-four,  the 
possibility  of  success  disappeared.  A  king  with  a  character  and  genius  equal 
to  Henry's  was  needed  to  carry  out  his  work  effectively.  The  man  who 
was  actually  left  to  carry  it  out  was  hardly  the  inferior  of  Henry  himself, 
whether  in  character  or  in  military  or  political  ability.  But  he  would  seem 
to  have  lacked  the  magnetic  personality  of  Henry  the  Conqueror,  and  he 
was  not  a  king.  John,  Duke  of  Bedford,  though  he  was  trusted  and 
admired  on  all  hands,  yet  lacked  the  royal  authority  ;  and  lacking  it,  the 
task  for  him  became  impossible.  And  yet  it  was  not  till  his  death,  thirteen 
years  after  that  of  Henry,  that  the  sheer  impossibility  of  it  became 
manifest. 


LANCASTER   AND   YORK  199 

It  is  clear  enough  that  the  conquest  of  a  united  France  by  England 
could  only  have  been  accomplished  by  a  miracle.  Henry  himself  would 
hardly  have  achieved  what  he  did  if  the  murder  at  Montereau  had  not 
turned  the  new  Duke  of  Burgundy  into  his  active  ally.  If  the  Dauphin 
Charles  had  been  an  able  and  vigorous  prince,  if  he  had  striven  for  a  real 
reconciliation  between  Burgundians  and  Armagnacs,  instead  of  lending 
himself  to  the  monstrous  treachery  which  almost  justified  Burgundy  in 
siding  with  a  foreign  conqueror,  Henry's  conquest  might  have  been 
restricted  to  Normandy.  But  even  before  and  still  more  after  Montereau, 
the  France  with  which  the  English  had  to  deal  was  disunited  ;  and  while 
Burgundy  was  definitely  on  the  side  of  England,  it  was  always  possible  that 
the  Plantagenet  might  overthrow  the  Valois  claimant  of  the  French 
throne. 

But  the  Burgundian  alliance  was  immediately  weakened  by  the  action 
of  Humphrey  of  Gloucester.  The  Duke  of  Brabant  was  a  kinsman  and 
ally  of  Philip  of  Burgundy.  He  had  got  possession  of  Hainault  by  marry- 
ing its  heiress  Jacquelaine,  who  not  without  reason  sought  a  divorce  from 
him.  Gloucester  wished  to  marry  her  and  get  Hainault  for  himself.  Philip 
espoused  the  cause  of  the  Duke  of  Brabant.  Jacquelaine  got  her  divorce, 
but  only  from  the  ex-pope  who  had  been  deposed  by  the  Council  of 
Constance.  Nevertheless  Gloucester  married  her,  and  tried  to  recover 
Hainault  from  the  Duke  of  Brabant.  It  was  all  that  Bedford's  diplomacy 
could  effect  to  prevent  an  open  rupture  between  England  and  Burgundy. 

Nevertheless  for  some  time  the  slow  process  of  conquest  went  on.  The 
unhappy  King  Charles  VI.  died  just  after  Henry  V. ;  and  the  north  of 
France  recognised  the  infant  Henry  VI.  as  king,  and  Bedford  as  regent. 
The  south  recognised  Charles  VII.  Bedford  won  brilliant  victories  at 
Crevant  and  Verneuil  ;  and  in  1428  the  siege  of  Orleans  began.  Through 
the  winter  the  siege  went  on,  but  it  was  not  destined  to  be  successful. 
France  was  redeemed  by  the  heroism  of  a  girl  whom  the  English  burnt 
as  a  sorceress,  since  otherwise  they  must  have  acknowledged  her  for  God's 
angel  sent  for  the  deliverance  of  France.  Modern  wisdom  escapes  the 
dilemma  by  classing  her  as  an  unexplained  psychological  phenomenon; 
but  the  Middle  Ages  explained  such  phenomena  by  referring  them  to  the 
direct  intervention  of  God  or  the  Devil.  But  however  we  may  elect  to  in- 
terpret Joan  of  Arc,  we  may  at  least  be  perfectly  certain  that  her  interpreta- 
tion by  the  English  and  by  Shakespeare  was  hideously  and  fearfully  wrong. 
To  the  court  of  Charles  VII.  at  Chinon  came  a  country  maid,  Jeanne 
Dare,  from  Domremy,  in  Picardy.  To  her,  she  said,  had  come  voices  and 
visions,  bidding  her  arise  and  save  France.  For  herself  she  asked  nothing 
but  to  be  suffered  to  obey  the  Divine  command.  Common  sense  scoffed, 
but  common  sense  was  somehow  silenced.  She  got  her  way,  and  sallied 
from  Chinon  at  the  head  of  an  armed  force.  She  reached  Orleans  and 
entered  it  without  difficulty,  for  the  investment  was  incomplete.  The  garri- 
son became  inspired,  and  upon  the  English  fell   a  terror  of  they  knew  not 


200  NATIONAL    CONSOLIDATION 

what  ;  art  magic  they  called  it.  The  Maid  could  not  be  resisted.  The 
EngHsh  force  had  never  been  strong  enough  to  effect  a  complete  blockade  ; 
now  it  could  not  even  hold  its  own  against  the  onslaughts  of  the  garrison. 
The  siege  was  broken  up.  At  Pataye,  Joan  met  the  English  in  the  open 
field  and  routed  them.  Then  through  a  hostile  country  she  accompanied 
Charles  to  Rheims  to  crown  him  King  of  France.  Her  work  as  she  under- 
stood it  was  now  done,  but  Charles  could  not  dispense  with  so  valuable  an 
asset.  He  would  not  suffer  her  to  depart  as  she  herself  desired.  For  a 
year  she  continued  to  lead  French  forces  to  victory  in  repeated  skirmishes 
and  sieges  ;  but  at  last  she  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Burgundians,  through 
the  treachery,  it  was  said,  of  jealous  Frenchmen.  By  a  French  ecclesiastical 
court  she  was  tried  and  condemned  on  charges  of  heresy  and  witchcraft. 
Then  she  was  handed  over  to  the  English  for  the  execution  of  the  sen- 
tence, and  was  burnt  at  the  stake  to  the  eternal  shame  of  every  one  concerned  ; 
of  the  judges  who  condemned  her,  of  the  English  who  slew  her  in  a  fever 
of  superstitious  terror,  of  the  contemptible  king  who  left  her  to  her  doom 
without  stirring  a  finger  to  save  her.  The  death  of  the  Maid  of  Orleans  is 
the  one  blot  on  the  fair  fame  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford. 

The  cause  for  which  the  Maid  died  was  still  very  far  from  being  won. 
But  she  had  wrought  a  vital  change.  She  had  revived  the  spirit  of  patriot- 
ism in  the  French,  and  destroyed  the  self-confidence  of  the  English. 
Success  departed  from  them.  They  fought  on  obstinately,  but  no  longer 
with  the  old  assurance  of  victory.  Burgundy  was  less  than  half-hearted, 
and  began  to  be  anxious  to  put  an  end  to  the  war.  At  last,  in  1435,  there 
was  a  conference  at  Arras,  at  which  it  was  proposed  on  the  part  of  the 
French  that  England  should  retain  the  Calais  Pale,  Normandy,  and 
Guienne,  but  should  resign  the  claim  to  the  French  throne.  Yet  English 
obstinacy  rejected  the  terms.  Burgundy  in  disgust  threw  up  the  alliance, 
and  France  was  at  last  united  in  resistance  to  England,  which  by  the 
death  of  Bedford  in  1436  lost  the  one  man  who  might  have  saved  it  from 
the  woes  to  come. 

The  war  dragged  on,  but  it  was  now  one  not  for  the  conquest  of  new 
territory  by  the  English,  but  for  the  recovery  of  conquered  territory  by  the 
French.  The  French  offer  was  renewed  in  1439,  but  England  still  refused 
to  resign  Henry's  claim  to  call  himself  King  of  France.  The  French  began 
to  attack  Guienne,  which  had  been  for  a  long  time  in  peaceful  occupation, 
free  from  attack  because  the  French  forces  had  been  too  thoroughly 
engaged  elsewhere.  Guienne,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  not  a  conquered 
territory,  but  had  always  been  technically  subject  to  the  King  of  England  as 
its  Duke.  But  before  proceeding  further  with  the  story  of  the  loss  of  France, 
we  must  turn  back  to  affairs  in  England. 

Of  the  three  brothers  of  Henry  V.,  the  eldest,  Thomas  of  Clarence,  was 
killed  at  Bauge.  The  dying  king  had  desired  that  the  active  work  of  establish- 
ing the  English  crown  in  France  should  be  entrusted  to  his  next  brother, 
John  of  Bedford,  while  the  third,  Humphrey  of  Gloucester,  was  to  be  regent 


Besieging  a  French  town  at  the  end  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War. 

f  From  Froissart's  picture  of  the  siege  of  Dieppe  by  Talbot,  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  1443-3.  ] 


202  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

in  England.  The  infant  Henry  VI.  was  to  be  placed  in  the  care  of  the 
Beauforts.  The  Beauforts  were  the  nearest  kin  of  the  house  of  Lancaster. 
They  were  the  illegitimate  children  of  John  of  Gaunt,  who,  however,  ultimately 
married  their  mother,  Catherine  Swinford,  and  the  Beauforts  were  legiti- 
mised by  Act  of  parliament  in  the  reign  of  Richard  II.;  an  Act  which  was 
confirmed  in  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.,  but  with  the  addition  of  a  clause  which 
barred  them  from  the  succession  to  the  crown.  The  point  is  of  importance, 
because  it  still  remained  possible  for  the  Beauforts  to  maintain  a  sort  of 
claim  to  represent  the  house  of  Lancaster  on  the  failure  of  direct  heirs  to 
Henry  IV.  There  were  three  brothers  :  Henry,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  who 
became  a  Cardinal ;  Thomas  of  Exeter ;  and  John,  Earl  of  Somerset,  from 
whom  descended  the  other  representatives  of  the  name.  Henry  of  Winchester 
was  a  prominent  member  of  the  Council — a  rival  of  Archbishop  Arundel, 


THE   BEAUFORTS   AND   STAFFORDS 


Edward  III. 
I 


John  of  Gaunt, 

Duke  of  Lancaster, 

and  Catherine  Swynford. 


Cardinal  Beaufort. 


John,  Earl  of 

Somerset. 

I 


Thomas,  Duke  of 
E.xeter. 


Joan, m. 
James  I.  of 
Scotland. 


John,  Duke  of 
Somerset. 

I 

Margaret,  m. 

Edmund  Tudor, 

Earl  of  Richmond. 

I 
Henry  VII. ,  Tudor. 


I 

Edmund,  Duke  of 

Somerset. 

I 

Margaret,  m. 
Humphrey  Stafford. 


Thomas  of  Woodstock. 

Anne,  m. 
Earl  of  Stafford. 

Humphrey,  Duke  of 
Buckingham. 

I 

Humphrey,  m. 

Margaret  Beaufort. 

Henry,  Duke  of 
Buckingham. 

V 


and  an  ally  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  during  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.  He 
became  Chancellor  under  Henry  V.,  and  remained  in  the  front  rank  of 
English  politics  until  shortly  before  his  death  in  1447.  Thomas  of  Exeter 
was  made  the  actual  guardian  of  the  infant  king,  but  he  died  shortly  after- 
wards. John  of  Somerset  was  never  personally  prominent.  His  daughter 
Joan  was  married  to  young  King  James  of  Scotland,  who  was  liberated  and 
allowed  to  return  to  his  kingdom  immediately  after  the  death  of  Henry  V. 
Her  two  brothers,  John  and  Edmund,  became  successively  the  Earl  and 
Duke  of  Somerset;  each  left  a  daughter  named  Margaret.  John's  daughter 
became  the  mother  of  Henry  VIII.,  while  Edmund's  daughter  was  the 
mother  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  who  appears  first  as  the  ally  and  then 
as  the  foe  of  Richard  III.  But  the  Beauforts  who  appear  prominently  in 
the  reign  of  Henry  VI.  are  the  Cardinal  Henry  and  his  nephew  Edmund. 

The  wishes  of  Henry  V.  had  of  course  no  legal  force.     The  parliament 
had  every  confidence    in    Bedford,  and  conferred   upon  him    the   powers 


LANCASTER   AND   YORK        ^  203 

desired  by  the  dying  king.  It  declined,  however,  to  make  Humphrey  of 
Gloucester  regent  in  England — Bedford's  supremacy  was  to  be  recognised 
whenever  he  was  in  the  country — though  it  made  him  president  of  the 
Council  to  which  the  regency  was  committed.  This  was  the  continuation 
of  that  standing  Council 
which  had  been  nomi- 
nated in  the  reign  of 
Henry  IV.  that  it  might 
act  as  a  constitutional 
check  on  the  powers  of 
the  Crown,  though  it 
was  destined  to  become 
instead  the  king's  privy 
council  of  his  own 
nominees.  For  the 
present,  however,  it 
provided  in  effect  the 
government  of  Eng- 
land. 

There  was  no 
thought  of  challenging 
the  succession.  The 
Earl  of  March  was 
above  suspicion  of  any 
disloyalty.  Still,  at  the 
instance  of  Gloucester, 
he  was  sent  off  to  take 
up  the  government  of 
Ireland,  where  he  died 
shortly  afterwards.  The 
Mortimer  heritage  and 
claim  to  the  Crown 
passed  to  his  nephew, 
Richard  Plantagenet, 
the  son  of  his  sister, 
Anne  Mortimer,  and  of 
Richard,  Earl  of  Cam- 
bridge. The  child  had  already  become  Duke  of  York  by  the  death  of 
his  uncle  Edward  at  Agincourt,  he  being  one  of  the  two  English  noble- 
men who  fell  in  that  wonderful  battle.  Richard  of  York  was  eleven 
years  old  when  the  king  died. 

Domestic  politics  produced  no  events  of  importance.  On  the  whole 
Gloucester  dominated  the  government,  while  there  was  no  love  lost  between 
him  and  the  Beauforts.  When  Bedford  died,  the  young  Duke  of  York 
was  sent  to   take   his  place  in   France,    and   acquitted  himself   with    very 


Cardinal  Beaufort's  chauntry  in  Winchester  Cathedral. 


204  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

considerable  credit.  But  by  this  time,  if  not  before,  Cardinal  Beaufort  had 
become  anxious  to  bring  the  war  to  an  honourable  conclusion,  having 
realised  the  futility  of  its  continuation  ;  whereas  Gloucester  courted  popu- 
larity by  heading  the  extreme  war  party  who  were  responsible  for  the 
rejections  of  the  French  overtures  which  we  have  noted.  He  was,  however, 
practically  driven  out  of  public  life  for  a  time  by  the  conduct  of  his  wife, 
Eleanor  Cobham,  for  whom  he  had  deserted  Jacquelaine  of  Hainault.  The 
lady  had  apparently  "  practised  against "  the  life  of  the  young  king  by 
necromantic  arts,  which,  however  silly,  had  obviously  a  treasonable  intent, 
Gloucester  himself  being  the  heir-presumptive  to  the  throne.  The  actual 
necromancers  were  put  to  death,  and  the  Duchess  had  to  parade  London 
robed  in  the  white  sheet  of  repentance.  Duke  Humphrey  was  not  actually 
an  accomplice,  but  the  affair  drove  him  into  retirement  for  some  while. 
Although  the  obstinacy  of  public  sentiment  persisted  in  continuing  the 
war,  its  management  and  the  control  of  public  affairs  passed  to  the 
Beauforts. 

The  conduct  of  war  by  a  ministry  who  were  more  anxious  for  peace 
than  for  victory  was  scarcely  promising.  The  fighting  was  ineffective,  and 
efforts  were  made  to  negotiate  peace,  even  at  the  cost  of  resigning  the 
titular  claim  to  the  French  crown.  With  a  view  to  peace,  a  marriage  was 
negotiated  between  the  young  king  Henry  VI.  and  Margaret  of  Anjou, 
the  niece  of  the  French  king.  The  mismanagement  of  the  English  envoy, 
William  de  la  Pole,  Earl  of  Suffolk,  an  ally  of  the  Beauforts,  resulted  in  a 
betrothal  and  a  truce,  but  nothing  more.  The  tables  were  turned  now,  and 
every  English  proffer  of  terms  was  met  by  a  raising  of  the  terms  on  the 
part  of  the  French.  The  royal  marriage  was  celebrated  in  1446,  and  in  the 
next  year  both  Gloucester  and  Cardinal  Beaufort  died.  There  is  very 
little  doubt  that  Gloucester  was  in  fact  murdered  by  Somerset  and  Suffolk 
— a  foolish  as  well  as  a  criminal  performance,  in  which  the  Cardinal  at  least, 
being  practically  in  retirement,  could  have  had  no  hand.  So  long  as 
Henry  VI.  should  be  childless,  Richard  of  York  was  now  manifestly  the 
next  prince  of  the  blood. 

While  the  truce  lasted,  shuffling  negotiations  went  on  with  France,  and 
there  was  intense  disgust  when  it  became  known  that  Suffolk  had  promised 
to  evacuate  the  province  of  Maine.  Still  greater  was  the  wrath  when 
in  1449  the  French  renewed  the  war  by  invading  Normandy  in  force,  and 
overrunning  it  almost  unresisted.  Somerset  was  sent  to  take  command, 
but  in  the  spring  of  next  year  his  forces  were  overwhelmed  at  the  battle 
of  Formigny.  Before  the  autumn  of  1450  nothing  remained  in  France 
to  the  English  except  Guienne  and  the  Calais  Pale. 

Long  before  the  disaster  of  Formigny,  even  before  Somerset's  ex- 
pedition sailed,  popular  indignation  had  risen  to  rioting  point.  Somerset 
had  hardly  landed  in  France  when  an  angry  attack  was  made  by  the 
House  of  Commons  on  the  administration  in  gener.il  and  Suffolk  in 
particular.     All  sorts  of  charges   were   hurled  against   him,    some  serious 


LANCASTER   AND    YORK  205 

and  some  absurd,  some  demonstrably  false.  Instead  of  facing  trial,  Suffolk 
threw  himself  on  the  king's  mercy.  The  amiable  imbecile  on  the  throne — 
he  was  the  grandson  of  Charles  VI.  of  France  if  he  was  also  the  son  of 
Henry  V.  of  England — thought  merely  of  protecting  Suffolk,  and  attempted 
to  do  so  by  banishing  him  from  the  kingdom  for  five  years.  Again  a 
storm  of  popular  indignation  broke  out.  Suffolk  fled  for  his  life  in 
disguise,  but  was  caught  and  murdered  while  trying  to  cross  the  Channel. 
The  news  of  Formigny  had  just  arrived,  and  the  murder  was  merely  a 
symptom  of  popular  rage. 

A  month  later  it  took  shape  in  the  insurrection  known  as  Jack  Cade's 
Rebellion,  which  the  tradition  followed  by  Shakespeare  has  hopelessly 
mixed  up  with  the  Peasant  Revolt  seventy  years  earlier.  In  1450  the 
complaints  formulated  by  the  rebels  were  all  directed  against  the  sins 
of  the  Suffolk-Somerset  administration.  A  casual  demand  for  the  repeal 
of  the  Statute  of  Labourers  was  the  only  reference  to  social  questions, 
and  was  merely  intended  to  attract  the  mob.  The  moving  spirit,  Jack 
Cade,  whatever  his  real  name  may  have  been,  was  undoubtedly  an  adven- 
turer possessed  of  considerable  education  and  some  military  experience. 
But  the  insurrection  was  one  of  the  common  folk,  and  therein  lay  its 
one  difference  at  the  outset  from  the  risings  of  the  baronage  in  arms 
which  were  the  traditional  method  of  dealing  with  constitutional  crises. 
When  the  king's  forces  were  called  out  to  disperse  the  insurgents,  they  were 
promptly  disbanded  again  for  fear  of  mutiny.  But  in  other  respects  the 
precedents  of  Tyler's  Rebellion  were  followed.  Jack  Cade  kept  his  men 
in  hand  until  they  got  into  London.  Then  there  came  a  riot  which  turned 
the  friends  of  order  into  the  enemies  of  insurrection  ;  Jack  Cade  disbanded 
his  forces  on  promise  of  pardon,  and  the  pardon  was  then  repudiated. 
Cade  fled,  but  was  caught  and  killed. 

The  victory  of  the  government  brought  over  Richard  of  York  from 
Ireland,  whither  he  had  been  sent  as  lieutenant,  for  some  time  past,  to 
keep  him  out  of  the  way.  Jack  Cade  had  made  use  of  his  name,  a  fact 
which  aroused  some  suspicions  that  he  himself  had  set  the  insurrection 
on  foot  to  test  public  opinion.  He  was  now  determined  both  to  dis- 
sociate himself  from  the  rebellion,  and  as  next  prince  of  the  blood  to 
take  the  lead  in  demanding  the  removal  of  "  the  king's  evil  counsellors." 
His  arrival  on  the  scene  meant  that  the  rival  parties  must  now  measure 
their  strength  together  ;  on  the  one  side  Somerset  and  the  queen,  carrying 
with  them  the  king,  and  on  the  other  side  the  heir-presumptive  and  all 
who  were  hostile  to  a  government  which  had  proved  itself  hopelessly 
incompetent. 


2o6 


NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 


IV 


THE   RED   AND    WHITE   ROSES 


Before  York  arrived,  Somerset  was  back  from  Normandy,  discredited 
and  unpopular,  but  still  in  the  confidence  of  the  king  and  queen.  The 
meeting  of  a  full  parliament  showed  that  the  Commons  were  entirely  on  the 

side  of    York  ;   but  it   would    have 


been  difficult  to  say  whether  among 
the  peers  the  greater  strength  was  on 
the  side  of  York  or  of  Somerset.  At 
this  time  there  was  no  question  of 
disputing  the  succession  ;  York  him- 
self did  not  assert  his  own  title  as 
against  that  of  Henry  VI.  until  ten 
years  afterwards.  He  was  satisfied 
with  his  position  as  heir-presumptive, 
which  could  only  be  challenged  if 
Somerset  ventured  to  claim  that  the 
legitimation  of  the  Beauforts  gave 
him  a  prior  right  as  being  descended 
in  the  direct  male  line  from  John 
of  Gaunt.  York  and  his  supporters 
demanded  only  that  the  heir -pre- 
sumptive should  be  properly  re- 
cognised in  the  Ro3'al  Council. 

The  great  strength  of  York,  apari 
from  the  extent  of  his  own  dukedom 
and  earldoms,  lay  in  the  support  of 
the  great  Neville  family,  of  whom 
the  most  powerful  were  the  Earl  of 
Salisbury  and  his  son  Richard  of 
Warwick,  at  this  time  a  young  man  of 
two  and  twenty.  But  the  Neville  con- 
nection of  itself  included  nearly  one-fourth  of  the  lay  members  of  the  House 
of  Peers,  who  at  this  time  scarcely  numbered  more  than  fifty  all  told.  York's 
own  wife  was  Salisbury's  sister.  The  baronage  during  the  past  hundred 
and  fifty  years  had  acquired  a  new  character,  partly  perhaps  because,  with 
the  systematisation  of  parliament,  the  barons  with  a  hereditary  ri^ht  to  be 
summoned  individually  had  become  a  definite  group,  who  had  been  per- 
mitted to  accumulate  earldoms  and  baronies  in  a  few  hands.  Moreover, 
there  had  been  another  change  in  practice  which  counteracted  the  anti-feudal 
legislation  of  Edward  I,     It  liad  become  the  practice  of  many  of  the  gentry. 


Tattershall,  a  15th  century  castk 

[Built  between  1433-1455.] 


LANCASTER    AND    YORK  207 

men  of  small  estate  but  of  gentle  blood,  to  pledge  themselves  personally  to 
the  service  of  great  nobles:  a  process  distinct  from  the  old  feudal  com- 
mendation as  practised  in  England,  and  in  effect  assimilating  the  English 
system  to  the  feudalism  of  the  Continent. 

It  v^as  the  intention  then  of  York  and  his  supporters  to  maintain  a 
strictly  constitutional  attitude,  not  to  stir  up  civil  war  ;  and  with  the  parties 
thus  balanced,  Somerset,  retaining  his  personal  influence  with  the  king,  still 
retained  the  ascendency.  York  was  at  last  irritated  to  the  point  of  appear- 
ing in  arms  to  demand  the  dismissal  of  Somerset  ;  but  he  disbanded  his 
forces  on  receiving  what  he  took  to  be  satisfactory  assurances,  only  to  find 
that  he  had  thus  placed  himself  in  the  power  of  his  enemies.  A  sort  of 
reconciliation  was  however  effected,  because  the  French  were  now  over- 
running Guienne,  a  province  which  still  itself  preferred  the  English  to  the 
French  allegiance.  It  was  felt  that  a  united  effort  must  be  made  to  save 
it.  At  the  end  of  2452  an  expedition  was  despatched  under  the  veteran 
warrior,  Talbot,  Earl  of  Shrewsbury.  But  in  the  next  summer  Talbot's  force 
was  annihilated  and  he  himself  was  slain  in  a  desperate  attempt  to  force  an 
impregnable  position  at  Castillon.  The  disaster  was  irretrievable,  and 
although  several  towns  and  fortresses  held  out  stubbornly  for  some  months, 
all  Guienne  was  lost  before  the  end  of  the  year.  The  Calais  Pale  alone 
remained  to  England.     The  Hundred  Years'  War  was  at  an  end. 

At  this  moment  Henry  VI.  sank  from  his  normal  condition  of  feeble 
incapacity  into  one  of  unqualified  imbecility  ;  and  immediately  afterwards 
the  question  of  the  succession  was  complicated  by  the  birth  of  a  son  who 
now  stood  between  York  and  the  throne.  The  practical  effect  was  that 
York's  followers  were  strong  enough  to  secure  his  appointment  as  Protector 
of  the  realm,  the  confinement  of  Somerset  in  the  Tower,  and  the  appoint- 
ment of  sundry  Yorkists  to  high  offices  of  state.  York  used  his  power  with 
moderation,  and  made  no  attempt  to  take  vengeance  on  his  enemies. 

But  at  the  end  of  1454  Henry  recovered.  York  surrendered  the 
Protectorship,  and  Henry  at  once  made  haste  to  reinstate  Somerset  and 
his  party.  The  proceedings  of  Somerset  and  the  queen  made  it  evident 
that  they  had  no  intention  of  following  York's  example  of  moderation,  and 
were  preparing  to  carry  out  a  vindictive  policy.  York  and  Salisbury,  who 
had  retired  to  the  north,  took  up  arms  and  marched  towards  London, 
declaring  their  loyalty  to  the  Crown  but  demanding  the  arrest  and  trial  of 
Somerset ;  and  the  first  engagement  of  the  War  of  the  Roses  took  place  at 
St.  Albans,  where  Somerset  was  slain,  and  the  king  himself  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Yorkists.  It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  those  killed  in  the 
battle  numbered  only  five  or  six  score. 

Again  York  used  his  victory  with  moderation.  A  parliament  was 
summoned  which  was  certainly  Yorkist,  but  was  not  like  later  parliaments 
composed  exclusively  of  the  adherents  of  the  party  which  had  for  the 
moment  prevailed.  Another  of  the  king's  lapses  into  imbecility  again  made 
York  Protector,  but  only  for  a  few  months  ;  and  presently  the  queen  felt 


2o8  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

strong  enough  to  induce  Henry  once  more  to  dismiss  the  Yorkist  ministry. 
Still  there  was  a  formal  public  reconciliation  and  a  hollow  truce  between 
the  parties  for  the  next  three  years.  Each  side  was  anxious  to  force  the 
blame  of  actual  aggression  on  the  other. 

In  1459,  however,  Margaret  was  so  palpably  preparing  for  a  coup  de  main, 
that  the  Yorkists  took  up  arms,  and  hostilities  were  renewed.  But  although 
Salisbury  won  a  small  victory  at  Blore  Heath,  Margaret  had  succeeded 
in  making  it   appear   that  York  was  the  aggressor,   whereby  much  of  the 

support  on  which  he  had  counted 
failed  him.  When  the  Royalists 
advanced  against  him  on  an  autumn 
campaign,  the  Yorkist  army  melted 
to  pieces  and  the  leaders  had  to 
take  flight;  York  himself  to  Ireland, 
where  he  had  made  himself  ex- 
tremely popular  during  his  lieu- 
tenancy, and  his  eldest  son  Edward, 
the  young  Earl  of  March,  with 
Salisbury  and  Warwick,  to  Calais, 
of  which  Warwick  was  captain. 
In  that  capacity  the  future  "king- 
maker" had  latterly  achieved  a 
high  reputation  by  his  successful 
operations  in  the  defence  of  the 
Channel. 

A  parliament  was  called,  of 
what  was  now  to  become  the  usual 
character.  It  was  simply  an  as- 
sembly of  the  Royalist  nominees  ; 
and  it  opened  that  sweeping  campaign  of  attainders  with  which  both  parties 
henceforth  supplemented  their  military  operations.  Instead  of  bringing 
persons  accused  of  treason  to  trial,  an  Act  of  parHament  was  passed  by  the 
same  process  as  any  other  Act  of  parliament,  declaring  that  a  long  list  of 
persons  were  guilty  of  treason,  though  the  king  reserved  the  right  of  pardon 
or  mitigation  of  sentence;  a  right  which  on  this  occasion  was  freely  exer- 
cised by  the  pacific  Henry. 

But  before  twelve  months  had  passed,  Warwick,  who  had  been  concert- 
ing his  plans  with  Richard  in  Ireland,  landed  suddenly  on  the  coast  of  Kent, 
where  the  Yorkist  cause  was  strongly  supported.  The  Royalists  had  been 
lulled  into  a  false  security  ;  the  Yorkists  gathered  in  force,  and  London 
admitted  him.  Thence  he  marched  to  Northampton,  where  the  Royalists 
were  hastily  gathering,  and  put  them  completely  to  rout,  capturing  the 
person  of  the  unlucky  king.  At  this  battle  the  regular  Yorkists'  rule  was 
adopted  of  sparing  the  commonalty,  but  giving  no  quarter  to  nobles  or 
knights.     The  battle  made  Warwick  master  of  the  south  of  England.     The 


The  youthful  Henry  VI. 
[From  Lydgate's  "  Life  of  St.  Edmund."] 


LANCASTER   AND    YORK  209 

north  unwisely  was  left  alone.  Richard  of  York  returned  from  Ireland, 
came  to  London  where  parliament  was  summoned,  and  startled  and 
alarmed  his  supporters  by  at  once  asserting  his  own  immediate  claim  to  the 
throne  as  the  legitimate  successor  of  Richard  II.  Warwick  and  the  bulk 
of  Richard's  supporters  were,  however,  strongly  opposed  to  this  reversal  of 
York's  policy.  Richard  was  forced  to  accept  the  proposal,  to  which  the 
captive  king  gave  his  consent,  that  Henry  should  retain  the  crown  for  the 
rest  of  his  life,  but  should  be  succeeded  by  York,  not  by  the  Prince  of 
Wales.     The  arrangement  was  ratified  by  parliament. 

Margaret,  however,  was  by  no  means  prepared  to  accept  the  exclusion 
of  her  son  from  the  succession.  She  was  still  at  large  in  Wales,  and  forth- 
with set  about  mustering  the  Lancastrians,  as  we  may  now  call  them,  in  the 
north.  York  at  once  despatched  his  son  Edward,  a  lad  of  eighteen,  who 
had  distinguished  himself  at  the  battle  of  Northampton,  to  the  Welsh 
Marches  to  keep  Wales  in  check  ;  and  leaving  Warwick  in  the  south, 
hurried  north  himself  along  w^ith  Salisbury.  But  on  the  30th  December  his 
small  force  was  overwhelmed  at  the  battle  of  Wakefield.  The  Lancastrians 
gave  no  quarter.  Richard  himself,  his  second  son  Rutland,  and  Salisbury, 
were  taken  and  put  to  death  ;  several  of  his  principal  adherents  were  slain 
on  the  field.  The  war  had  degenerated  into  a  vindictive  slaughter  of  rival 
partisans. 

The  victors  marching  southwards  encountered  and  defeated  Warwick 
in  the  second  battle  of  St.  Albans,  some  seven  weeks  after  Wakefield, 
recovered  the  person  of  the  captive  Henry,  and  advanced  to  bargain  with 
the  Londoners  for  admission  to  the  capital.  But  in  the  meantime  the  Earl 
of  March  had  routed  a  Royalist  force  at  Mortimer's  Cross,  and  was  hurrying 
to  join  Warwick.  The  Yorkist  leaders  now  also  hastened  to  London,  but, 
unlike  the  Lancastrians,  were  immediately  admitted.  The  slaughter  at 
Wakefield  had  removed  Warwick's  scruples,  and,  with  the  acclamations  of 
the  Londoners  and  the  troops,  Edward  IV.  was  proclaimed  king  on  the 
ground  that  the  parliament  of  1399  had  had  no  power  to  transfer  the 
succession  from  the  legitimate  line  of  the  Mortimers. 

The  foiled  Lancastrians  retreated  to  the  north ;  Edward  and  Warwick 
were  soon  in  pursuit.  A  great  battle,  fought  at  Towton,  was  decisive. 
After  a  desperate  struggle  the  Lancastrians  were  utterly  routed  with 
tremendous  slaughter,  and  Wakefield  was  avenged  by  the  death  of  all 
prisoners  of  any  position  who  were  taken.  King  Henry,  who  had  been 
delivered  from  the  custody  of  Warwick  at  the  battle  of  St.  Albans,  escaped 
to  Scotland  with  his  queen. 

Warwick  was  left  to  keep  the  north  quiet  while  Edward  returned  to 
London,  and  was  crowned  in  state.  In  November  the  king  called  his  first 
parliament,  of  course  a  purely  Yorkist  assembly.  It  passed  an  Act  of 
Attainder  in  which  there  were  more  than  a  hundred  and  thirty  names  of  the 
living  and  the  dead  ;  the  point  of  these  sweeping  meas^ires  was  obviously 
the  confiscation  of  the  estates  of  the  attainted,  and  their  distribution  among 

O 


2IO  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

the  adherents  of  the  victorious  side.  Incidentally,  the  parliament  pro- 
nounced that  the  three  Henrys  had  been  usurpers,  though  the  benignant 
Edward  was  pleased  to  confirm  the  charters  which  the  usurpers  had 
granted,  and  the  honours  and  privileges  bestowed  by  them,  except  in  the 
case  of  persons  now  attainted.  The  young  king  Tien  gave  himself  up  to 
public  displays  and  private  dissipations  ;  content  apparently  to  leave 
politics  and  government  to  the  cousin  who  had  made  him  king.     Next  year, 

however,  the  energetic 
Margaret  of  Anjou  was 
again  at  work,  and  kept 
Warwick  busy  until 
the  summer  of  1463, 
when  her  followers 
were  dispersed,  and 
she  herself  only 
escaped  capture  by 
throwing  herself, 
according  to  a  tradi- 
tion of  good  authority, 
upon  the  generosity  of 
^  '^>-.^jfe2_\\  \\\  K^---   ^^y^     Z'   y/       w    I  \L.  I        ^    robber    whom    she 

^^^/^^^^^^<^y^y^^^^'^^^^^^xM  il^-  /^  met  in  her  flight,  who 

conveyed  her  into 
safety.  A  final  desper- 
ate effort  of  the  Lan- 
castrians was  crushed 
in  the  following  year  by  Warwick's  brother,  Montague,  at  Hedgely  Moor 
and  Hexham. 

But  a  rupture  was  approaching  between  the  king  and  his  too  powerful 
cousin,  to  explain  which  we  must  briefly  refer  to  French  affairs  since 
the  expulsion  of  the  English.  Louis  XL  was  now  on  the  French  throne, 
and  was  engaged  in  consolidating  the  supremacy  of  the  Crown  over  the 
feudal  nobility,  mainly  by  the  methods  of  intrigue.  Philip,  Duke  of 
Burgundy,  however,  having  by  marriage  acquired  great  possessions  in 
the  Low  Countries,  had  virtually  made  himself  an  independent  monarch, 
being  in  effect  lord  of  the  Netherlands  as  well  as  of  the  duchy  of  Burgundy 
in  France,  and  of  the  county  of  Burgundy  or  Franche  Comte,  whicii  fell 
within  the  German  Empire.  Hence  though  Burgundy  was  the  name 
generally  given  inclusively  to  the  whole  dominion,  Burgundy  itself  was 
the  less  important  part  of  it,  the  more  important,  at  least  from  the  English 
pt)int  of  view,  being  the  Netherlands.  Neither  Louis  nor  Philip  was  will- 
ing to  see  the  strength  of  the  other  increased. 

Louis,  somewhat  hastily,  had  committed  himself  to  the  support  of 
Margaret  of  Anjou  and  the  Lancastrian  faction  ;  Philip  was  naturally 
inclined   in   consequence  to  favour  the  Yorkists.      WarwMck  was  unwilling 


The  Duke  of  Gloucester  and  the  Earl  of  Warwick  in  buttle. 


LANCASTER   AND    YORK  211 

to  break  with  Burgundy,  but  was  still  more  anxious  to  bring  Louis  over 
to  the  Yorkist  side.  Louis,  realising  that,  in  the  language  of  a  modern 
statesman,  he  had  been  "  backing  the  wrong  horse,"  was  willing  enough 
to  buy  the  friendship  of  the  de  facto  king  of  England.  Warwick  proposed 
to  marry  King  Edward  to  the  French  queen's  sister,  since  Louis  had 
neither  a  sister  nor  a  daughter  of  his  own  to  offer.  To  the  Earl's  intense 
disgust  Edward  ruined  the  whole  negotiation  by  announcing  that  he  had 
already  married  Lady  Elizabeth  Grey,  widow  of  the  Lancastrian  John 
Grey,  Lord  Ferrars,  and 
daughter  of  the  Lan- 
castrian Richard  Wood- 
ville.  Lord  Rivers. 

Warwick  was  angry 
enough  at  the  trick  that 
had  been  played  upon 
him,  since  it  showed 
how  slight  was  his  real 
ascendency  over  the 
king.  Still,  there  was 
no  immediate  breach. 
But  Edward  proceeded 
to  marry  his  wife's  kins- 
folk right  and  left  to 
heirs  and  heiresses,  thus 
forming  a  new  family 
group  w^herewith  to 
counterbalance  the 
Neville  connection  ; 
and  Warwick's  sus- 
picion and  distrust  deepened 
first  counsellor  and  minister, 
sent  on  a  diplomatic  mission 
between    Louis    and    Charles 


A  bedroom  and  its  appointments  in  the  middle  of  the  15th  century. 


though  Edward  still  treated  him  as  his 
In  spite  of  the  marriage  fiasco,  he  was 
to  France  and  Burgundy.  The  relations 
the  Rash,  the  heir  of  Burgundy,  were 
exceedingly  strained,  and  Louis  proved  as  anxious  to  conciliate  Warwick 
as  Charles  was  careless.  The  seeds  were  siown  of  an  alliance  between 
the  French  king  and  the  earl.  Meanw^hile,  by  a  stroke  of  good  fortune, 
the  unfortunate  Henry  VL  had  been  caught  wandering  about  aimlessly 
in  the  north,  and  was  lodged  in  the  Tower.  The  relations  between 
Warwick  and  Edward  were  further  strained  when  the  latter  refused  to 
sanction  the  marriage  of  his  next  brother  George,  Duke  of  Clarence,  with 
Warwick's  daughter.  And  now  Charles  the  Bold  entered  upon  a  negotia- 
tion behind  Warwick's  back  for  his  own  marriage  with  the  English  king's 
sister  Margaret.  Warwick  was  again  sent  off  ostensibly  to  negotiate  a 
treaty  wnth  Louis,  and  returned  accompanied  by  a  French  embassy  to 
discover  that  the  marriage  treaty  with  Charles  was  already  settled. 


212  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

Edward  remained  indolently  blind  to  the  danger  that  was  brewing. 
Warwick  in  alliance  with  Clarence  was  preparing  to  play  the  old  part 
of  the  Lords  Ordainers  and  the  Lords  Appellants.  When  nearly  two 
years  had  passed,  half  the  north  suddenly  rose  under  a  leader  who  called 
himself  "  Robin  of  Redesdale,"  with  the  usual  complaint  against  *'  the 
king's  evil  counsellors,"  and  the  usual  demand  for  their  removal.  Edward 
hurried  to  the  north  ;  Warwick  at  Calais  promptly  married  his  daughter 
to  Clarence,  crossed  to  England,  raised  the  south,  and  marched  upon 
London.  Three  weeks  after  Clarence's  marriage  Edward  was  a  prisoner. 
To  all  appearance  Warwick's  victory  was  complete,  and  he  was  not 
afraid  to  release  the  king  after  executing  Rivers  and  one  or  two  others 
of  the  Woodville  group.  But  a  futile  Lancastrian  rising  in  Lincolnshire 
gave  Edward  his  opportunity.  He  collected  a  considerable  force  to  sup- 
press the  rising,  and  having  demolished  the  rebels  at  the  battle  called 
Lose-Coat  Field,  he  announced  that  Warwick  and  Clarence  were  implicated 
in  the  treason.  Since  he  already  had  an  army  in  the  field,  the  earl  and 
the  duke  could  only  take  a  hasty  fhght  to  France. 

Then  the  craft  of  Louis  XL  came  into  play  and  brought  about  nothing 
less  amazing  than  a  reconciliation  between  Warwick  and  Margaret  of  Anjou, 
to  be  confirmed  by  the  marriage  of  Warwick's  younger  daughter  Anne  to 
Margaret's  son  Edward,  the  titular  Prince  of  Wales.  Clarence  was  appar- 
ently satisfied  by  being  recognised  as  the  next  prince  of  the  blood.  Edward 
had  underrated  the  strength  of  the  Nevilles.  Warwick  repeated  his  previous 
device  ;  Edward  was  enticed  to  the  north  to  suppress  an  insurrection 
organised  there,  while  the  earl  himself  again  landed  unopposed  in  the  south 
and  proclaimed  Henry  VI.  Half  Edward's  troops  belonged  to  the  faction 
not  of  York  but  of  Neville,  and  deserted  him.  Edward  in  turn  was  obliged 
to  fly  from  the  country  in  hot  haste  to  take  refuge  with  Charles  of  Burgundy. 
Again  Warwick's  victory  seemed  complete,  and  Henry  was  brought  out  from 
the  Tower  to  be  posed  once  more  as  king. 

But  Clarence — "false  fleeting  perjured  Clarence" — was  already  in 
communication  with  the  exile.  In  the  spring  Edward  made  a  sudden  dash 
from  Flanders,  and  landed  in  Yorkshire,  where  he  began  by  announcing  that 
he  had  returned  to  claim  not  the  Crown  but  the  Duchy  of  York.  The  York- 
ists of  the  north  hastened  to  his  standard.  By  consummate  generalship  he 
prevented  the  Lancastrian  levies  from  effecting  a  junction,  was  joined  by 
Clarence,  and,  having  completely  misled  Warwick  as  to  his  designs,  suddenly 
directed  his  march  from  the  west  upon  London  with  the  earl  in  hot  pursuit. 
He  reached  his  goal  first,  was  admitted  into  the  city,  shut  Henry  up  again 
in  the  Tower,  and  marched  out  to  fight  the  earl. 

The  hostile  forces  met  in  a  thick  fog  at  Barnet.  In  the  mist  Warwick's 
left  and  centre  attacked  each  other,  each  at  first  thinking  that  the  other  was 
the  enemy,  and  then  that  they  were  traitors.  The  blunder  decided  the  day, 
which  otherwise  seems  to  have  been  going  in  favour  of  the  Lancastrians. 
Warwick  was  slain  on  the  field,  and  his  forces  were  completely  put  to  rout. 


LANCASTER   AND   YORK  213 

On  the  Same  day  Margaret  landed  in  the  west.  There  she  ralHed  her  adher- 
ents, and  was  on  the  march  to  join  another  band  of  her  partisans  on  the 
Welsh  border,  when  Edward  by  desperate  marching  succeeded  in  intercept- 
ing her  and  forcing  a  battle  at  Tewkesbury.  There  he  won  the  decisive 
victory  which  made  him  indisputably  King  of  England.  Margaret  herself  was 
taken  ;  the  young  Prince  of  Wales  was  killed,  probably  in  the  battle,  not, 
as  a  later  tradition  asserted,  in  cold  blood  by  Edward's  youngest  brother 
Richard,  Duke  of  Gloucester.  No  one  of  the  line  of  Henry  VI.  except 
Henry  VI.  himself  remained  alive  ;  and  of  the  Beaufort  blood  only  the 
young  son  of  Margaret  Tudor,  Henry,  Earl  of  Richmond,  and  the  young 
Duke  of  Buckingham,  the  son  of  the  other  Margaret  Beaufort.  It  was  the 
least  of  Henry  VI.'s  misfortunes  that  he  died  in  the  Tower  a  few  days  after 
Tewkesbury,  almost  certainly  by  the  hand  of  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  though 
of  course  it  was  announced  that  his  death  was  a  natural  one. 


EDWARD  IV 

After  the  victory  of  Tewkesbury,  Edward  reigned  unchallenged  for  some 
twelve  years.  In  the  hour  of  his  triumph  he  was  only  in  his  thirtieth  year. 
He  had  proved  that  when  he  chose  to  exert  himself  he  was  not  only  a  first- 
rate  fighting  man,  but  a  consummate  general,  and — always  with  the  same 
proviso — a  master  of  diplomatic  craft  and  persuasiveness.  Incidentally  also, 
he  was  completely  and  perfectly  unscrupulous.  Nevertheless  he  was  funda- 
mentally indolent,  a  lover  of  pleasure,  unambitious.  Since  he  had  chosen 
to  play  for  a  crown,  he  made  a  point  of  winning  it ;  having  won  it,  he 
intended  only  to  enjoy  it  at  his  ease.  He  did  not  play  the  tyrant  in  general, 
because  doing  so  would  not  have  conduced  to  his  comfort  ;  but  if  his 
comfort  demanded  an  act  of  tyranny,  however  monstrous,  he  committed 
it  without  a  qualm..  He  reigned  as  an  absolute  monarch  without  protest 
on  the  part  of  people  or  barons  ;  because  he  did  not  attempt  to  tax  the 
people,  while  only  a  remnant  of  the  old  baronage  existed,  and  the  new  men 
were  his  own  creatures.  Edward's  demands  for  money  were  so  rare  that 
we  are  at  first  inclined  to  wonder  how  it  was  that  he  alone  managed  to  do 
what  the  grumblers  always  declared  the  king  ought  to  do,  and  "live  of  his 
own."  But  in  the  first  place  his  treasury  was  conveniently  filled  by  the 
enormous  confiscations,  the  spoils  of  the  final  victory  over  the  Lancastrians, 
and  in  the  second  place  he  made  up  for  any  casual  deficiencies  by  the 
ingenious  device  of  Benevolences.  That  is,  he  asked  not  for  loans,  but  for 
presents  ;  and  the  individal  who  refused  his  request  learnt  that  if  his  good- 
will to  the  king  was  so  small  his  loyalty  to  the  throne  fell  under  suspicion. 
It  was  cheaper  to  pay  wath  a  good  grace  than  to  resist  ;  and  at  the  same 
time  it  was  not  easy  to   build  up  a  constitutional  opposition  on  the  basis 


niii    11,11 


214  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

of  Benevolences,  since  technically  no  compulsion  was  brought  to  bear. 
From  these  sources  then  Edward  obtained  sufficient  supplies  for  a  personal 
expenditure  which  was  lavish  but  not  particularly  extravagant — he  had  the 
business  instinct — while  his  public  expenditure  was  even  parsimonious. 
Moreover  he  was  released  from  the  eternal  drain  of  the  French  wars  as 
well  as  from  the  spasmodic  expenditure  on  the  defence  of  his  throne  against 
a  rival  dynasty. 

Thus  it  was  but  rarely  that  Edward  found  it  necessary  to  summon  a 
parliament  ;    and    parliaments,    when    he    did    summon    them,    were    de- 
generate.    In  the  chaos 
'—  of     recent    years    free 

elections  had  dropped 
out  of  fashion.  Borough 
elections  had  fallen  into 
the  hands  of  the  cor- 
porations, and  the  cor- 
porations themselves 
tended  to  become  close 
bodies.  The  franchise 
of  the  shire  courts, 
which  elected  the 
knights  of  the  shire, 
had  become  restricted 
practically  to  free- 
holders ;  and  in  point 
of  fact  election  was  fre- 
quently superseded  by 
the  mere  nomination  of 
the  sheriffs,  or  else  was 
effectively  controlled  by  local  magnates,  so  that  the  House  of  Commons 
was  now  very  largely  a  packed  assembly.  On  the  other  hand,  of  the  old 
baronial  families,  the  alternate  victories  of  Lancaster  and  York  had  left 
few  surviving  members  in  either  faction,  and  their  places  were  to  a 
great  extent  taken  by  a  mushroom  peerage  of  Edward's  own  creation.  If 
Edward  had  chosen  to  emphasise  his  position  as  an  absolute  monarch, 
it  is  likely  enough  that  he  would  have  been  able  to  convert  the  English 
monarchy  into  an  almost  unqualified  despotism.  He  did  not  do  so, 
because  he  had  no  ambitions  which  made  it  worth  while  to  risk  trying 
to  do  so.  The  twelve  years  of  Edward  IV.'s  reign  as  an  absolute  monarch 
are  distinguished  chiefly  by  an  event  which  was  not  political  at  all,  the 
setting  up  of  Caxton's  printing  press  under  the  royal  patronage.  For 
Edward  was  a  patron  of  art  and  literature  ;  intellectually  the  most  cultured 
monarch  who  had  occupied  the  English  throne,  at  least  for  many  centuries. 
Two  other  events,  however,  have  to  be  recorded.  The  ambitions  and 
the  arrogance  of  George,  Duke  of  Clarence,  excited  Edward's  wrath.     The 


Edward  IV.,  his  son,  Edward  V.,  and  the  court. 


LANCASTER   AND   YORK  215 

duke  was  arraigned  before  parliament  by  the  king  in  person,  was  con- 
demned, and  died  in  prison  when  his  execution  was  imminent.  There  was 
no  adequate  reason  for  murdering  him  in  the  circumstances,  and  the  later 
tradition  that  he  was  drowned  in  a  butt  of  Malmsey  wine  was  probably 
a  pure  fiction.  Premature  deaths  were  always  attributed  to  violence. 
Clarence  left  a  son  and  daughter,  Edward,  Earl  of  Warwick,  and  Margaret, 
Countess  of  Salisbury — they  were  the  grandchildren  of  Warwick  the  king- 
maker— both  of  whom  ultimately  perished  by  the  axe  of  the  executioner. 

The  other  event  was  Edward's  French  expedition  of  1475.  Edward 
proposed  to  make  war  upon  Louis  in  conjunction  with  Charles  of  Burgundy, 
a  prince  as  erratic  as  he  was  ambitious.  It  was  a  long  time  before  the 
English  people  ceased  to  hanker  for  a  revival  of  the  glories  of  Henry  V.  ; 
and  for  that  purpose  parliament  did  not  grudge  the  king  ample  financial 
support.  Burgundy — in  either  sense — was  by  tradition  and  by  interest  a 
desirable  ally.  Edward  was  no  mean  strategist  and  had  never  been 
defeated  in  a  stricken  field.  He  certainly  could  not  have  conquered 
France,  but  if  he  had  meant  war  in  earnest  he  would  probably  have  conducted 
some  brilliant  campaigns.  But  he  did  not  mean  war  in  earnest.  He  got 
his  money,  and  carried  his  army  to  Calais  ;  but  there  was  no  fighting. 
Louis  was  prepared  to  buy  him  off,  and  he  himself  wanted  nothing  better 
than  to  be  bought  off.  Edward  cheerfully  deserted  his  ally  Burgundy  with 
the  excuse  that  Charles  had  disabled  himself  for  co-operating  in  an  effective 
campaign.  Fifteen  thousand  pounds  down  and  a  pension  of  ten  thousand  a 
year  which  Edward  described  as  a  '*  tribute,"  was  the  price  paid  to  him  at 
the  treaty  of  Pecquigny ;  a  very  substantial  addition  to  his  income,  which 
was  duly  paid. 

In  the  spring  of  1483  Edward  was  seized  with  a  mortal  illness,  which 
carried  him  off  in  a  few  days.  The  chroniclers  are  unanimous  in  attributing 
his  premature  death  when  he  was  only  forty  to  a  constitution  ruined  by 
luxury  and  dissipation.  He  left  behind  him  two  young  sons,  Edward  V.  and 
Richard,  Duke  of  York,  and  several  daughters.  Of  his  brothers  the  only 
survivor  was  Richard,  Duke  of  Gloucester,  who  had  been  unfailingly  loyal  to 
him,  and  had  won  a  high  reputation  both  as  a  soldier  and  as  an  adminis- 
trator. 

VI 

RICHARD   III 

The  need  for  a  regency  was  obvious.  The  young  king  was  at  Ludlow 
in  the  hands  of  the  queen-mother's  brother  and  son.  Rivers  and  Grey  ;  the 
young  Duke  of  York  was  with  the  queen  herself  in  London,  so  that  the 
advantages  lay  with  the  queen's  family  for  securing  the  regency  to  her. 
But  they  were  unpopular,  and  Gloucester,  who  was  in  the  north,  knew 
that  he  could  count  upon  strong  support  in  securing  the  regency  for   him- 


2i6  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

self.  In  company  with  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  he  overtook  Edward  and 
his  escort  on  their  way  to  London,  and  forthwith  arrested  Rivers  and  Grey. 
The  queen-mother  took  sanctuary  at  Westminster  along  with  the  rest  of 
her  children,  and  the  council  immediately  acknowledged  Gloucester  as 
Protector. 

But  the  sudden  death  of  his  brother  had  suggested  to  Richard  ambitions 
which  went  far  beyond  a  mere  protectorate.  His  scheme  was  to  declare 
the  children  of  Edward  IV.  illegitimate,  and  to  claim  the  crown  for  himself. 
He  privately  secured  the  support  of  some  of  the  great  lords  who  were 
purchasable,  and  six  weeks  after  receiving  the  protectorate  he  arrested  at 
the  Council  Board  Lord  Hastings,  a  trusted  friend  of  the  late  king,  Bishop 
Morton,  and  others  from  whom  he  expected  opposition.  Hastings  was 
beheaded  there  and  then  without  trial.  Then  he  cajoled  or  frightened  the 
queen  iiito  handing  over  to  him  the  young  Duke  of  York,  who  was  placed 
in  the  Tower  along  with  his  brother  the  king  ;  not  of  course,  nominally,  as 
a  prisoner.  Next  his  design  was  revealed  when  a  certain  Dr.  Shaw 
preached  a  sermon  at  Paul's  Cross,  in  which  he  affirmed  that  the  late 
king's  marriage  with  Elizabeth  Woodville  had  been  null  and  void  because 
he  was  precontracted  to  another  lady.  The  congregation  received  the 
sermon  in  amazed  silence,  but  London  was  practically  overawed  by  the 
presence  of  a  large  number  of  Gloucester's  and  Buckingham's  retainers ; 
and  an  assembly  which  passed  for  a  parhament  was  induced  to  petition 
Gloucester  to  take  upon  himself  the  royal  office  as  the  legitimate  head  of 
the  House  of  York,  in  priority  to  the  late  king's  "bastard"  children,  and  to 
those  of  Clarence  who  were  debarred  by  their  father's  attainder.  After  a 
show  of  reluctance  Gloucester  assented,  and  a  few  days  later  was  crowned 
king.  The  prisoners  Rivers  and  Grey  had  already  been  executed.  Nearly 
all  the  magnates  of  the  realm  formally  assented  by  bei^ig  present  at  the 
coronation.      Nowhere  was  there  any  sign  of  resistance  to  the  coup  d'etat. 

Richard  started  on  a  progress  through  the  Midlands.  During  his 
absence  the  two  young  princes  were  murdered  in  the  Tower  ;  that  is,  they 
disappeared,  though  their  bones  were  not  discovered  till  nearly  two  hundred 
years  afterwards.  That  the  boys  were  murdered  no  one  at  the  time  seems 
to  have  doubted  at  all,  though  the  mystery  attending  their  death  was  made 
use  of  for  political  purposes  in  the  next  reign. 

But  the  supporters  of  Richard  in  his  usurpation  had  not  anticipated 
that  it  would  be  sealed  by  a  crime  at  which  all  men  shuddered.  For  the 
most  part  they  w^ere  terrorised  into  silence  ;  one  at  least  was  frightened 
into  conspiracy.  Buckingham,  the  representative  of  the  line  of  the 
youngest  son  of  King  Edward  III.,  while  his  mother  was  a  Beaufort, 
entered  upon  a  plot  which  aimed  at  uniting  the  Yorkist  and  Lancastrian 
interests  by  the  marriage  of  the  young  Earl  of  Richmond,  the  head  of  the 
Beaufort  connection,  with  Elizabeth,  the  eldest  daughter  of  Edward  IV. 
But  Buckingham's  insurrection  in  the  autumn  was  abortive.  Premature 
risings  broke  it  up,   and   Buckingham  himself  was  caught  and  beheaded. 


LANCASTER   AND   YORK  217 

Richmond,  who  had  found  safety  in  Brittany  since  his  early  boyhood, 
should  have  joined  the  insurrection,  and  the  delay  caused  by  communicating 
with  him  was  partly  responsible  for  the  false  start  which  ensured  failure. 
It  was  not  his  fault  that  when  he  attempted  to  cross  the  Channel  he  was 
beaten  off  by  tempests,  so  that  when  he  managed  to  reach  England  it  was 
only  to  fmd  that  he  was  too  late  and  must  hasten  back  to  Brittany.  The 
elements  indeed  fought  against  Buckingham  ;  had  the  cause  of  Richard 
been  a  righteous  one,  the  Duke's  overthrow  would  probably  have  been 
attributed  to  Divine  intervention,  for  his  movements  had  been  completely 
paralysed  by  terrific  rains  and  floods. 

Richard  possessed  the  ability  which,  under  happier  circumstances,  might 
have  made  him  a  powerful  king,  held  in  honour  if  not  in  affection  by  posterity ; 
for  like  his  brilliant  brother  he  had  great  military  and  diplomatic  ability, 
and  unlike  him  was  an  untiring  worker,  and  his  administrative  skill  was 
well  tested.  But  Edward's  numerous  progeny  barred  him  from  all  chance 
of  becoming  king  except  by  sheer  usurpation  ;  the  chance  of  usurpation 
presented  itself  only  because  the  king  died  suddenly  before  any  of  his 
offspring  were  of  age.  Ten  years  later,  Gloucester  would  have  had  no 
chance  at  all.  The  temptation  to  seize  the  crown  presented  itself;  he 
yielded  to  it.  The  violence  of  the  methods  by  which  he  had  paralysed 
opposition,  and  the  weakness  of  the  plea  by  which  he  had  procured  the 
setting  aside  of  his  nephew,  drove  him  to  the  murder  of  the  young  princes 
as  the  only  means  of  securing  the  crown  of  which  he  had  robbed  them. 
Fie  had  committed  himself  hopelessly  to  the  career  of  the  typical  tyrant,  upon 
whom  ruthless  violence  is  forced  as  the  only  alternative  to  that  ruin  which 
the  violence  itself  not  seldom  precipitates.  The  murder  of  the  princes 
drove  Buckingham  to  revolt  ;  the  revolt  of  Buckingham  carried  home 
to  Richard  that  there  was  not  one  of  his  supporters  upon  whose  fidelity  he 
could  now  count ;  while  among  those  supporters  no  man  knew  when  the 
king's  distrust  might  display  itself — whether  the  caress  was  merely  the  pre- 
lude to  a  dagger  thrust. 

Yet  after  Buckingham's  fall  there  was  a  pause.  Richard  hoped  to 
strengthen  himself  by  combining  severity  with  conciliation.  In  January  he 
called  the  only  full  parliament  of  his  reign.  As  a  matter  of  course  it  passed 
a  sweeping  Bill  of  Attainder,  not  so  much  in  order  to  penalise  enemies  as 
to  provide  out  of  the  confiscated  estates  means  for  purchasing  support. 
The  Commons  were  conciliated  by  the  king's  abstention  from  calling  for 
taxation,  by  a  statutory  declaration  that  benevolences  were  illegal,  and  by  a 
measure  directed  against  the  corruption  and  intimidation  of  juries.  The 
parliament  further  confirmed  the  succession  of  Richard's  son,  Edward,  who 
had  already  been  made  Prince  of  Wales. 

Then  this  Prince  Edward  died.  There  was  no  prospect  of  another  child 
being  born  to  the  king,  who  was  forced  to  recognise  as  his  heir-presumptive 
John  de  la  Pole,  whom  we  shall  presently  meet  as  the  Earl  of  Lincoln.  If 
the  claim  of  Clarence's  children  had  been   recognised,  it  would  have  taken 


21 8  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

precedence  of  Richard's  own  ;  they  were  set  aside,  on  the  plea  of  Clarence's 
attainder.  John  was  the  son  of  the  eldest  sister  of  Edward  IV.  and 
Richard  III.,  who  had  been  married  to  the  Duke  of  Suffolk. 

Richard  strove  successfully  to  secure  his  own  recognition  from  most  of 
the  continental  potentates  ;  but  France  gave  shelter  to  Richmond  and  to 
the  fugitives  from  England  who  were  gathering  to  his  support.  Henry 
Tudor,  Earl  of  Richmond,  was  recognised  as  their  head  by  the  Lancastrians, 
as  being  the  male  representative  of  the  house  of  Beaufort,  through  his 
mother,  Margaret  Beaufort,  who  had  married  Edmund  Tudor.  Edmund's 
father,  Owen  Tudor,  was  a  Welsh  knight  who  had  married  Catherine  of 
France,  the  widow  of  Henry  V.  This  had  brought  the  Tudors  into  some 
prominence,  but  did  not,  of  course,  affect  the  succession  to  the  Crown. 

Whatever  Richard  may  have  gained  through  his  parliament  in  the  way 
of  popular  favour  was  lost  in  the  following  year,  when  he  again  resorted  to 
illegal  and  arbitrary  methods  of  obtaining  money.  Public  opinion,  too,  was 
further  shocked  by  the  rumour  that  Richard  was  contemplating  a  marriage 
with  his  own  niece,  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Edward  IV.  There  is  some 
warrant  for  the  belief,  in  the  fact  that  Richard  had  abstained,  and  continued 
to  abstain,  from  the  obvious  course  of  marrying  the  girl  to  some  nonentity ; 
and  when  Richard's  queen  died,  it  was  commonly  supposed  that  he  had 
made  away  with  her  in  order  to  facilitate  the  scandalous  design.  Richard 
found  himself  obliged  to  declare  publicly  his  innocence  of  the  purpose  attri- 
buted to  him. 

Through  the  summer,  Henry  was  preparing  for  an  invasion.  In  August 
he  succeeded  in  landing  at  Milford  Haven,  being  secure  of  Welsh  support 
in  virtue  of  his  own  Welsh  descent.  Richard  gathered  an  army,  but  many 
of  the  lords  held  aloof  altogether,  and  many  of  those  who  assembled  wdth 
professions  of  loyalty  to  him  were  suspected,  with  good  reason,  of  treacher- 
ous intent.  The  armies  met  at  Bosworth  Field.  Lord  Stanley  was  approach- 
ing, professedly  to  support  Richard,  but  actually  pledged  to  Henry.  Richard's 
left  wing,  led  by  Northumberland,  refused  to  join  battle.  Richard,  in  the 
centre,  made  a  furious  attack — so  furious  that  for  a  moment  there  seemed  a 
chance  of  victory.  But  only  for  a  moment.  Stanley's  forces  fell  upon  his 
flank.  The  battle  was  lost,  but  Richard  refused  to  fly,  and  fell  upon  the 
field,  fighting  desperately.  The  crown  he  had  been  wearing  on  his  helmet 
was  picked  up  and  set  on  Richmond's  head  by  Lord  Stanley  ;  and  on  the 
field  of  battle  the  victor  was  hailed  as  King  Henry  VII. 


VII 

THE   PROGRESS   OF   ENGLAND 

The  constitutional  history  of  the  century  preceding  the  battle  of  Bosworth 
shows  us  hrst  an  attempt  to  limit  the  powers  of  the  crown,  taking  as  pre- 


LANCASTER   AND   YORK  21  g 

cedents  the  Provisions  of  Oxford  and  the  Lords  Ordainers  ;  then  Richard  II.'s 
attempt  to  free  the  crown  from  all  restraints  and  render  it  despotic  ;  then  the 
premature  subjection  of  the  Crown  to  the  Commons,  whose  new  authority 
collapsed  in  the  face  of  civil  war.  The  civil  war  not  only  paralysed  the 
Commons,  but  also  shattered  the  baronage,  thereby  making  it  possible  for  a 
dynasty  of  able  rulers  to  recover  for  the  Crown  a  degree  of  practical 
autocracy.      But  it  did  not  destroy  the  tradition  of  parliamentary  control. 

Neither  foreign  wars  nor  civil  broils  arrested  the  normal  course  of 
economic  development.  The  foreign  wars  were  fought  on  foreign  soil ;  the 
conquest  of  France  and  the  expulsion  from  France  both  involved  devastation 
of  France,  but  not  of  England.  The  insurrections  under  Richard  II.  and 
Henry  IV.  and  the  War  of  the  Roses  were  largely  in  the  nature  of  faction 
fights  ;  and  though  much  blood  was  shed,  they  were  not,  comparatively 
speaking,  destructive  of  property.  It  is  not,  indeed,  to  be  supposed  that 
agricultural  life  or  town  life  and  commerce  were  unaffected  ;  but  only  in 
rare  instances  was  there  sacking  of  towns,  and  confiscations  were  directed 
not  against  wealthy  burgesses  but  against  the  owners  of  wide  lands.  Hence 
England,  on  the  whole,  was  rather  prosperous  than  otherwise  ;  although  we 
must  decline  to  accept  the  view  of  those  historians  who  have  persuaded 
themselves  that  the  fifteenth  century  was  the  golden  age  of  the  agriculturist 
and  the  craftsman. 

The  return  to  normal  conditions,  after  the  Peasant  Revolt,  ended  the 
reaction  which  had  checked  the  passage  from  tenure  by  service  to  paid 
service  and  tenure  by  rent.  The  villein,  as  a  rule,  became  either  a  "copy- 
holder "  with  a  right  to  his  tenement  in  perpetuity,  subject  to  the  payment 
of  a  rent  which  could  not  be  raised,  or  a  free  labourer ;  not  because  those 
rights  were  extorted  from  reluctant  landowners,  but  because  the  landowners 
found  the  arrangement  profitable.  The  idea  of  servitude  passed  away, 
and  nothing  was  heard  about  "  bondage  "  in  Jack  Cade's  insurrection.  The 
copyholder  ceased  to  sympathise  with  the  labourer,  when  he  was  himself 
freed  from  the  fear  of  enforced  services  and  possibly  wished  to  hire  labour. 
The  labourer,  on  the  other  hand,  could  command  adequate  wages,  because 
as  yet  the  supply  of  labour  did  not  exceed  the  demand  except  in  the 
off  seasons.  But  it  cannot  be  assumed  that  employment  was  regular 
throughout  the  year,  or  that  the  recorded  rates  of  wages  represent  the 
average  wage  received  throughout  the  year  by  the  individual  labourer. 

There  was  another  outcome  of  the  depopulation  and  disorganisation 
consequent  upon  the  Black  Death.  A  great  deal  of  the  land  was  thrown 
out  of  cultivation  altogether,  and  much  of  it  was  not  brought  back  into 
cultivation  because  at  the  first  it  was  not  necessary  to  grow  so  much  food 
as  before,  apart  from  the  fact  that  there  was  not  sufficient  labour  available. 
Whole  families  of  the  villeins,  nay,  in  some  cases  entire  villages,  had  been 
swept  away  by  the  pestilence  ;  and  many  villein  holdings,  reverting  to  the 
lords  of  the  manor,  were  absorbed  into  demesne  lands.  The  lords  then,  as 
a  mere  matter  of  convenience,  turned  over  what  had  formally  been  tilled 


220  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

land  to  pasture,  growing  sheep  on  it  instead  of  attempting  to  restore  it  aS 
arable.  Nobody  was  the  worse,  and  the  sheep  did  not  demand  the  same 
amount  of  labour  as  tillage  ;  which,  in  view  of  the  shortage  of  labour,  was 
advantageous.  On  the  other  hand,  with  the  ever-increasing  demand  for 
wool,  the  landlords  began  to  wake  up  to  the  fact  that  wool-growing  was  a 
profitable  occupation,  more  profitable  than  corn-growing  when  low  prices 
ruled.  Out  of  these  things  trouble  arose  presently,  but  it  was  not  actively 
felt  until  some  while  after  Henry  VII.  was  seated  on 
the  throne. 

The  policy  of  Edward  III.  gave  an  impetus  to 
commercial  life  which  was  actively  felt  in  the  tov/ns, 
and  developed  the  mercantile  class  and  commercial 
enterprise.  With  the  growth  of  the  cloth-working 
industry,  the  ''staples"  in  which  the  merchants  of 
the  staple  dealt  ceased  to  be  the  only  goods  for 
which  the  English  merchant  sought  to  find  a  market 
abroad.  But  the  individual  merchant  found  in- 
numerable barriers  to  interfere  with  his  trade  in 
foreign  cities.  The  German  towns  of  the  Hanseatic 
League  had  been  admitted  to  trade  privileges  in 
England  on  the  hypothesis  that  they  would  grant 
corresponding  privileges  to  English  traders ;  but  the 
individual  trader  was  not  strong  enough  to  get  his 
rights  recognised.  Hence  the  great  mercantile  com- 
pany of  the  Merchant  Adventurers  received  a  charter 
in  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.  granting  it  a  monopoly  of 
foreign  trade  in  other  than  staple  goods,  since  a 
company  could  fight  its  own  battles  very  much 
better  than  isolated  traders.  There  was  a  jealousy, 
indeed,  between  the  Merchant  Adventurers  and  the 
Merchants  of  the  Staple,  because  the  main  trade  of 
the  former  was  in  cloth,  the  manufactured  article, 
and  of  the  latter  in  wool,  the  raw  material  ;  and 
the  cloth  workers  sought  to  check  the  export  of  wool  in  order  to  cheapen 
it  at  home,  so  that  the  interests  of  the  two  associations  conflicted.  The 
fifteenth  century,  however,  saw  the  Merchant  Adventurers  steadily  and 
successfully  forcing  their  w-ay  into  foreign  markets. 

With  the  expansion  of  trade  and  the  increase  of  manufactures,  even  in 
a  very  limited  field,  capitalism  came  into  being.  That  is  to  say,  men  found 
that  when  they  accumulated  wealth  they  could  carry  on  operations  on  a 
larger  scale ;  and  also  that  the  surplus  wealth  not  required  for  extending 
their  own  operations  could  be  profitably  applied  by  others.  In  the  chartered 
towns,  every  one  was  under  the  strict  supervision  and  regulations  of  the 
craft  gilds,  but  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  the  borough  men  could 
follow  their  own  devices.     Thus  it  was  to  a  great  extent  in  new  unchartered 


An  alderman  of  London 
[  From  a  brass.  ] 


LANCASTER    AND   YORK  221 

towns  that  the  cloth-working  industry  grew  up  and  flourished ;  and  to  this, 
in  part  at  least,  may  be  attributed  that  decay  of  some  of  the  older 
boroughs  from  which  a  falling  off  in  the  general  prosperity  has  sometimes 
been  inferred.     Trade  was  drawn  away  from  them  to  the  new  centres. 

The  fact  that  there  was  a  great  deal  of  private  wealth  is  demonstrated  by 
the  great  expenditure  in  this  century  upon  building — a  form  of  outlay  in 
which  none  but  rich  men  could  indulge.  But  it  would  seem  rather  that  a  few 
men  were  acquiring  great  wealth  than  that  the  normal  standard  was  greatly 
raised  as  a  result  of  the  new  methods. 
The  craftsman  was  tending  to  become 
the  client  of  the  big  trader  rather 
than  an  independent  trader  on  his 
own  account.  The  journeyman's 
chance  of  setting  up  for  himself  dimin- 
ished, as  it  became  necessary  to  start 
business  with  a  substantial  stock-in- 
trade.  The  old  days  had  departed 
when  the  craftsman  had  required 
little  more  than  the  tools  with  which 
he  executed  the  orders  that  came  to 
him,  working  upon  materials  which 
were  provided  for  him.  The  man 
who  wanted  custom  must  have  wares 
to  exhibit  instead  of  merely  waiting  for  orders,  and  wares  to  exhibit  meant 
capital  locked  up.  So  the  average  journeyman  no  longer  regarded  himself 
as  being  on  the  way  to  become  a  master  craftsman,  but  expected  to  remain 
a  journeyman  all  his  days.  Thus  the  fifteenth  century  saw  the  beginnings 
of  the  opposition  between  capital  and  labour,  between  employers  and 
employed. 

With  regard  to  foreign  commerce,  it  must  be  remarked  that  England  had 
scarcely  as  yet  developed  a  carrying  trade.  In  this  department  she  could 
not  compete  with  the  cities  of  Italy  and  the  Low  Countries.  It  was  to 
encourage  English  shipping  more  from  a  military  than  from  a  com- 
mercial point  of  view  that  the  first  Navigation  Act  was  passed  in  the  reign 
of  Richard  II.,  requiring  that  goods  should  be  brought  for  import  either 
in  English  bottoms  or  in  the  ships  of  the  exporting  country.  The  regula- 
tion was,  in  fact,  so  impracticable  that  it  very  soon  became  a  dead  letter. 
English  sailors  generally  held  their  own  in  the  narrow  seas  ;  but  the  great 
development  of  English  shipping  for  all  purposes  was  the  work  of  the 
Tudor  period. 


A  merchant. 
[From  Ca.xton's  "Book  of  Chess,' 


I475-] 


222  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

VIII 
SCOTLAND 

Scottish  history,  while  the  houses  of  Lancaster  and  York  were  occupy- 
ing the  throne  of  England,  is  a  somewhat  dreary  record.  When  Robert  III. 
died,  in  1406,  his  successor  on  the  throne,  James  I.,  was  a  boy  of  eleven, 
and  was,  moreover,  a  captive  in  the  hands  of  the  English  king.  From, 
that  time  until  more  than  two  hundred  years  afterwards,  when  Charles  I. 
succeeded  to  the  crown  of  Scotland  and  of  England,  every  Scottish  sove- 
reign was  a  child  when  he  or  she  succeeded  to  the  crown,  and  only  one 
was  over  twelve  years  of  age.  Of  the  whole  series,  not  one  attained  to 
the  age  of  five-and-forty  except  the  last,  James  VI.  of  Scotland  and  I.  of 
England.  During  the  eighty  years  now  under  review  there  were  three 
kings  of  Scotland.  James  I.  spent  the  first  eighteen  years  of  his  nominal 
reign  in  captivity  ;  thirteen  years  after  his  return  to  Scotland  he  was 
murdered.  James  II.  was  then  six  years  old;  he  was  killed  by  the  bursting 
of  a  cannon  before  he  was  thirty.  James  III.  was  eight  years  old,  and 
was  killed  in  a  baronial  revolt  at  the  age  of  thirty-six,  three  years  after 
the  accession  of  the  first  Tudor.  Each  of  the  three  reigns  involved  a  long 
regency,  and  a  regency  commonly  meant  a  prolonged  struggle  for  ascen- 
dency between  baronial  factions.  Under  such  conditions  no  country 
could  prosper,  and  history  to  a  great  extent  degenerates  into  a  record 
of  deeds  of  violence. 

When  King  Robert  died,  his  brother,  Robert,  Duke  of  Albany — it  will 
be  remembered  that  the  king's  real  name  was  John — became  regent.  He 
was  already  an  old  man,  almost  seventy  years  of  age.  Although  he  has 
been  much  vilified,  the  fourteen  years  of  his  rule  as  regent  seem  to 
show  him  as,  on  the  whole,  a  praiseworthy  administrator.  The  head  and 
front  of  his  offending  was  his  failure  to  procure  the  liberation  of  his  nephew 
and  king  ;  and  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  find  for  this  some  excuse  in 
the  fact  that  he  failed  also  for  ten  years  to  procure  the  release  of  his 
own  son,  Murdach,  who  had  been  taken  prisoner  at  Homildon  Hill.  Albany, 
in  fact,  managed  to  keep  the  peace  among  the  barons,  refused  to  tax  the 
commons,  and  accomplished  nothing  serious  to  the  detriment  of  England. 
The  most  notable  event  of  his  rule  was  the  great  battle  of  Harlaw,  at  which 
Donald,  Lord  of  the  Isles,  met  with  a  great  defeat.  The  Isles,  it  must  be 
remembered,  were  populated  by  Celts  and  Celticised  Scandinavians  ;  they 
had  not  definitely  recognised  the  sovereignty  of  the  King  of  Scots  until 
the  reign  of  Alexander  III.,  and  although  the  Lord  of  the  Isles  in  Bruce's  day 
had  lent  King  Robert  valuable  assistance  at  Bannockburn,  his  descendants, 
and  half  Celtic  Scotland,  scarcely  looked  upon  themselves  as  subjects 
of  the  Scots  king,  and  only  recognised  a  hazy  sovereignty.      If  disunited 


LANCASTER   AND   YORK  223 

amongst  themselves  by  tribal  rivalries  and  divisions,  still  tradition,  customs, 
race,  and  language  set  a  wider  gulf  between  them  collectively  and  the 
Normanised  "  Saxons  "  of  the  south  and  east.  The  occasion  of  Donald's 
rising  was  a  claim  to  the  earldom  of  Ross  ;  but  it  has  been  very  commonly 
looked  upon  as  a  bid  for  Celtic  supremacy.  Donald  raised  a  great  High- 
land host,  and  was  marching  upon  Aberdeen  when  he  was  met  by  Alex- 
ander Stewart,  Earl  of  Mar.  At  the  "  Red  Harlaw  "  there  was  a  terrific 
slaughter  ;  both  sides  claimed  the  victory  ;  but  the  practical  effect  was 
that  Donald  retired,  and  the  Highlands  and  Lowlands  were  never  again 
pitted  against  each  other  until  the  days  when  the  Highlanders  were  them- 
selves the  champions  of  the  house  of  Stuart. 

At  the  close  of  his  long  life,  when  Henry  V.  was  bringing  all  northern 
France  beneath  his  rule,  Albany  sent  succours  to  the  ancient  ally  of 
Scotland  which  played  a  creditable  and  valorous  part  in  the  French  struggle. 
It  was  a  Scottish  force  which  inflicted  the  first  great  defeat  upon  the 
English  at  the  battle  of  Bauge  in  1420  ;  it  was  Scottish  troops  that 
bore  the  brunt  of  the  fighting  when  Bedford  won  his  victories  at  Cr^vant 
and  Verneuil  ;  there  were  Scots  with  Joan  of  Arc  at  Pataye  ;  and  a  Scot- 
tish historian  has  remarked,  with  justifiable  pride,  that  the  Scots  alone 
were  loyal  to  the  Maid  of  Orleans  to  the  last. 

But  all  these  doings  came  after  the  old  Duke  of  Albany  was  dead. 
From  1420  to  1424  his  incompetent  son,  Murdach,  tookhis  place  as  regent. 
Then  James  I.  returned  to  his  country  to  find  it  in  a  ghastly  state  of  misrule 
and  disorder,  which  he  attributed,  somewhat  unjustly,  to  the  iniquities  of 
his  uncle  and  cousin.  His  eighteen  years  in  England  had  taught  him  a 
good  deal  ;  he  resolved  at  all  costs  to  restore  order  in  his  own  land  ;  and 
the  first  condition  of  doing  so  was  to  establish  the  royal  authority  over  the 
turbulent  nobility.  The  house  of  Albany  was  popular  with  the  commons, 
and  the  king  gained  no  general  favour  by  striking  at  it.  But  the  policy 
he  adopted  was  to  strike,  and  strike  hard,  at  the  most  powerful  and  the 
most  turbulent.  Albany  himself,  and  others  of  his  kin  with  sundry  of  the 
leading  nobles,  were  brought  to  the  block.  The  king's  arbitrary  rule 
stirred  up  fierce  personal  animosities  against  him  ;  but  his  hand  was  strong, 
and  his  aims  were  just,  whatever  may  be  thought  of  his  methods.  He  was 
a  vigorous  legislator,  and  his  primary  objects  were  those  of  Henry  I. 
in  England — the  establishment  of  a  definite  law,  the  diminution  of  the 
power  of  the  baronage,  some  increase  in  the  power  of  the  commons 
to  counterbalance  the  barons,  and  the  strengthening  of  the  crown.  But  he 
did  not  make  himself  popular,  and  he  did  incur  bitter  hostility.  The  result 
was  a  plot  for  his  assassination,  which  w^as  carried  out  at  Perth.  The  band 
of  murderers  broke  into  the  house  where  he  was  lying.  The  king  was 
sitting  with  the  queen  and  her  ladies.  He  was  unarmed,  and  at  the  noise 
of  the  assassins'  approach  was  hastily  concealed  in  a  cellar  under  the  floor. 
The  murderers  broke  in,  searched  for  him  in  vain,  and  retired  ;  the  king 
came  out  of  his  hiding-place.     When  they  were  heard  returning,  Catherine 


224  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

Douglas — "Catherine  Bar-lass" — thrust  her  arm  through  the  staples  of 
the  door  and  held  it  while  the  king  got  back  into  the  cellar  ;  but  that  slender 
bolt  did  not  prevent  the  door  from  being  burst  open.  Again  the  room  was 
searched,  and  the  entry  to  the  cellar  was  discovered.  The  armed  assassins 
leapt  down  upon  him  ;  the  king  with  his  bare  hands  almost  succeeded  in 
slaying  one  of  them,  but  was  himself  despatched  by  their  daggers.  There 
is  a  tragic  fitness  in  the  dramatic  end  of  the  king  who  sang  his  own  love- 
romance  in  verse  which  has  given  him  an  assured  place  among  the  poets. 

Among  the  Scottish  nobility  no  house  was  so  powerful,  none  held  such 
wide  domains,  none  possessed  so  high  a  reputation  for  knightly  valour  as 
that  of  Douglas.  From  the  good  Lord  James,  the  <'  Black  Douglas,"  the 
most  picturesque  of  all  the  Bruce's  comrades-in-arms,  to  the  hero  of 
Otterburn  and  the  luckless  warrior  of  Homildon  Hill  and  Shrewsbury  fight, 
the  Douglases  were  ever  "bonny  fighters."  But  in  the  reign  of  James  II. 
the  house  of  the  Black  Douglas  waxed  so  powerful  as  to  be  a  positive  danger 
to  the  crown,  and  even,  according  to  its  enemies,  to  Scottish  nationality  ; 
since  the  strife  between  the  Stewart  dynasty  and  its  mighty  vassal  drove  the 
latter  into  relations  with  England  which  at  the  best  were  compromising. 
During  the  greater  part  of  the  young  king's  minority,  indeed,  the  Douglases 
did  not  take  the  opportunity  to  strike  for  power.  The  struggle  was  rather 
between  two  high  officials,  Livingstone  and  Crichton,  who  only  united  for 
the  purpose  of  striking  down  one  of  the  Douglases  who  threatened  to 
obtain  a  personal  ascendency  over  the  boy-king's  mind.  But  when  William 
Douglas  succeeded  to  the  earldom  in  1443,  the  Douglas  activities  became 
ominous.  WiUiam  extended  his  own  dominions  by  marriage  so  that  half 
the  Lowlands  were  under  his  sway  ;  he  procured  an  earldom  also  for  his 
brother,  and  he  made  a  "  bond  "  with  Crawford,  the  greatest  of  the  northern 
earls.  An  outbreak  of  English  border  warfare  in  1448  gave  the  Douglases 
renewed  opportunity  for  gaining  prestige  as  soldiers.  Over  the  Douglas 
domains  the  royal  authority  was  practically  ignored.  In  1452,  young 
James,  being  then  just  twenty,  met  his  great  feudatory  with  the  apparent 
intention  of  effecting  a  reconciliation  ;  but  instead  of  doing  so,  he  lost  his 
temper  and  stabbed  the  earl  with  his  own  hand.  From  that  moment  the 
feud  between  the  crown  and  the  Douglases  became  open.  For  the  next 
three  years  something  not  unlike  the  English  War  of  the  Roses  was  going 
on  in  Scotland  ;  but  the  conclusion  was  the  overthrow  of  the  great  house  of 
Douglas  in  1455.  By  its  downfall,  another  branch  of  the  family,  the  "  Red  " 
Douglases  of  Angus,  who  had  supported  the  crown  against  the  "  Black" 
Douglases,  rose  to  the  front  rank. 

During  the  next  five  years  James  ruled  with  vigour,  and  utilised  the 
dissensions  of  York  and  Lancaster  for  operations  against  the  English,  at 
least  whenever  the  Yorkists  were  dominant.  It  was  while  besieging 
Roxburgh,  a  fortress  still  held  by  the  English,  that  James  was  killed  in  his 
thirtieth  year  by  the  explosion  of  a  cannon.  In  spite  of  his  wild  deed 
when,  at  the  age  of  twenty,  James  murdered  William   Douglas  in  a  fit  of 


LANCASTER   AND   YORK  225 

passion  as  Robert  Bruce  had  slain  the  Red  Comyn,  he  gave  promise  in 
the  few  years  that  remained  of  proving  an  exceedingly  capable  ruler  ;  but 
his  premature  death  again  plunged  Scotland  into  the  woes  of  a  long 
regency. 

Yet,  for  five  years  the  country  was  governed  with  no  little  skill  and  states- 
manship by  Bishop  Kennedy;  even  after  his  death,  matters  went  not 
altogether  ill.  Perhaps  the  most  interesting  event  of  these  years  was  the 
marriage  of  the  young  king  to  Margaret  of  Denmark.  Under  the  marriage 
treaty,  Denmark  handed  over  to  Scotland  the  Orkneys  and  Shetlands, 
which  had  hitherto  remained  part  of  the  Scandinavian  dominions,  in  pledge 
of  the  payment  of  a  considerable  sum  of  money  as  the  bride's  dowry.  The 
money  was  never  paid,  and  thus  the  islands  became  part  of  the  Scottish 
kingdom. 

In  fact,  the  whole  period  of  the  regency  was  not  in  itself  disastrous  ; 
but  it  did  not  have  the  same  effect  as  the  continuation  of  rule  by  a  strong 
king  such  as  James  II.  promised  to  be.  Unhappily,  James  III.  was  not  the 
man  to  carry  out  a  strong  policy.  From  the  time  when  he  came  of  age  he 
fell  into  the  hands  of  low-born  favourites,  despised  as  upstarts  by  the  whole 
of  the  nobility.  James  himself  was  born  out  of  due  time,  a  lover  of  the 
arts  and  devoid  of  those  qualities  essential  to  a  king  who  had  to  rule  over 
a  turbulent  and  warlike  nobility  and  people.  In  the  general  dissatisfac- 
tion, the  king's  brother,  the  Duke  of  Albany,  developed  ambitious  designs  of 
taking  James's  place  on  the  throne.  He  was  driven  from  the  country,  and 
intrigued  with  Edward  IV.  for  a  restoration  which  was  to  give  him  the 
crown  as  a  vassal  of  England.  Instead  of  carrying  out  that  plan,  how- 
ever, he  effected  a  temporary  reconciliation  with  his  brother ;  but  the 
obvious  hollowness  of  this  drove  him  to  renew  his  negotiations  with  Edward, 
and  in  1483  he  was  in  effect  again  expelled  from  Scotland.  His  death  in 
France  by  an  accident  at  a  tournament  relieved  Scotland  of  this  particular 
danger.  The  final  disasters  of  James's  reign  befell  only  after  Henry  VII.  had 
secured  the  English  crown. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE    MIDDLE    AGES 

I 

POLITICAL  ASPECTS 

The  landmark  which  British  historians  select  as  setting  the  boundary 
between  the  medieval  and  the  modern  is  the  accession  of  the  house  of 
Tudor.  There  was,  in  fact,  no  sudden  and  violent  change  at  that  particular 
moment.  But  in  the  hundred  years  or  so  of  which  1485  is  approximately 
the  central  point,  events  occurred  and  movements  culminated  which 
differentiate  the  medieval  from  the  modern  world.  The  political  structure 
of  Western  Christendom  was  changed  ;  the  boundaries  of  the  known  world 
were  expanded  ;  the  fetters  by  which  intellectual  progress  had  been  bound 
were  broken  ;  and  we  may  pause  to  inquire  what  were  the  characteristic 
features  of  what  we  call  the  Middle  Ages  which  distinguish  them  from  what 
we  call  modern  times. 

The  first  and  most  obvious  fact  is  that  Western  Christendom  was 
practically  acquainted  with  only  quarter  of  the  Eastern  Hemisphere,  one- 
eighth  of  the  world  known  to  us  to-day,  namely,  the  western  quarter  lying 
north  of  the  Equator.  All  that  lay  beyond  was  either  a  sheer  blank  or  a 
region  of  travellers'  tales  and  nothing  more.  To  the  inhabited  world  as 
known  to  the  Romans  was  added  during  the  Middle  Ages  so  much  of 
Europe  as  lies  between  the  Baltic  Sea  and  the  Danube,  together  with 
Norway  and  Sweden.  In  short,  the  entire  civilised  world  as  known  to 
Christendom  meant  Europe  west  of  what  is  now  Russia,  Asia  west  of  the 
Euphrates,  and  the  Mediterranean  coast  of  Africa. 

These  were  the  physical  limitations  whose  disappearance  differentiates 
the  medieval  from  the  modern.  Next  to  it  we  must  place  a  distinction  of 
another  kind.  Medieval  Europe  was  dominated  by  the  Roman  conception 
of  the  Empire  as  a  universal  political  dominion,  and  by  the  Christian  con- 
ception of  the  Church  as  a  universal  theocratic  dominion ;  both  involving 
the  idea  of  the  fundamental  unity  of  Christendom  in  opposition  to  the 
common  enemy,  whether  regarded  as  the  barbarian  from  the  political 
point  of  view  or  the  infidel  from  the  ecclesiastical.  All  Christendom, 
however,  setting  aside  always  the  Greek  Empire  and  the  Greek  Church, 
recognised  vaguely  one  temporal  liead  in  the  Emperor  and  one  spiritual 
liead  in  the  Pope. 

226 


THE    MIDDLE    AGES  227 

Closely  associated  with  this,  perhaps  merely  another  aspect  of  it,  is  the 
fact  that  medievalism  was  the  outcome  of  the  collision  between  the  elabor- 
ate civilisation  of  the  Christianised  Roman  Empire  and  the  tribal  civilisa- 
tion of  the  Teutonic  barbarians.  For  the  mixture  of  these  two  civilisations, 
resulting  from  the  Teutonic  conquest,  produced  Feudalism.  A  political 
organisation  based  on  the   Empire,  a  religious  organisation  based  on  the 


An  English  knight  in  full  caparison,  1345. 
[Sir  GeoftVey  Luttrell  and  his  wife,  from  the  Luttrell  Psalter.] 

Papacy,  and  a  social  structure  resting  on  Feudalism,  were  the  fundamental 
bases  of  medievalism. 

Next,  if  we  seek  to  discover  what  was  the  fundamental  medieval  con- 
ception of  the  function  of  government,  we  shall  find  it  in  the  compulsory 
subordination  of  the  interests  of  individual  persons  or  communities  to  the 
interests  of  the  community  in  general,  as  conceived  by  those  in  whom  the 
power  was  vested — a  qualification  of  no  small  importance.  In  the  medieval 
idea,  there  is  practically  no  limit  to  the  right  of  intervention  by  fully  con- 
stituted authority.  It  is  by  universal  assent  warranted  in  carrying  the 
interference  and  regulation  down  to  the  minutest  details.  It  may  regulate 
a  man's  clothes,  the  prices  at  which  he  sells  or  buys  labour  or  goods,  his 


228  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

employment,  his  very  thoughts.  There  is  no  question  in  the  medieval 
mind  that  authority  possesses  this  right  ;  though  the  power  to  enforce  it 
may  be  v^anting.  The  modern  problems  as  to  the  limits  of  State  interfer- 
ence had  not  suggested  themselves.  The  question  which  did  arise  was  a 
different  one — whether  the  authority  which  claimed  the  right  was  precisely 
the  authority  which  possessed  it  ;  to  which  the  ansv%'er  could  often  be  ascer- 
tained only  by  an  appeal  to  force.  In  the  language  of  modern  political 
science,  the  question  where  the  sovereignty  resided  was  in  constant  dis- 
pute, because  the  relative  amounts  of  physical  force  under  the  control  of  the 
different  claimants  to  authority  were  open  to  doubt.  The  one  indisputable 
fact  was  that  the  superior  control  of  physical  force  did  not  lie  with  the 
masses  of  the  population,  and  therefore  the  sovereignty  did  not  reside  in 
them.  The  conflict  as  to  sovereignty  still  continues  in  modern  times,  but 
on  somewhat  different  lines. 

Most  notable  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  the  political  conflict  between  the 
ecclesiastical  and  the  temporal  claims.  The  Spiritual  endeavoured  to 
dominate  the  Secular  authority  ;  the  Church  claimed  to  control  the  State. 
For  two  hundred  years,  from  Hildebrand  to  Boniface  VIII.,  the  Popes  very 
nearly  made  good  their  claim.  For  another  two  hundred  years  they  did 
not  surrender  it.  But  the  Reformation  and  the  counter-Reformation  taken 
together  left  the  Papacy  wholly  without  control  over  temporal  affairs  out- 
side the  States  of  the  Church  in  Italy.  As  between  the  secular  and  the 
spiritual  powers,  the  question  was  no  longer  whether  the  State  should  sub- 
mit to  being  treated  as  in  bondage  to  the  Church,  but  whether  the  Church 
should  be  treated  as  in  bondage  to  the  State. 

Thus  in  the  medieval  world  the  primary  conflict  of  authorities  was  that 
between  the  spiritual  and  the  secular,  the  Church  and  the  State,  which  in 
modern  times,  at  least  in  the  leading  States  of  Europe,  fell  completely  into  the 
background.  But  in  the  field  of  religion  itself  there  was  no  such  conflict.  The 
modern  spirit  seeks  to  distinguish  between  matters  which  are  and  matters 
which  are  not  proper  ol:)jects  for  the  compelling  intervention  of  authority;  and 
in  the  modern  view  authority  has  nothing  to  say  to  the  private  opinions  of 
the  individual.  What  he  believes  or  disbelieves  concerns  no  one  but 
himself,  so  long,  at  least,  as  he  does  not  force  his  views  upon  his  neigh- 
bours. Moreover,  what  a  man  believes  is  that  which  satisfies  his  reason  ; 
you  cannot  make  him  believe  or  disbelieve  to  order  ;  you  can  only  control 
his  professions.  He  himself  even  cannot  force  himself  to  believe  what  he 
would  like  to  believe.  But  in  the  medieval  view,  false  opinions  were  a 
proof  of  moral  obliquity.  As  concerned  religion  at  least,  authority  pro- 
nounced upon  the  truth  absolutely,  and  no  one  could  be  permitted  to 
question  its  pronouncement.  Nor  was  there  any  doubt  where  the  authority 
lay.  Rome  w^as  the  final  Court  of  Appeal.  The  Reformation  was  in  one 
of  its  aspects  the  repudiation  of  Rome  as  the  ultimate  authority,  whether 
the  reformers  substituted  for  it  the  authority  of  the  Sci  iptures,  or  of  the 
Church  Universal,  or  recognised  no  appeal  except  to  human  reason.     In 


THE    MIDDLE    AGES  229 

the  field  of  religion  the  change  from  medievalism  was  one  from  the 
acceptance  of  an  established  ultimate  authority  to  a  conflict  of  authorities 
or  to  the  repudiation  of  all  authority. 

The  second  conflict  was  that  between  the  crown  and  the  great  nobles, 
between  the  centralising  and  the  centrifugal  forces ;  the  crown  always 
seeking  to  extend  the  single  authority  over  a  wide  area,  the  baronage 
commonly  seeking  to  preserve  a  congeries  of  practically  independent  units 
with  a  single  supreme  untrammelled  authority  in  each.  This  is  crossed 
by  a  separate  contest  on  the  part  of  the  cities  to  set  up  a  distinct  authority 
of  their  own.  This  battle  was  not  fully  fought  out  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  in  Britain  it  followed  a  course  markedly  different  from  that 
which  it  took  on  the  Continent.  But  in  the  main  it  stands  true  that  the 
fundamental  political  struggle  was  that  between  the  centralising  pressure  of 


A  Royal  carnage  and  its  escort  about  1480. 

the  crown  and  the  disintegrating  pressure  of  feudalism  ;  in  which  centralisa- 
tion carried  the  day,  but  usually,  outside  of  Britain,  left  monarchy  and 
aristocracy  in  close  alliance  and  mutual  dependence.  Thence  arose  the 
modern  conflict  between  the  monarchy  joined  with  the  aristocracy  on  the 
one  hand,  and  on  the  other  the  commons  of  the  middle  class,  and  ulti- 
mately the  proletariat,  tending  to  transfer  the  seat  of  authority  from  the 
former  to  the  latter. 

The  foregoing  generalisations  with  regard  to  the  Middle  Ages  must 
be  qualified  when  we  turn  our  attention  to  particular  countries,  and 
especially  in  the  case  of  our  own  country.  Geographical  conditions 
kept  the  British  Isles  apart  from  the  rest  of  Western  Christendom  as 
they  had  kept  them  apart  from  the  Roman  Empire.  Britain  was  never 
completely  Romanised,  and  the  Teutonic  invader  did  not  in  effect  find 
himself  in  contact  with  Roman  civilisation.  Roman  influences  hardly 
touched  him,  and  his  isolation  prevented  him  from  being  materially  affected 
by  the  changes  in  the  Teutonic  civilisation  of  the  Continent.     The  English 


2:50  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

stood  outside  the  new  Holy  Roman  or  German  Empire  more  completely 
than  the  Britons  had  remained  outside  the  old  Roman  Empire.  To  a 
greater  degree  they  were  brought  within  the  ecclesiastical  dominion  of  the 
Holy  See,  but  still  in  a  very  much  less  degree  than  their  continental 
neighbours.  A  Saxon  king  of  England  could  appropriate  to  himself  the 
imperial  title  of  "  Basileus,"  implying  a  claim  to  equality  with  the 
Emperor,  and  a  Pope  could  designate  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  ^^ papa 
alterius  orbis,"  implying  at  least  what  in  a  secular  dominion  would  be  called 
vice-regal  authority.  To  the  English,  as  to  every  one  else,  the  Pope  and 
the  Emperor  were  the  two  heads  of  Christendom  by  courtesy  ;  but  the 
Pope  exercised  hardly  any  direct  authority,  and  the  Emperor  none  at  all. 
Thus  the  people  of  these  islands  were  able  to  follow  out  their  development 
in  comparative  isolation  on  national  lines,  modified  but  not  absorbed  by 
the  political  organisation  of  the  Empire,  the  ecclesiastical  organisation  of  the 
Papacy,  and  the  social  structure  of  continental  Feudalism. 

Accident  united  the  North  English  to  the  Celtic  kingdom  of  the  Scots, 
and  drew  a  dividing  line  between  Scotland  and  England,  from  Sohvay  to 
Tweed  mouth  ;  so  that  Scotland  and  England  developed  their  nationality 
separately,  while  both  stood  outside  the  general  current  v/hich  was  mould- 
ing Europe.  Neither  the  Norman  Conquest  nor  the  Angevin  Succes- 
sion bridged  the  English  Channel  or  effectively  destroyed  the  isolation 
which  enabled  them  to  consolidate  their  nationality  apart.  To  some 
extent  the  Scandinavian  kingdoms  also  remained  apart ;  that  is,  as  States 
they  remained  outside  the  borders  of  the  Empire,  though  they  planted  their 
colonies  not  only  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  but  in  France,  in 
Sicily,  and  in  Southern  Italy.  The  aggression  of  the  Scandinavians,  how- 
ever, ceased  after  the  eleventh  century. 

But  the  national  idea  was  not  confined  to  the  British  Isles  and  Scandi- 
navia, the  two  great  divisions  which  never  came  within  the  boundaries  of 
the  Empire.  During  the  Middle  Ages,  France  too  became  an  individual 
nation  and  the  Spanish  Peninsula  was  also  nationalised.  Both  France  and 
Northern  Spain  were  included  in  the  Empire  of  Charlemagne  ;  and  it  was 
only  when  the  Carolingian  dynasty  which  ruled  over  the  western  portion  of 
the  Frankish  dominion  gave  place  to  the  dynasty  of  the  Capets  that  France 
was  definitely  and  permanently  separated  from  the  Empire.  And  France 
was  then  already  completely  in  the  grip  of  the  feudal  system.  Hence  the 
consolidation  both  of  England  and  of  Scotland  long  preceded  the  consoli- 
dation of  France.  It  was  not  till  after  the  final  expulsion  of  the  English 
that  the  process  was  completed.  Almost  at  the  same  time  the  similar  pro- 
cess was  completed  in  the  Spanish  Peninsula.  The  union  of  the  crowns 
of  Aragon  and  Castile,  and  the  overthrow  of  the  Moorish  kingdom  of 
Granada,  shaped  the  Peninsula  into  the  two  greater  and  smaller  nations  of 
Spain  and  Portugal,  somewhat  as  the  island  of  Great  Britain  had  been 
shaped  into  the  greater  and  smaller  nations  of  England  and  Scotland. 
Thus  there  were  at  the  last  three  great  national  States  on  the  west  of  Europe, 


THE    MIDDLE    AGES  ^31 

besides  Scotland  and  Portugal,      But  a   like  process  of   consolidation   had 

not  taken  place  in  Central  Europe.     Germany  was  still  only  a  collection 

of  Teutonic  States  professing  allegiance  and  a 

very  limited  obedience  to  one  Emperor  ;  while 

Italy  was  a  collection  of  small  Latin  States, 

individually  far  in  advance  of  the  rest  of  the 

world  in  culture,   but   without   any   effective 

sense  of  common  nationality.     The  republic 

of  Venice  had  built  up  a  great  maritime  power, 

and  her  fleets  were  still  one  of  the  bulwarks 

of  Europe  against  the  Ottoman  Turks,  who, 

in     1453,    finally    overthrew    the    Byzantine 

Empire  when  they  captured  Constantinople  ; 

but   though    she    might    fairly    be   called    an 

imperial    city,    Venice    did    not    constitute    a 

nation. 

At  the  very  close  of  our  period,  Charles 
the  Rash  of  Burgundy  endeavoured  to  build 
up  what  we  should  call  another  first-class 
Power.  With  the  Netherlands  and  the  Bur- 
gundies already  under  his  dominion,  it  was 
his  ambition  to  construct  a  heterogeneous 
kingdom  which  should  extend  from  the  North 
Sea  to  the  Mediterranean.  That  design  was 
frustrated,  and  Provence,  as  well  as  the  Duchy 
of  Burgundy,  was  absorbed  into  France. 
But  what  happened  instead  in  the  course  of 
the  next  fifty  years  was  that  the  Austrian 
House  of  Hapsburg  built  up  for  its  members 
through  a  series  of  marriages  a  huge  dominion 
which  comprised  the  Austrian  duchies  of 
South  Germany,  the  Magyar  and  Slavonic 
kingdoms  of  Hungary  and  Bohemia,  the  whole 
Burgundian  inheritance,  the  Spanish  kingdom, 
and  some  slices  of  Italy,  besides  permanently 
appropriating  the  succession  to  the  imperial 
crown.  Although  this  vast  dominion  with  its 
numerous  nationalities  was  parted  between 
two  branches  of  the  house  of  Hapsburg, 
it  not  only  expanded  the  Spanish  dominion, 
but  made  the  Austrian  Hapsburgs  a  first-class 
Power  exercising  a  dominant  influence  over 
the  States  of  Germany.  Consequently,  international  politics  assumed  a 
phase  unknown  in  the  medieval  period  ;  so  that  the  keynote  of  European 
diplomacy    came   to    be    found    in    the    phrase,   ''  the    Balance   of    Pov/er." 


A  complete  suit  of  Gothic  armour,  about 

1470. 

[From  the  Wallace  Collection.] 


232       ^  NATIONAL    CONSOLIDATION 

That  is  to  say,  while  each  State  sought  a  preponderance  for  itself,  it 
sought  also  to  keep  the  other  States  equally  balanced.  Hitherto  England 
had  been  concerned  only  in  her  private  contests  with  France  or  with 
Scotland  ;  now  she  became  concerned  to  prevent  either  France  or  the 
Hapsburgs  from  dominating  Europe. 

Since  England  was  so  far  the  first  to  consolidate  her  own  nationality,  it 
naturally  resulted  that  she  progressed  in  constitutional  development  at  a 
very  much  greater  speed  than  the  European  States.  The  conflict  of  authority 
between  the  Papacy  and  the  Crown  was  less  acute  because  England  was 
out  of  reach  of  the  Papacy  itself,  and  the  ecclesiastical  organisation  in 
England  was  at  once  less  under  Papal  control  and  less  able  to  challenge 
the  supremacy  of  the  secular  power.  In  England,  never  completely  sur- 
rendered to  feudalism,  the  Crown  w^as  able  at  an  earlier  stage  to  concen- 
trate power  in  its  own  hands.  The  baronage  in  their  resistance  to  absolutism 
became  the  champions  of  popular  rights  as  well  as  of  the  privileges  of  their 
own  order.  The  Crown  followed  suit,  and  in  its  resistance  to  baronial 
encroachments  extended  the  popular  rights.  And  thus  at  the  close  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  England  was  the  one  State  in  which  the  next  constitutional 
battle  was  to  be  fought  with  the  sovereignty  of  the  Commons  as  the  stake  ; 
because  it  was  the  one  State  in  which  the  Commons  had  already  accumu- 
lated a  solid  and  tangible  authority. 


SOCIAL   ASPECTS 

When  we  turn  to  the  social  aspect  of  the  Middle  Ages,  we  find  ourselves 
contemplating  an  era  of  violent  contrasts  ;  of  supreme  picturesqueness  and 
of  extreme  discomfort  ;  of  gorgeous  display  and  of  sordid  squalor  ;  of  con- 
summate courtesy  and  of  utter  pitilessness  ;  of  high  saintliness  and  of  bestial 
grossness  ;  of  the  faith  that  knows  no  fear  but  that  of  God,  and  of  the 
superstition  in  which  fear  of  the  Devil  is  ever  dominant.  Side  by  side  we 
see  Joan  of  Arc  in  her  sublime  purity  and  the  degraded  terrors  of  her  mur- 
derers ;  beside  Anselm,  William  Rufus  ;  the  Black  Prince  serving  at  his 
royal  prisoner's  table  and  massacring  the  inhabitants  of  Limoges. 

The  contrasts  of  the  Middle  Ages  are  more  vivid  than  those  of  the 
present  day,  not  because  they  were  more  real,  but  because  they  stood  in 
closer  proximity.  In  modern  times  we  compare  the  conditions  of  class  and 
class,  the  luxurious  ease  of  the  w-ealthy  with  the  destitution  of  the  slums. 
The  Middle  Ages  knew  no  such  wealth,  no  such  luxury,  and  no  such 
destitution,  at  least  in  England.  The  contrasts  of  medieval  life  are  of  a 
different  order  ;  they  are  those  between  its  public  and  its  private  aspects  ; 
between  the  gorgeousncss  and  what  would  be  to  our  eyes  the  meanness  of 
its  different  phases.     The  mail-clad  knight  rode  abroad  in  glittering  armour, 


THE    MIDDLE   AGES  233 

but  he  did  not  habitually  sleep  in  a  bed.  He  carved  the  casques  of  the  foe- 
man  M^ith  flashing  steel,  but  he  ate  his  dinner  with  his  lingers.  The  castle 
or  the  manor-house  owned  a  spacious  hall,  but  no  other  apartment  which 
deserved  to  be  called  much  more  than  a  closet ;  and  few  indeed  were  they 
who  enjoyed  the  privacy  of  a  separate  chamber. 
Hunting  and  hawking  were  joyous  pastimes  when 
woods  and  fields  were  green  and  the  days  were 
long ;  but  when  the  sluggard  sun  rose  late  and  set 
early,  and  the  hall  was  lighted  with  torches,  the 
time  was  apt  to  hang  heavily  in  spite  of  the  occa- 
sional diversion  supplied  by  some  wandering  jongleur. 
A  time  came  when  commerce  expanded  and  bur- 
gesses waxed  wealthy,  but  they  would  seem  for  the 
most  part  to  have  had  little  idea  of  spending  their 
wealth  except  on  an  ostentatious  display  in  costly 
apparel  and  rich  decorations  intended  for  the  public 
eye,  and  to  have  taken  very  little  thought  for  the 
amenities  or  even  what  we  should  call  the  decencies 
of  personal  comfort. 

Of  the  whole  population  only  a  small  propor- 
tion dwelt  in  cities,  and  even  of  these  a  substantial 
part  were  occupied  in  tilling  the  borough  lands. 
The  great  bulk  of  the  population  was  engaged  upon 
agriculture,  and  how  they  fared  we  have  little  means 
of  knowing  with  any  certainty.  The  land  under 
ordinary  conditions  was  self-sufficing  ;  that  is  to 
say,  in  normal  seasons  it  produced  a  sufficiency 
of  grain  to  feed  the  entire  population.  The  small 
peasant-holdings  and  the  common  waste  lands 
enabled  the  smallest  peasants  to  keep  their  poultry, 
their  pigs,  and  their  cow ;  and  in  normal  seasons 
there  was  little  destitution.  But  a  modern  labourer 
in  decently  steady  employment  would  certainly  be 
better  housed,  and  would  regard  as  practical  necessi- 
ties luxuries  which  his  medieval  ancestor  never 
heard  of.  The  most  notable  change  between  the 
medieval  and  the  modern  conditions  of  working- 
class  life  is  that  which  set  in  with  the  beginnings 
of  the  Industrial  Revolution  only  a  century  and  a 
half  ago,  a  change  which  created  a  vast  city 
population  ;  but  the  one  point  in  respect  of  which  the  modern  working- 
man  is  infinitely  and  indisputably  better  off  than  his  medieval  pre- 
decessors is  in  the  disappearance  of  those  pestilences  like  the  Black 
Death,  whose  recurrence  in  Europe  sanitary  science  seems  now  to  have 
rendered  practically  impossible. 


An  English  knight  of  1400. 


234  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

It  remains  to  touch  upon  the  two  features  of  the  Middle  Ages  which 
appeal  most  vividly  and  picturesquely  to  the  imagination.  The  Middle 
Ages  were  the  days  of  the  monks  and  of  the  armoured  knights.  During 
the  sixteenth  century  the  knights  armed  in  full  panoply  disappeared  ;  monas- 
teries and  nunneries  were  suppressed  wholesale,  or,  as  in  England,  vanished 
altogether  ;  the  clergy,  regular  and  secular,  ceased  to  be  a  prominently 
picturesque  element. 

But  throughout  the  ages  which  preceded  the  Reformation  the  monas- 
teries were  not  merely  picturesque  ; 
they  performed  functions  which 
were  of  vital  importance.  When 
authority  failed  to  enforce  law  and 
order,  when  violence  defied  control, 
the  monastery  and  the  convent  gave 
shelter  and  protection  against  law- 
less tyranny.  When  war  and  the 
chase  provided  almost  the  only 
living  interests  for  men  of  gentle 
blood,  art  and  learning  could  still 
find  shelter  and  encouragement  in 
abodes  dedicated  to  religion  and  to 
peace  ;  though  the  scope  of  both 
was  rigidly  limited,  if  not  actually 
to  the  service  of  religion  at  least 
to  fields  which  religion  regarded  as 
serviceable.  It  was  the  clerks  who  kept  alive  the  study  of  law,  of  philosophy, 
and  of  science,  though  these  latter  especially  were  strictly  subordinated 
to  theology.  To  the  clerks  in  the  main  we  are  indebted  for  historical 
records.  And,  finally,  the  Church  was  the  one  institution  in  which,  theoreti- 
cally at  least,  class  distinctions  disappeared,  and  even  in  practice  humble 
birth  was  not  a  bar  to  high  achievement ;  the  one  institution  also  which, 
whether  wisely  or  unwisely,  provided  relief  for  the  destitute  and  needy. 

The  glory  of  the  mail-clad  knight  belonged  to  the  days  when  victories 
were  won  in  the  shock  of  hand-to-hand  fighting  and  sheer  weight  was 
irresistible.  He  was  already  doomed  when  it  was  found  that  neither 
he  nor  his  horse  could  be  protected  against  the  clothyard  shafts  of  the 
English  archer.  Defensive  armour  became  so  appallingly  heavy  that 
it  produced  immobility,  and  at  last  gave  the  light-armed  man  the  advan- 
tage even  in  hand-to-hand  fighting,  as  was  illustrated  at  the  battle  of 
Agincourt.  But  even  more  fatal  to  him,  and  fatal  too  in  the  long  run 
to  the  archer,  was  the  progressive  use  of  gunpowder.  Down  to  the  close 
of  the  fifteenth  century  gunpowder  was  practically  useless  in  the  field, 
although  at  Cr^cy  the  English  had  some  primitive  cannon  which  they 
fired  off — to  the  alarm  of  the  Frenchmen's  horses,  but  otherwise  apparently 
without    doing    any    damage.      But    in    siege    operations    gunpowder    was 


A  MS.  representation  of  a  house. 
[From  a  14th  century  romance.] 


THE    MIDDLE   AGES  235 

already  playing  an  important  part  in  the  wars  of  Henry  V.,  and  hand-guns 
are  heard  of  in  the  War  of  the  Roses.  Henceforth,  Hotspur's  "villainous 
saltpetre "  had  to  be  reckoned  with  to  a  rapidly  increasing  extent,  and 
long  before  the  end  of  the  Tudor  period  the  art  and  practice  of  gunnery 
had  become  a  decisive  factor  in  fighting  by  land  and  by  sea. 


Ill 


INTELLECTUAL  ASPECTS 


The  Middle  Ages  are,  not  quite  without  wan  ant,  condemned  as  an  era  of 
intellectual  stagnation,  a  period  with  no  art,  no  literature,  no  science,  and  no 
philosophy.  The  best  literature  of  the  ancient  world  was  lost,  its  temples 
and  its  statues  were  buried  in  ruins  ; 
its  pagan  philosophies  had  been  ruled 
out  by  ecclesiastical  dogmas  which 
imposed  rigid  limitations  upon  all  in- 
quiring spirits,  and  stamped  as  impious 
all  investigation  of  phenomena  for 
which  the  Church  found  a  supernatural 
origin,  or  such  as  threatened  to  throw 
doubt  upon  her  authoritative  pro- 
nouncements. Knowledge  and  dis- 
covery are  necessarily  bounded  by 
the  limitations  of  the  human  intellect ; 
but  to  these  were  added  the  artificial  limitations  of  theological  dogmas. 

Intellectual  stagnation,  however,  is  after  all  an  incorrect  description  of 
the  result.  Stagnation  is  the  antithesis  of  activity,  and  there  was  no  absence 
of  intellectual  activity.  Sterility  rather  than  stagnation  is  the  correct  word, 
because  the  activities  were  directed  into  unproductive  channels.  Neverthe- 
less, revolt  had  begun  long  before  the  fifteenth  century  ;  and  the  British 
Isles  can  claim  to  have  been  the  birthplace  of  men  who  gave  a  great  stimulus 
to  intellectual  emancipation.  Such  were  Duns  Scotus  in  the  latter  half  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  as  to  whom  it  is  uncertain  whether  his  birthplace 
was  in  Ireland  or  in  Scotland  or  the  north  of  England  ;  William  Occam, 
an  Englishman  who  was  possibly  a  pupil  of  Duns  Scotus;  and  John  Wiclif, 
the  pioneer  of  the  Reformation.  Even  more  remarkable  than  any  of  these 
was  Roger  Bacon,  the  Franciscan  friar,  the  pupil  and  friend  of  the  great 
Bishop  Grossetete,  the  greatest  among  the  pioneers  of  scientific  inquiry, 
who  indeed  deserves  to  be  called  the  father  of  modern  science  ;  the  prophet 
of  the  great  doctrine  that  religious  truth  cannot  suffer  from  the  increase 
of  scientific  knowledge.  But  in  the  Middle  Ages  no  man  could  be  more 
than  a  pioneer.  Emancipation  did  not  arrive  until  the  sixteenth  century. 
Until   then,   the   too   independent   thinker   was    assured    of   condemnation 


236  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

as  a  heretic,  and  the  scientific  experimentahst  of  condemnation  as  a  necro- 
mancer. 

Art,  too,  was  almost  restricted  to  the  service  of  religion,  and  in  that 
service  one  branch  of  it  flourished.  Architecture  found  scope  in  the  build- 
ing of  churches  and  cathedrals;  upon  them  piety  lavished  wealth,  labour, 
and  imagination.  The  monk,  too,  in  his  cloister  could  glorify  God  by  pro- 
ducing masterpieces  of  decorative  penmanship  and  wonders  of  illumination. 
The  art  of  the  painter  revived  in  Italy,  but  it  was  still  confined  to  the  service 
of  the  Church  and  to  subjects  which  tended  to  edification.  Beyond  Italy 
it  hardly  spread,  and  in  England  was  practically  unknown. 

A  people  may  do  without  art,  but  literature  of  some  kind  it  must  have,  if 
only  in  the  shape  of  folk-tales,  folk-songs,  and  war-songs.  But  a  national 
literature  implies  a  national  language,  and  that  which  is  preserved  by  oral 
tradition  alone  can  only  be  exceedingly  limited.  An  English  literature  had 
not  come  into  existence  before  the  Norman  Conquest,  except  in  the  form  of 
the  songs  of  the  countryside  and  the  ballads,  of  which  only  fragments 
survived  in  writing  ;  such  as  the  song  of  the  primitive  hero  Beowulf,  the 
poem  of  the  monastic  servitor  Caedmon  who  sang  of  the  beginning  of  things, 
the  battle  lays  of  Brunanburh  and  Maldon  preserved  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle.  The  men  who  wrote,  wrote  in  Latin  almost  exclusively.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  is  the  only  prose  monument  of  pre-Conquest  English, 
and  that  is  a  mere  compiktion. 

After  the  Conquest  there  was  not  for  a  very  long  time  a  national  language  ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  tongue  of  the  ruling  classes  was  Norman-French,  and 
English  was  the  language  only  of  the  common  folk.  The  learned  wrote 
neither  English  nor  Norman-French,  but  Latin.  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth 
and  Walter  Map  collected  and  embroidered,  or  invented,  legends  concerning 
King  Arthur  and  others,  lively  romances  to  which  they  were  pleased  to  give 
the  name  of  history,  but  their  Latin  tales  did  not  constitute  English  litera- 
ture. Something  which  deser-ves  to  be  called  the  beginning  of  English 
literature  appeared  when  the  monk  Layamon  reproduced  in  an  English 
poem,  Brittf  certain  of  the  same  legends.  Brut  was  the  mythical  Trojan 
hero  who  gave  his  name  to  the  islands  of  Britain.  Layamon's  poem  was 
written  in  the  reign  of  King  John.  Then  for  another  century  and  a  half  the 
only  literature  which  could  be  called  popular  consisted  of  French  romances, 
prototypes  of  those  which  some  centuries  later  perturbed  the  brain  of  Don 
Quixote.  England,  indeed,  produced  a  real  literary  figure  in  the  person  of 
one  of  the  best  of  medieval  historians,  Matthew  Paris  ;  but  he,  like  other 
men  of  learning,  wrote  not  in  the  vernacular  but  in  Latin. 

When  the  fourteenth  century  arrived,  England  was  ceasing  to  be  bi- 
lingual. If  Norman-French  was  the  language  of  the  court,  English  modified 
by  Norman-French  had  nevertheless  become  the  common  language  of  the 
gentry  and  of  the  common  people.  Moreover,  the  intellectual  revival  of 
Italy  had  just  blossomed  into  sudden  glory  with  Dante,  and  Dante  was 
succeeded  by  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio.     A  wave  of  culture  flowed    over 


The  Hierarchy  of  the  Sciences  as  conceived  by  Medieval  Thought. 

[From  the  Berri  Bible.] 

237 


238  NATIONAL   CONSOLIDATION 

Europe,  and  the  last  half  of  the  fourteenth  century  saw  the  creation  of  a 
true  English  Literature  by  William  Langland,  John  Wiclif,  and  Geoffrey 
Chaucer  in  England,  and  Bishop  Barbour  in  Scotland — for  English  is  the 
only  name  which  can  properly  be  applied  to  the  literary  language  of  Scot- 
land as  well  as  of  England.  Wiclifs  rendering  of  the  New  Testament  was 
the  foundation  of  all  subsequent  English  versions  of  the  Scriptures.  In 
William  Langland  the  people  of  England  first  found  a  spokesman,  though 
in  the   Vision  of  Piers  Plozvman  his  moral  scourge  spared  the  peasant  no 

more  than  the  upper  ranks  of  society. 
Bishop  Barbour  was  no  great  poet, 
yet  there  is  often  a  fine  spirit  in  the 
verse  wherein  he  recorded  the  story 
of  the  liberation  of  Scotland,  and  the 
high  deeds  of  his  hero  the  Bruce. 
But  in  the  literary  hierarchy,  none  is 
on  the  same  plane  with  Geoffrey 
Chaucer,  the  first  master  ''  maker  "  in 
the  English  tongue,  who  for  nearly 
two  hundred  years  remained  without 
a  peer. 

Langland,  Wiclif,  and  Barbour  all 
wrote  in  dialect ;  Chaucer  set  the 
standard  of  English  as  a  literary  lan- 
guage. For  generations  to  come  he 
was  the  master,  and  all  men  who 
attempted  to  write  poetry  were  his 
disciples,  however  far  behind  him 
they  might  lag.  But  Chaucer  is  not 
merely  a  craftsman  in  words,  a 
magician  in  language  ;  not  merely  a 
consummate  story-teller  ;  not  merely  a  poet  "  as  fresh  as  is  the  month 
of  May,"  like  his  own  "  squyer,"  clean  and  sweet,  overflowing  with  joyous 
vitality,  with  broad  human  sympathy,  tender  and  humorous.  Chaucer  has 
painted  for  us  the  men  and  women  of  his  day,  the  typical  gathering  which 
assembled  for  the  Canterbury  Pilgrimage,  in  such  wise  that  they  are  as 
living  and  real  as  if  we  had  met  them,  touched  them,  seen  them  with  our 
own  eyes,  heard  them  talk  with  our  own  ears.  They  are  alive  now  every 
one  of  them;  somewhat  differently  clothed  of  course,  modified  by  some- 
what different  conventions  and  •  by  differences  in  the  material  circum- 
stances of  life.  The  eternal  human  types  belong  to  the  twentieth  century 
no  less  than  to  the  fourteenth.  But  when  the  types  are  presented  to  us  in 
medieval  array,  as  they  lived  and  moved  five  hundred  years  ago,  the  Middle 
Ages  become  as  living  and  real  as  the  twentieth  century.  Those  familiar 
faces  and  figures  make  their  surroundings  real  and  actual.  We  are  no 
longer  guessing  what  sort  of  person  a  knight  might  have  been  or  was  likely 


Geoffrey  Chaucer. 
[From  a  contemporary  MS.  in  the  British  Museum.] 


THE    MIDDLE   AGES  239 

to  be  ;  what  manner  of  a  man  was  a  parish  priest,  a  rural  squire,  a  merchant; 
what  a  prioress  was  Hke  or  a  bourgeoise  dame  of  independent  means.  We 
know  them  all,  and  knowing  them  we  see  also  that,  after  all,  it  is  merely 
the  superficial  accidents  of  life  that  have  changed,  not  its  fundamental 
conditions. 

There  is  another  author  of  the  fourteenth  century  who  should  not  be 
passed  by,  the  ingenious  traveller,  Sir  John  Mandeville,  who  indeed  really  led 
the  way  in  the  writing  of  English  prose.  For  although  he  originally  wrote 
the  story  of  his  travels,  of  what  he  had  seen,  and  of  what  other  travellers  told 
him  of  what  they  had  seen,  in  Latin,  yet  he  employed  the  leisure  of  his 
later  years  in  translating  his  w'ork  first  into  French  and  then  into  English. 
The  work  is  not  without  its  value,  as  a  record  of  Sir  John's  personal  experi- 
ences, but  still  more  so  as  a  demonstration  of  the  unbounded  credulity  of 
the  age.      Marvels  which    would  have  awakened  the  genial  scepticism   of 

%i^  (Btcn^t  but  of  (ttdxmtt  (£t{x  of  xx>axy)yKcinbi  of 
fa^^Ba^^l^vde  e;6dw8et£ci^  of  Gngl^ntk  a  Ceuttitaite 
of  JteConi^ctie/fB^okr  of%nge  ^bvoaxbi^t  ^t^race 
of  j^b?  E^ttge  of  C^ngCani?  mb!  of  ftan^u 

A  specimen  of  Caxton's  printing. 
[From  the  introduction  to  the  "  Book  of  Chess,"  1475.] 

Herodotus  were  cheerfully  accepted  without  question  by  the  English 
traveller. 

English  literature  burst  into  full  blossom  with  Chaucer,  but  after 
Chaucer  there  came  in  England  for  a  century  and  a  half  none  but  the 
most  pedestrian  of  poets.  Worthier  successors  than  Lydgate  and  Gower 
were  born  in  the  northern  kingdom,  and  chief  among  them  the  royal  poet 
James  I.  His  claim  to  the  authorship  of  the  Kiiigis  Quair  has  been  chal- 
lenged, but  is  not  to  be  surrendered  without  more  conclusive  proofs  than 
have  yet  been  produced.  King  James  learnt  in  the  school  of  Chaucer ; 
it  is  enough  to  say  that  he  wa.s  a  pupil  of  whom  Chaucer  himself  would 
have  been  proud.  The  name  of  Robert  Henryson  also  stands  high  above 
that  of  any  contemporary  English  poet. 

But  although  poetry  languished,  and  although  the  Morfe  Arthur  of  Sir 
Thomas  Mallory  is  the  one  great  English  prose  work  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
the  impulse  to  literary  expression  was  at  work.  Men  began  to  say  in 
English  W'hat  a  century  before  they  would  assuredly  have  written  in  Latin 
if  at  all.  The  dispersion  of  Greek  scholarship  with  the  fall  of  Constan- 
tinople in  1453  had  something  of  the  effect  of  an  intellectual  revelation. 
And  yet,  after  all,  the  enormous  impulse  to  the  literary  production  of  the 
centuries   which    followed    was    hardly    so    much    the    intellectual    as    the 


240  NATIONAL    CONSOLIDATION 

mechanical  one.  About  the  year  1440,  Guthenberg  in  Germany  invented 
the  printing-press  with  movable  types,  which  made  possible  the  multiplica- 
tion of  books,  and  by  its  development  created  a  supply  of  which  was  begotten 
an  ever-increasing  demand.  Books  were  brought  within  the  reach  of 
the  many  instead  of  being  procurable  only  by  the  very  few.  The  last 
quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century  saw  the  introduction  of  the  great  invention 
into  England,  when,  under  the  patronage  of  Edward  IV.,  William  Caxton  set 
up  his  printing-press  in  Westminster  Abbey. 


BOOK    III 

THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

CHAPTER    IX 

HENRY   VII 


PROBLEMS   OF  THE   DYNASTY 

On  the  field  of  Bosworth,  Henry  Tudor,  Earl  of  Richmond,  was  hailed  as 
King  Henry  VH.  Every  king  of  England  for  three  hundred  years  had 
been  a  Plantagenet  ;  had  been,  that  is  to  say,  a  direct  descendant  in  the 
male  line  from  Henry  H.  This  was  true  even  of  the  Yorkist  kings,  since 
the  father  of  Richard,  Duke  of  York,  was  the  son  of  Edmund  of  York,  who 

DESCENDANTS   OF    JOHN    OF   GAUNT 

John  of  Gaunt, 

married 

I 


(i)  Blanche  of 
Lancaster. 

I 


Henry  IV. 

Lancastrian 
kings. 


I 
IJizabeth,  in. 

Earl  of 
Huntingdon. 

John,  Earl  of 
Huntingdon. 

Anne,  m. 
Ralph  Neville. 

I 

Earls  of 

Westmoreland. 


I 

Philippa,  m. 

John,  King  of 

Portugal. 

I 
Kings  of 
Portugal. 


(2)  Constance 
of  Castile. 

Catherine,  m. 
Henry  of  Castile. 

Kings  of  Castile. 


Isabella,  m. 

Ferdinand  of 

Aragon. 

Royal  House  of 
Spain. 


(3)  Catherine 
Swynford. 


Reauforts. 


was  the  younger  brother  of  John  of  Gaunt.  Now  there  was  a  new 
dynasty;  and  the  fundamental  fact  of  Henry  VH.'s  reign  was  the  king's 
need  for  securing  that  dynasty. 

Now,  if  succession  through  females  was  barred,  Henry  could  have  no 
claim  ;  for  it  was  through  his  mother,  Margaret  Beaufort,  that  he  was  de- 
scended from  John  of  Gaunt.  The  heir  to  the  throne  in  that  case  was  the 
Earl  of  Warwick,  the  son  of  George  of  Clarence,  the  only  living  Planta- 
genet prince.  If  the  succession  of  a  female  but  not  the  claim  through  a 
female  was  barred,  as  was  argued  when   Edward   HI    claimed  the   Crown 

241  Q 


242  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

of  France,  the  house  of  York  still  had  the  priority  over  the  house  of 
Lancaster  because  it  descended  in  the  female  line  from  Lionel  of  Clarence, 
the  elder  .brother  of  John  of  Gaunt.  On  that  hypothesis  the  De  la  Poles, 
the  sons  of  Suffolk  and  of  Elizabeth,  sister  of  Edward  IV.,  stood  next  to 
Warwick,  or  before  him  if  he  was  excluded  by  the  attainder  of  his  father. 
If  a  woman  in  person  could  succeed  to  the  Crown,  the  first  claim  lay  with 
Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Edward  IV.,  and  after  her  with  her  numerous  sisters 
in  order.  Further,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  if  the  descent  through  females  was 
not  barred,  there  were  other  descendants  of  John  of  Gaunt  senior  to  the 
Beauforts,  apart  from  the  doubt  whether  the  legitimation  of  that  family  in 
the  reign  of  Richard  II.  covered  the  claim  to  succession  in  any  case. 
Ralph  Neville,  Earl  of  Westmoreland,  was  descended  through  his  mother 
from    the  full  sister  of    Henry   IV.     The  royal  houses  of  Castile  and  of 

DESCENDANTS    OF    RICHARD    OF    YORK 

Richard,  Duke  of  York. 

I 

I  III 

Edward  IV.  George  of  Elizabeth,  vi.  Margaret,  m. 

I  Clarence.  John  de  la  Pole  Charles  of 

I  I (Suffolk).  Burgundy. 

i                                  ^1  I                               i                               ! ^-_ 

Elisabeth,  m.            Catherine,  vi.  Edward,  Earl          Margaret,                              |                               | 

Henry  V\\.            W.  Courtenay.  of  Warwick.          Countess  of  John  de  la  Pole,          Brothers. 

I                                  I  Salisbury,  w.  Earl  of  Lincoln.                o 

Tudors.                  Marquess  of  Sir  Richard  Pole.                        o 

Exeter.  I 

Edward  Lord  Montague.  Cardinal 

Courtenay,  |  Pole. 

Earl  of  Devon.  Catherine,  vi.  o 

o  Earl  of 

Huntingdon. 

Portugal  might  be  barred  as  aliens,  but  both  descended  from  daughters 
of  John  of  Gamit,  and  this  claim  was  actually  to  be  asserted  a  hundred 
years  later. 

In  all  these  circumstances,  it  is  obvious  that  Henry  could  not  claim  the 
throne  unless  by  right  of  conquest  or  by  parliamentary  title,  like  Henry  IV. 
himself.  But  if  he  married  Elizabeth  of  York,  then  the  only  living  per- 
son who  could  challenge  the  title  of  their  offspring  would  be  the  young 
Earl  of  Warwick.  Therefore,  in  the  first  place,  Henry  made  haste  to  secure 
a  parliamentary  title  for  himself.  The  first  point  was  that  he  himself 
should  be  personally  and  authoritatively  recognised  as  de  jure  king  of 
England  against  all  other  claimants.  For  this  reason  he  delayed  his 
marriage  with  Elizabeth  of  York  until  i486,  lest  it  should  be  pretended 
that  he  reigned  only  as  her  consort  ;  and  he  deferred  her  coronation  for 
another  year.  But  that  marriage  appeared  to  ensure  complete  security  to 
his  offspring,  except  possibly  as  against  Warwick.  And  Warwick  himself 
was  held  a  secure  prisoner  in  the  Tower. 

Nevertheless,  Henry's  succession  was  obviously  a  triumph  for  the 
Lancastrian  faction,  and   it  was  quite  certain  that  there  would  be  attempts 


HENRY    VII  243 

on  the  part  of  the  Yorkist  faction  to  overthrow  him.  And  it  is  to  be 
remarked  in  this  connection,  that  Henry  himself  had  given  colour  to  the 
doctrine  that  a  woman  was  personally  barred  from  the  succession  by 
taking  the  crown  for  himself  and  not  for  his  own  mother.  Yorkist  plots 
were  certain  to  be  fomented  and  fostered  in  the  court  of  Edward  IV.'s 
sister,  Margaret  of  Burgundy,  the  widow  of  Charles  the  Rash  and  step- 
mother (not  mother)  of  his  heirs,  who  was  prepared  to  go  to  any  lengths 
to  overthrow  the  usurper.  Margaret  did  not,  however,  herself  control 
Burgundian  policy,  though  as  dowager  she  held  her  own  court  and  enjoyed 
her  own  estates. 

In  a  position  so  open  to  challenge,  it  was  not  enough  for  Henry  that 
he  should  reign  by  grace  of  parliament,  which  might  withdraw  its  favour. 
It  was  indeed  of  first-rate  importance  that  he  should  retain  its  favour, 
but  the  necessity  remained  for  concentrating  effective  power  in  his  own 
hands.  Such  a  concentration  of  power  was  comparatively  a  simple  matter 
for  Edward  IV.  in  his  later  years,  when  he  reigned  by  a  quite  indisputable 
title.  It  was  by  no  means  so  easy  for  a  king  whose  title  was  so  uncertain 
as  Henry's.  Henry  therefore  was  faced  with  a  constitutional  problem 
which  the  house  of  Lancaster  had  failed  to  solve  successfully. 

Moreover,  Henry  had  before  him  in  a  new  field  problems  which  had 
to  be  faced  by  all  statesmen  after  his  time,  but  had  not  presented  themselves 
to  his  predecessors.  Spain,  by  the  union  of  the  Crowns  of  Castile  and 
Aragon,  had  created  a  new  power.  Maximilian,  king  of  the  Romans,  the 
son  and  heir  of  the  Hapsburg  German  Emperor,  had  married  Mary,  the 
daughter  of  Charles  of  Burgundy.  She  was  now  dead ;  but  the  Bur- 
gundian inheritance  passed  to  Philip,  the  child  of  this  marriage  ;  and  Philip 
would  also  be  the  heir  of  Maximilian.  The  consolidation  of  France  had  been 
almost  completed  by  Louis  XI.  Thus  there  had  come  into  being  a  group 
of  great  powers  with  diverse  and  conflicting  interests.  An  international 
diplomacy  was  called  for  which  was  without  precedent  ;  a  new  European 
system  was  coming  into  being  ;  and  England  had  to  take  up  her  place 
in  that  system. 

II 

THE   REIGN   OF   HENRY  VIL 

Henry  had  not  been  long  on  the  throne  before  there  was  an  insurrection 
headed  by  Lord  Lovel,  who  had  been  a  partisan  of  Richard  III.  It  was 
suppressed  without  difHculty.  The  birth  of  a  son,  Arthur,  at  the  end  of 
i486,  served  as  an  incentive  to  the  Yorkists.  A  youth  named  Lambert 
Simnel  appeared  in  Ireland,  claiming  to  be  the  Earl  of  Warwick.  Ireland 
was  chosen  because  the  house  of  York  had  always  been  popular  in  that 
country,  where  several  of  its  members  had  been  Lieutenants  ;  and  the 
support  of  the  most  powerful  of  the  nobility  there  could  be  relied  upon. 


244 


of 


THE    AGE    OF    TRANSITION 

Burgundy   and  John  de  la  Pole,  Earl  of  Lincoln,  espoused 


was  crushed 
was  taken  p 


the  cause  of  the  pretender ;  although  Henry  paraded  the  real  Earl  of 
Warwick  through  the  streets  of  London  to  show  that  he  was  not  in  Ireland 
at  all.  Lincoln  joined  Simnel,  and  with  a  following  consisting  mainly 
of  Irishmen  and  German  mercenaries  landed  in  England.  The  rebellion 
at  the  battle  of  Stoke,  where  Lincoln  was  killed  and  Simnel 
isoner.      Henry,  however,  adopted  the  craftily  lenient  policy 

upon  which  he  habitually 
acted.  He  avoided  blood- 
shed ;  opposition  was 
smoothed  away  by  his  ap- 
parent benignity  ;  but  fines 
and  forfeitures  at  once  filled 
Henry's  own  treasury  and 
crippled  his  enemies  for 
further  activity.  Lambert 
Simnel,  a  youth  of  humble 
birth,  was  relegated  to  ap- 
propriate service  in  the  royal 
kitchens.  The  neutrality, 
if  not  always  the  active  sup- 
port, of  the  greatest  of  the 
Irish  nobles,  Kildare,  was 
ensured  when  he  found  his 
own  complicity  in  the  re- 
bellion ignored,  and  himself 
permitted  to  retain  the  ofiice 
of  Deputy,  that  is,  of  acting- 
Lieutenant,  in  Ireland. 

Another  insurrection  on 
behalf  of  the  captive  War- 
wick or  of  the  De  la  Pole 
brothers  was  improbable. 
The  years  immediately 
following  the  Simnel  fiasco 
were  mainly  occupied  with  international  politics.  Henry  was  extremely 
anxious  to  strengthen  his  own  position  by  an  alliance  with  the  Spanish 
sovereigns,  because  he  expected  Spain  to  become  the  leading  European 
power,  while  it  was  also  one  whose  interests  were  not  likely  to  conflict 
with  his  own.  But  to  Spain,  England  was  useful  mainly  if  not  entirely 
as  a  check  upon  France,  and  her  value  depended  largely  on  the  stability  of 
the  new  dynasty,  which  was  exceedingly  dubious.  Ferdinand  of  Aragon 
and  Henry  of  England  were  men  of  the  same  type;  very  crafty,  very  un- 
scrupulous, very  proud  of  overreaching  a  neighbour  in  a  bargain,  but 
with  a  shrewd  perception  of  exactly  how  far  it  was  safe  to  go  in  trickery  ; 


Henry  VII. 

[From  a  contemporary  bust  by  an  It.-iHan  artist.] 


HENRY   VII  245 

while  each  could  gauge  pretty  accurately  the  precise  extent  to  which  the 
other  was  dependent  on  his  aid.  Neither  could  afford  to  quarrel  with  the 
other,  but  each  wanted  to  get  out  of  the  other  as  much  as  he  possibly 
could,  and  to  give  as  little  as  he  possibly  could  in  return.  During  the  first 
half  of  Henry's  reign  he  was  more  in  need  of  Ferdinand  than  Ferdinand  was 
in  need  of  him,  and  one-sided  bargains  were  struck  in  favour  of  Spain. 
At  a  later  stage,  when  the  Tudor  dynasty  was  thoroughly  secured,  the 
bargaining  turned  in  favour  of  England  so  far  as  positive  engagements 
were  concerned  ;  but  both  monarchs  evinced  a  surprising  skill  and  plausi- 
bility in  evading  their  respective  obligations. 

Henry  wanted  a  Spanish  princess  to  be  betrothed  to  his  own  infant 
son.  Spain's  price  was  the  active  intervention  of  Henry  to  prevent  the 
French  Crown  from  absorbing  under  its  control  the  duchy  of  Brittany, 
which  now  alone  of  the  great  feudatory  States  was  almost  independent. 
Henry,  forced  into  open  war  with  France,  on  behalf  of  the  young  Duchess 
Anne,  made  use  of  his  needs  to  obtain  generous  supplies  from  his  parlia- 
ments while  he  carefully  shirked  the  expenditure  either  of  money  or  of  blood. 
The  Spaniards,  on  the  other  hand,  found  in  their  contest  with  the  Moorish 
kingdom  of  Granada  a  sufficient  excuse  for  abstaining  from  active  operations 
in  Brittany.  Henry's  own  military  operations  were  restricted  to  the  occu- 
pation and  garrisoning  of  sundry  fortresses  in  Brittany,  although  he  was 
careful  to  seek  popularity  for  the  war  among  his  subjects  by  pretending  to 
reassert  the  claim  of  his  predecessors  to  the  Crown  of  France.  But  the 
affair  of  Brittany  was  practically  settled  by  the  marriage  of  the  youthful 
King  of  France,  Charles  VIII.,  to  the  still  more  youthful  Duchess  of  Brittany. 
Henry  demanded  indemnities  and  compensation  before  he  would  evacuate 
the  Brittany  fortresses  ;  he  made  ostentatious  preparations  for  carrying  on 
the  war  on  a  great  scale,  collecting  a  substantial  war-fund.  But  Charles  VIII., 
being  practically  secure  of  Brittany,  was  now  chiefly  anxious  to  carry 
out  ambitious  schemes  in  Italy  ;  so  by  the  Peace  of  Etaples  he  bought 
Henry  off  at  his  own  price — which  was  paid  in  hard  cash.  The  King  of 
England  did  not  again  find  it  necessary  to  enter  upon  a  foreign  war  ;  and 
the  net  results  of  the  whole  business  were  that  he  had  filled  his  treasury 
and  secured  for  his  sagacity  the  respect  of  Spanish  rulers,  with  whom  he 
was  henceforth  able  to  bargain  upon  more  equal  terms. 

But  he  had  not  done  with  Yorkist  plots.  That  faction,  having  no  living 
candidate  whom  they  could  put  forward  with  a  reasonable  chance  of 
success,  endeavoured  to  resuscitate  a  dead  one.  If  Richard,  Duke  of  York, 
the  younger  of  the  two  princes  murdered  in  the  Tower,  had  not  been 
murdered  at  all  but  was  actually  at  large,  he  was  unquestionably  the  legiti- 
mate king  of  England.  Nobody  could  prove  that  he  had  actually  been 
murdered.  Richard,  Duke  of  York,  "Richard  IV."  of  England,  came  to 
life  as  a  matter  of  course  in  Ireland.  According  to  the  confession  sub- 
sequently put  into  his  mouth,  he  was  Peter  Osbeck,  familiarly  known  as 
Perkin  Warbeck,  the  son  of  a  boatman  of  Tournai.     He  had  been  care- 


246  THE   AGE    OF   TRANSITION 

fully  educated  to  personate  the  murdered  prince.  He  succeeded  in  obtaining 
recognition  not  only  from  Margaret  of  Burgundy,  but  for  a  time  from 
the  French  Court,  and  afterwards  still  more  definitely  and  completely  from 
young  King  James  IV.  of  Scotland,  who  married  him  to  a  kinswoman  of 
his  own,  which  he  would  certainly  not  have  done  unless  he  had  honestly 
believed  that  Perkin's  claim  was  genuine. 

Perkin  appeared  in  Ireland  m  1491,  and  of  course  found  favour  with 
the   Yorkist   nobility  of  that   country.      But  there   was   no   attempt  at  an 

immediate  insur- 
rection in  his 
favour,  and  in  1492 
he  was  received  at 
the  French  Court, 
at  the  moment 
when  Henry  was 
threatening  a  great 
invasion.  Charles, 
however,  had  no 
hesitation  in  dis- 
missing him  in 
order  to  secure  the 
Peace  of  Etaples, 
and  Perkin  betook 
himself  to  Margaret 
in  Burgundy. 
There  his  educa- 
tion for  the  role  of 
Richard    of    York 

was  completed.  There  also  the  Yorkist  plots  were  concocted — and 
were  duly  reported  to  Henry  by  his  own  secret  agents.  Just  when  they 
seemed  to  be  coming  to  a  head,  the  king  struck  down  the  principal 
conspirators  in  England,  including  Sir  William  Stanley,  who  at  Bosworth 
had  commanded  the  division  which  secured  the  victory  to  Henry. 

This  was  at  the  beginning  of  1495.  In  the  summer,  Warbeck  was  rash 
enough  to  sail  from  Flanders  and  attempt  a  landing  in  Kent,  where  he 
was  very  thoroughly  beaten  off.  Then  he  tried  Ireland,  but  found  that  the 
unusually  capable  governor.  Sir  Edward  Poynings,  had  the  country  too 
well  in  hand  ;  and  he  went  off  to  James  IV.  in  Scotland.  James's  favour 
carried  him  so  far  that  in  1496  he  raided  England,  but  still  there  was  no 
rising  in  England  on  Perkin's  behalf.  Then  the  Scots  king's  zeal  cooled, 
and  the  adventurer  again  betook  himself  to  Ireland.  But  the  Scots  raid 
had  given  Henry  an  excuse  for  raising  a  subsidy  for  national  defence  ;  and 
the  folk  of  Cornwall  had  a  strong  objection  to  beingtaxed  for  the  protection 
of  the  northern  counties  against  the  Scots.  The  Cornishmen  rose  and 
marched  up  to  London  to  demand  the  removal  of  "  the  king's  evil  coun- 


The  Hundred  jSIen's  Hall  at  St.  Cross,  near  Wi 
[An  early  i6th  century  hall.] 


HENRY    VII  247 

sellors."  When  they  got  to  Blackheath  they  fell  aa  easy  prey  to  the 
Royalist  troops.  Large  numbers  of  them  fell  in  the  futile  battle,  but  the 
survivors  were  pardoned  with  the  exception  of  three  ringleaders. 

The  Cornishmen  were  under  the  unfortunate  impression  that  this 
leniency  was  a  sign  of  weakness  on  the  part  of  the  king.  It  was  just  at 
this  moment  that  Perkin  left  Scotland  for  Ireland.  The  Cornishmen 
invited  him  to  come  over.  He  came  ;  but  the  country  did  not  rise  in  his 
favour  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  gentry  of  Devon  took  arms  for  the  king. 
Perkin  deserted  his 
followers  and  took  sanc- 
tuary at  Beaulieu,  where 
he  was  soon  induced  to 
surrender.  On  his  usual 
principles,  Henry  put 
very  few  of  the  rebels  to 
death,  but  accumulated 
a  useful  harvest  of  fines 
and  confiscations.  The 
pretender  himself  was 
forced  to  read  a  public 
confession  of  his  im- 
posture, and  was  then 
placed  in  a  by  no  means 
rigid  confinement.  A 
year  later  he  attempted 
to  escape,  and  this  led  to 
his  imprisonment  in  the  Tower,  where  the  unlucky  Warwick  was  also  shut 
up.  The  two  young  men  were  allowed  or  induced  to  concoct  a  fresh  con- 
spiracy, or  what  passed  for  a  conspiracy ;  when  it  was  "  detected  "  Perkin 
was  hanged  and  Warwick  was  beheaded.  The  Yorkists  had  no  one  to 
fall  back  upon  except  the  De  la  Poles,  of  whom  the  eldest  was  now  Earl 
of  Suffolk,  and  was  unlikely  to  prove  a  dangerous  pretender.  It  had 
become  perfectly  clear  at  last  that  the  Tudor  was  impregnably  established 
on  the  throne  of  England. 

A  series  of  marriages  and  deaths  now  claim  our  attention.  Joanna,  the 
second  daughter  and  ultimately  the  heiress  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  was 
married  in  1496  to  the  Archduke,  Philip  of  Burgundy,  the  son  of  Maxi- 
milian. This  was  to  have  the  effect  of  joining  the  Burgundian  with  the 
Spanish  heritage  under  the  sway  of  the  child  of  the  marriage,  Charles — 
who  became  famous  as  the  Emperor  Charles  V. — although  the  Austrian 
heritage  was  transferred  to  his  brother,  Ferdinand.  This  marriage  made 
Henry  the  more  urgent  in  desiring  the  union  of  the  younger  daughter, 
Katharine  of  Aragon,  to  his  own  heir,  Arthur,  Prince  of  Wales.  The 
marriage  treaties  were  a  matter  of  long  haggling  and  dispute.  Six  months 
after  the  marriage  was  actually  completed,  in  1501,  Arthur  died,  and  the 


The  political  Game  of  Cards  :  a  contemporary  French  satire  on  the 
European  situation  about  1 500. 


[Called 


testoon  from  the  fact  of  the  head  being,  for  the  fir.it  time, 
in  profile.] 


248  THE   AGE    OF   TRANSITION 

second  son,  Henry,  became  heir  to  the  throne.  At  once  it  became  a 
primary  object  with  the  king  to  secure  Katharine  for  the  young  Henry.  Such 
a  marriage  was  contrary  to  canon  law,  and  there  was  no  wholly  satisfactory 
precedent  for  a  papal  dispensation  in  a  precisely  similar  case.  Nevertheless, 
a  dispensation  was  actually  obtained  from  Pope  Julius  H.,  on  the  ground 
that  the  marriage  was  never  consummated  ;  still,  the  wedding  did  not 
actually  take  place  until  after  the  accession  of  Henry  VIII. 

The  next  marriage  which  had  an  important  bearing  on  subsequent 
history   was   that    which    Henry  negotiated   between  his   eldest    daughter, 

Margaret,  and  James  IV.  of 
Scotland.  James  had  made 
himself  troublesome  over  the 
affair  of  Perkin  Warbeck,  and 
Henry  was  anxious  to  provide 
by  the  marriage  a  permanent 
basis  for  friendly  relations  with 
the  Northern  Kingdom  ;  nor 
did  he  shrink  from  recognising 
the  ultimate  possibility,  realised 
a  hundred  years  afterwards, 
that  an  actual  union  of  the  Crowns  might  some  day  result.  So  James 
Stuart  married  Margaret  Tudor,  and  their  great-grandson,  James  VI.  of 
Scotland,  became  also,  in  1603,  James  I.  of  England.  Henry,  however, 
failed  to  obtain  from  James  a  decisive  promise  of  the  dissolution  of  the 
long-standing  alliance  between  Scotland  and  France. 

The  death  of  Henry's  own  wife,  Elizabeth  of  York,  removed  from  him 
one  who  seems  always  to  have  exercised  a  beneficial  influence  on  his 
moral  character.  Both  Henry  and  Ferdinand  of  Aragon  conspicuously 
degenerated,  morally,  after  the  death  of  their  respective  wives.  In  Arch- 
bishop Morton  also  Henry  had  lost  an  admirable  minister,  whose  influence 
had  probably  checked  the  development  of  the  sordid  side  of  his  character. 
The  closing  years  of  Henry's  life  were  mean  and  ugly,  and  colour  unduly 
the  popular  impressions  of  his  whole  reign.  To  them  belong  unsavoury 
records  of  extortion  and  corruption,  and  records  still  more  unsavoury ;  as 
of  the  king's  possible  design  of  himself  marrying  his  widowed  daughter-in- 
law,  and  his  undoubted  proposal  to  marry  her  sister  Joanna  when  she  had 
become  a  widow  by  the  death  of  Philip  of  Burgundy,  although  all  the  world 
knew  that  she  was  insane. 

For  full  fifteen  years  of  his  reign  Henry's  record  had  been  emphatically 
a  clean  one,  marred  only  at  its  close  by  a  single  act  of  gross  injustice,  the 
execution  of  Warwick,  for  no  crime  except  that  lie  was  a  possible  figure- 
head for  Yorkist  plots.  Had  he  died  before  his  wife  he  would  have  been 
remembered  as  a  great,  though  hardly  as  a  lovable,  ruler  ;  since  he  lived 
till  1509  we  arc  apt  to  think  of  him  chiefly  as  the  meanest  of  English 
kings. 


HENRY    VII 


249 


III 


HENRY'S   SYSTEM 


Bedesmen,  temp.  Henry  VII. 


When  Henry  VII.  possessed  himself  of  the  Crown  of  England,  the 
future  before  him  was  anything  but  promising.  He  was  king,  but  on  all 
sides  there  were  possible  claimants  who  could  show  a  better  title  by  de- 
scent than  his  own.  For  half  a  century  the  country  had  been  ridden  by 
factions,  torn  by  dissensions.  Its  arms  had  ceased  to  inspire  fear  ;  on  the 
Continent,  since  Bedford's  death,  it  had  been 
held  of  little  account ;  even  Edward  IV.  had 
satisfied  Louis  XI.  that  nothing  serious  was 
to  be  feared  from  England.  At  home  there 
was  hardly  a  recognised  seat  of  political 
authority.  The  Crown  was  discredited  by 
the  imbecility  of  its  wearer  even  before  king- 
making  came  into  fashion.  The  parliament 
had  been  allowed  to  assume  an  authority 
which  it  had  failed  to  convert  into  an  efficient 
control.  The  old  baronage  had  been  wiped 
out  and  replaced  by  a  new  baronage  which 
lacked  both  power  and  prestige.     The  treasury 

was  empty  though  the  country  was  not  poor.  But  there  were  three 
fundamental  principles  which  provided  a  basis  for  political  reconstruction, 
principles  which  had  become  thoroughly  rooted,  which  no  government 
could  ignore  without  bringing  destruction  upon  itself,  justice  must  be 
administered  according  to  the  law  ;  legislation  was  invalid  without  consent 
of  parliament  ;  taxation  could  be  imposed  only  with  the  consent  of  the 
people's  representatives. 

For  the  restoration  of  international  prestige  Henry  adopted  the  methods 
not  of  Edward  III.  or  of  Henry  V.  but  of  a  new  diplomacy  ;  till  each  of 
the  European  Powers  was  forced  to  recognise  that  the  goodwill  of 
England  could  not  be  neglected.  We  have  now  to  see  how  he  dealt  with 
the  great  domestic  problem. 

It  was  essential  that  the  nominal  authority  and  the  actual  power  should 
be  concentrated  in  the  same  hands  ;  that  both  should  be  wielded  by  the 
Crown.  Yet  the  dynasty  existed  on  sufferance.  It  could  not  be  main- 
tained in  the  face  of  popular  antagonism  or  by  sheer  terrorism  ;  yet  it 
would  survive  merely  as  a  pageant,  if  the  Crown  were  at  the  mercy  of 
popular  caprice.  Hence  it  was  imperative  that  the  Crown  should  at  once 
conciliate  popular  favour,  secure  a  full  treasury,  and  paralyse  antagonistic 
forces.      This  complex  process  demanded  exceedingly  deft  manipulation. 


250  THE   AGE    OF   TRANSITION 

The  treasury  must  be  filled,  but  not  by  excessive  demands  on  the 
purses  of  the  commons.  The  nobility  must  not  be  allowed  to  become 
dangerous.  The  Crown  must  shun  all  appearance  of  tyranny.  The  king 
then  must  display  himself  as  above  all  things  a  law-abiding  man  claiming 
no  questionable  rights.  Henry  began  his  career  by  being  ostentatiously 
deferential  to  parliament.  Richard  had  held  only  one,  and  Edward  for  a 
dozen  years  had  ruled  practically  without  a  parliament,  Henry  during 
the  first  half  of  his  reign  summoned  parliaments  repeatedly,  took  them 
into    his   confidence,    made   them  partner  of  his  actions.     There  were  no 

arbitrary  trials  and  executions ;  parlia- 
ment passed  the  Acts  of  attainder.  The 
king's  business  was  only  to  exercise  the 
royal  clemency  judiciously.  The  king 
did  not  ask  parliament  for  excessive 
grants.  The  national  honour  demanded 
war  with  France,  and  the  nation  would 
do  its  duty  in  providing  necessary  funds. 
The  nation  did.  A  judicious  economy 
made  a  sufficient  show  without  spending 
the  money.  A  judicious  diplomacy  did 
what  the  advocates  of  a  scientific  tariff 
seek  to  do  to-day — it  made  the  foreigner 
pay.  By  wars  and  rumours  of  wars 
Henry  filled  his  coffers  instead  of  empty- 
ing them. 

The  very  uncertainty  of  the  Tudor 
tenure  of  the  crown  was  made  pro- 
ductive. Every  revolt  and  every  plot 
provided  its  crop  of  attainders  ;  but  a 
clement  monarch  indulged  in  no  vin- 
dictive bloodshed ;  treason  was  for  the  most  part  sufficiently  punished  by 
the  confiscation  of  lands  and  wealth.  The  royal  revenues  expanded,  and 
possible  enemies  were  deprived  of  the  sinews  of  war.  Justice  was  satisfied 
and  no  one  could  hint  at  tyranny,  while  the  commons,  untouched,  had  no 
cause  of  complaint.  Again  Henry  found  another  source  of  revenue.  For 
the  good  of  the  State  and  the  repression  of  turbulence,  sundry  enactments 
had  forbidden,  with  very  little  success,  the  practices  called  Maintenance 
and  Livery,  by  which  great  magnates  supported  large  numbers  of  retainers. 
The  statutes  were  enforced  and  the  breaches  of  them  penalised  by  heavy 
fines.  Thus  was  turbulence  of  every  kind  turned  to  account  by  the  royal 
treasury. 

The  royal  justice  had  failed  in  the  past  because  the  power  of  local 
magnates  had  enabled  them  to  set  at  naught  the  ordinary  ministers  of  the 
law,  to  the  detriment  not  only  of  the  government,  but  of  justice  in  general. 


Monks  and  lawyers. 

[From  a  deed  of  grant  to  Westminster  Abbey  by 
Henry  Vn.] 


'  Uj.  b 


j:*  ;o . 


1  \ 


->' 


«^'«i^;lL..-->*>-iV^J>, 


THE    COURT    OF    KIN(~,  S    I3ENCH     UNDER    HENRY    VI 

One  of  a  series  of  MS.  illuminations  in  the  Library  of  the  Inner  Temple.     Given  by  permission  of  the 
Master  of  the  Bench  of  the  Honourable  Society  of  the  Inner  Temple. 


HENRY   VII  251 

In  fact  the  local  magnates  dominated  the  local  courts.  Henry  found  a 
new  way  of  dealing  with  them  by  procuring  statutory  confirmation  of 
powers  occasionally  exerted  in  the  past  by  committees  of  the  Privy  Council. 
Thus  a  permanent  judicial  committee  was  established,  bearing  the  name 
of  the  Court  of  Star  Chamber,  with  powers  conveyed  to  it  by  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment, which  court  could  deal  arbitrarily  with  those  offenders  who  had  no 
fear  of  the  ordinary  law  or  who  perverted  the  administration  of  the  law. 
The  court  was  debarred  from  inflicting  the  death  penalty,  but  its  normal 
process  was  punishment  by  fines.  Here  again  there  was  no  tyranny  ; 
on  the  contrary  the  Crown,  so  far   as  forms  went,  had  merely  obtained 


Henry  VII. 's  Chapel,  Westminster  Abbey. 
[From  a  drawing  by  Herbert  Railton.] 

parliamentary  sanction  for  what  had  previously  been  done,  though  only 
occasionally,  without  parliamentary  sanction  at  all.  The  hand  of  the 
law  was  very  much  strengthened  and  the  royal  coffers  were  legitimately 
filled. 

Lastly,  the  king  resorted  freely  to  benevolences,  for  once  disregarding 
the  letter  of  a  statute  of  Richard  III.  But  there  was  no  compulsion.  The 
king  presented  to  his  victims  two  dilemmas  ;  the  first,  "  If  you  can  afford  to 
aid  your  sovereign  when  he  is  in  need  of  money,  you  can  bear  him  but 
little  goodwill  if  you  refuse  it  to  him  "  ;  the  second,  traditionally  known  as 
Morton's  Fork — a  libel  on  the  Archbishop,  who  was  not  responsible  for  it 
— "  You  live  handsomely,  therefore  you  can  afford  to  help  the  king  out 


252  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

of  your  abundance  ;  or  else,  you  live  sparingly,  therefore  you  have  wealth 
laid  by  and  can  afford  to  help  the  king  out  of  your  savings."  But  these 
dubious  methods  of  raising  money  were  during  the  earlier  part  of  Henry's 
reign  applied  not  to  the  commons  but  to  the  nobles.  It  was  only  in  the 
later  years,  when  the  king's  position  was  already 
secured,  that  the  machinery  of  extortion  was  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  commons. 

In  the  later  years  of  Henry's  reign,  parliaments 
were  as  rare  as  they  had  at  first  been  frequent, 
because  the  king  had  accumulated  such  a  mass  of 
treasure  that  he  had  no  need  to  appeal  to  his  subjects 
for  assistance.  He  left  to  his  son  a  full  treasury, 
an  indisputable  title  to  the  throne,  and  experienced 
officials  who  thoroughly  understood  their  business,  but 
had  neither  the  will  nor  the  power  to  control  the 
Crown.  His  chosen  agents  had  always  been  ecclesi- 
astics, or,  if  laymen,  not  lords  but  commoners.  His 
policy  had  finally  destroyed  the  once  dangerously 
excessive  accumulation  of  power  and  wealth  in  the 
hands  of  a  few  great  families  ;  the  vast  estates 
were  dispersed,  while  the  gentry  of  moderate  estate 
had  been  multiplied  ;  and  at  the  same  time  the 
burgess  class  had  been  carefully  fostered  and  their 
r;  wealth  also  increased.  Both  these  classes  had 
!^  everything  to  gain  by  the  maintenance  of  peace, 
order,    and   law  ;   which    it    was    no   less   in    the    in- 

A  gentleman  of  the  time  of     j,rii/~.  ,  n^        i.^         ^      l 

Henry  VII.  tcrests    of    the    Crown    to    preserve.     To    the   gentry 

and  to  the  burgesses,  arbitrary  treatment  of  the 
magnates  was  rather  welcome  than  otherwise  so  long  as  they  were  not 
themselves  victimised  ;  and  thus  the  Crown  was  established  in  a  position 
of  greater  power,  provided  that  power  were  judiciously  exercised,  than 
it  had  known  since  the  days  of  Edward  I. 


IV 


THE  COMMERCIAL   AND   AGRICULTURAL  REVOLUTION 


The  Tudor  period  saw  the  beginnings  of  that  commercial  expansion 
which  was  to  make  the  people  of  England  the  wealthiest  in  the  world. 
Hitherto  she  had  not  been  distinguished  by  commercial  enterprise.  She 
had  prospered  largely  because,  since  the  time  of  the  Conquest,  she  had 
never    been    devastated   by   a   foreign    invader,  and,  since   the   anarchy  of 


HENRY   VII  253 

Stephen,  she  had  been  free  from  the  destruction  wrought  by  private  wars 
between  the  nobles — an  immunity  to  which  Europe  offered  no  parallel. 
For  short  periods  in  the  reign  of  John,  of  Henry  III.,  of  Edward  II.,  of 
Richard  II.,  and  of  Henry  IV.,  she  had  been  troubled  by  civil  conflicts  ;  but 
in  none  of  these,  nor  even  in  the  War  of  the  Roses,  had  such  havoc  been 
wrought  as  had  been  suffered  by  every  district  on  the  Continent  at  the 
hands  of  foreign  invaders  or  of  warring  factions.  English  commerce  had 
indeed  progressed  during  the  last  two  centuries  ;  but  the  Netherlanders, 
the  Venetians,  the  great  maritime  cities  of  Italy  and  the  great  trading  cities 
of  Germany  were,  commercially  speaking,  much  more  con- 
spicuous than  England.  In  maritime  activity  she  was 
excelled  by  many  rivals,  although  for  military  purposes  the 
fleets  of  her  coast  towns  held  their  own  in  the  narrow  seas. 

The  great  change  came,  though  not  immediately,  as  a 
consequence  of  the  enterprise  of  other  peoples.  England 
reaped  where  she  had  not  sown.  A  Genoese  sailor  in  the 
service  of  Spain  discovered  America  when  he  was  looking 
for  India,  and  the  Portuguese  discovered  the  ocean  route 
to  the  Far  East,  hitherto  cut  off  from  the  Western  world 
by  the  Mohammedan  rampart  in  Asia.  The  sea,  hitherto 
regarded  as  a  barrier,  shutting  out  the  foreigner  indeed 
but  shutting  the  nation  in  upon  itself,  was  turned  into  a 
vast  highway  where  English  sailors  above  all  learnt  to  find 
a  new  field  for  enterprise.  But  at  the  outset  the  prizes 
went  to  Portugal  and  Spain. 

This  was  in  some  sort  an  accident  as  far  as  Spain  was 
concerned,  for  it  is  not  impossible  that  Columbus  would 
have  sailed  from  England  instead  of  Spain  but  for  the  fact 
that  his  brother  Bartholomew,  sent  to  entreat  assistance 
from  Henry  VII.,  was  captured  by  pirates,  and  the  great 
Genoese  made  his  bargain  with  Isabella  of  Castile  instead. 
And  even  so,  England  was  only  just  behind.  The  energy 
of  Bristol  merchants  had  already  sent  expeditions  in  un- 
successful search  for  new  lands  across  the  Atlantic  when  Columbus  sailed  ; 
and  it  was  an  English  expedition,  though  one  under  the  command  of 
the  Genoese  or  Venetian  captains,  John  and  Sebastian  Cabot,  which 
first  touched  the  American  mainland — five  years  after  Columbus  dis- 
covered the  West  Indies  and  a  year  before  Vasco  da  Gama  reached  India 
by  the  Cape  route.  But  Spain  had  struck  upon  a  region  conspicuously 
productive  ;  whereas  the  English  discoveries  in  the  Far  North  seemed 
altogether  unpromising.  Henry,  interested  at  first,  refused  to  be  drawn 
into  heavy  and  extremely  speculative  expenditure.  English  exploration  was 
not  pushed,  and  no  serious  protest  was  made  when  Pope  Alexander  VI. 
drew  a  line  from  North  to  South  down  the  map  of  the  v^^orld,  and  pronounced 


A  15th  century  wool 

merchant. 

[  From  a  brass.  ] 


254  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

that  al!  which  might  be  discovered  on  one  side  of  that  hne  belonged  to 
Spain  and  everything  on  the  other  side  of  the  Hne  to  Portugal.  So  in  the 
course  of  less  than  half  a  century,  Portugal  set  up  a  maritime  empire  in 
the  East  and  Spain  established  her  American  empire  in  the  West  without 
interference  from  England.  England's  own  oceanic  expansion  did  not 
set  in  till  the  reign  of  Elizabeth. 

But  if  England  lagged  behind  at  the  beginning  of  that  race  in  which  she 
was  ultimately  to  distance  all  competitors,  it  was  not  because  her  king 
underrated  the  value  of  commerce.  Henry  was  not  in  advance  of  the 
economic  theories  of  his  day,  but  more  than  any  of  his  predecessors  he 
realised  the  importance  of  increasing  the  wealth  of  the  country  over  which 
he  ruled  ;  and  he  made  it  the  direct  aim  of  his  policy  to  increase  that 
wealth  ;  treating  commercial  development  as  an  end  in  itself,  an  object  of 
State  policy,  but  also  applying  commerce  and  commercial  regulations  as  a 
means  to  obtaining  political  ends.  There  are  those  who  believe  that  a 
policy  of  "  protection  "  is  always  right,  that  the  home  producer  should  be 
artificially  aided  in  competition  with  the  foreigner.  There  are  those  who 
believe  that  protection  is  always  wrong,  and  that  the  best  aggregate  results 
are  obtained  by  absolutely  unfettered  competition.  But  it  is  common  ground 
that  the  strongest  case  for  protection  arises  in  those  countries  whose 
industries  are  endeavouring  to  enter  a  field  of  which  other  competitors  are 
already  in  possession.  This  was  England's  case.  At  the  close  of  the 
Middle  Ages  no  one  had  challenged  the  doctrines  of  protection  ;  it  was 
assumed  that  the  foreign  competitor  should  be  shut  out,  or  admitted  only 
in  return  for  reciprocal  privileges.  Henry  made  it  a  special  object  of  his 
diplomacy  to  obtain  privileges  from  foreign  Powers  and  to  reduce  to  a 
minimum  the  privileges  enjoyed  in  England  by  foreign  mercantile  corpora- 
tions. Monopolies  hitherto  enjoyed  by  the  Hanseatic  League  were  broken 
through,  the  Hanse  towns  were  forced  to  admit  English  traders,  and  the 
Hanse  merchants  in  England  found  their  own  privileges  practically 
curtailed. 

But  it  was  not  merely  to  obtain  or  to  extend  commercial  privileges 
that  Henry  employed  this  instrument.  When  Burgundy  gave  shelter 
to  a  pretender  or  threatened  to  be  politically  troublesome,  Henry  fought 
a  commercial  war  with  decisive  success.  The  trade  between  England 
and  Flanders  was  practically  stopped,  to  the  heavy  loss  of  the  English 
wool-trade  for  the  time  being,  but  to  the  ruin  of  the  Flemish  manu- 
facturers, who  suffered  much  as  Lancashire  suffered  from  the  cotton 
famine  brought  about  by  the  American  Civil  War  in  the  reign  of  Queen 
Victoria.  Philip  was  forced  to  surrender,  and  the  treaty  called  the  Inter- 
airsus  Magnus  for  a  while  established  something  very  like  free  trade 
between  England  and  the  Netherlands.  At  a  later  stage,  when  Philip 
again  seemed  likely  to  be  troublesome,  and  accident  forced  him  ashore 
in  England  when  he  was  on  his  way  to  Spain,  Henry  extorted  from 
him    a    new    treaty    of    an     altogether    one-sided    character,    which    had 


HENRY    VII  255 

subsequently  to  be  modified  when  it  became  obvious  that  the  con.mercial 
ruin  of  Flanders  would  mean  the  loss  of  a  valuable  market  for  English 
goods. 

A  conspicuous  feature  of  Henry's  economic  policy  was  the  revival 
of  Richard  II.'s  Navig2ition  Act.  As  before,  however,  the  object  was  not 
so  much  the  commercial  one  of  capturing  the  carrying  trade  as  that  of 
developing  the  English  marine  for  military  purposes.  Although  Henry 
did  not  create  a  royal  navy,  he  was  alive  to  the  increasing  importance 
of  fleets  when  England's  political  horizon 
ceased  to  be  practically  bounded  by  France. 
English  shipping  had  so  far  developed  that 
the  renewed  Acts  were  not,  like  the  old 
ones,  absolutely  a  dead  letter.  Although 
the  Navigation  Act  was  to  some  extent  a 
check  upon  commerce,  it  increased  the 
amount  of  English  shipping  and  the  number 
of  seafaring  men,  and  thereby  gave  an  im- 
pulse to  the  development  of  English  sea- 
manship. Yet  even  in  the  sixteenth  century 
such  statesmen  as  Wolsey  and  Lord  Bur- 
leigh were  inclined  to  regard  the  Act  as 
tending  indirectly  to  defeat  the  end  to  which 
it  was  directly  aimed. 

Henry's  commercial  policy  was  a  symp- 
tom as  well  as  a  cause  of  the  development 
of  commercial  enterprise  during  his  reign. 
A  new  spirit  was  abroad,  which  was  ex- 
emplified by  those  "  adventures "  of  the  Bristol  merchants  to  which 
reference  has  already  been  made.  The  companies  of  Merchant  Adventurers 
were  pushing  themselves  everywhere,  without  as  well  as  with  the  direct 
countenance  of  the  State,  thrusting  into  new  markets  by  illegitimate 
methods  if  legitimate  means  were  wanting  ;  their  ships  were  seen  in  the 
Baltic  and  the  Mediterranean. 

Commercialism  was  responsible  for  another  change  of  which  the  im- 
mediate effects  were  anything  but  beneficial.  Almost  throughout  the  Middle 
Ages  farming  had  been  carried  on  for  subsistence,  with  very  little  idea 
of  accumulating  profit.  But  the  commercial  spirit  attacked  the  land- 
owners, who  began  to  seek  to  make  the  maximum  of  profit  out  of  the  land. 
Accident  had  turned  them  to  the  extension  of  sheep-farming  when  it 
was  not  worth  while  to  restore  to  tillage  lands  which  had  fallen  out  of 
cultivation  owing  to  the  Black  Death.  But  when  landowners  began  to 
seek  for  profit,  and  realised  that  their  sheep-runs  were  paying  them  much 
better  than  their  arable  land,  and  that  there  was  an  immense  market 
for  wool  which  cost  little  to  produce,  they  began  to  turn  themselves 
to  the  actual  conversion  of  tillage  into  pasture. 


Agricultural  labourers. 
[Early  i6th  century  woodcuts.] 


256  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

So  began  the  great  process  of  enclosing,  which  was  twofold.  It  meant 
in  the  first  place  the  legal  or  illegal  appropriation  and  enclosing  of  common 
lands,  and  in  the  second  place  the  enclosure  of  the  open  fields.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  under  the  old  system  the  cultivated  land  of  which  each 
village  and  manor-house  was  the  centre  consisted  of  open  fields  cut  up  into 
strips  of  an  acre  or  half  an  acre,  separated  not  by  hedges  but  by  balks, 
ridges  which  were  left  unploughed.  The  villein  with  thirty  acres  probably 
had  thirty  strips  none  of  which  were  contiguous,  although  there  was  a 
tendency  for  the  lord  of  the  manor  to  consolidate  the  demesne  lands. 
The  tendency  now  was  for  the  lord  to  endeavour  to  evict  the  occupiers  of 
strips  lying  within  the  demesne  lands,  in  order  to  complete  the  consolida- 
tion and  to  provide  large  enclosed  fields  for  grazing  instead  of  narrow  un- 
enclosed strips  which   could  not  be  put  under  sheep.     The  enclosure  of 


c^!v=-«^'^S5S£-^-e:; 


A  Common  or  Open  Field  in  Somerset  showing  Balks. 
[From  a  photosraph  by  Miss  E.  M.  Leonard.] 

commons  deprived  the  peasants  of  the  ground  on  which  they  had  kept 
their  little  supply  of  live  stock.  The  evictions  when  they  could  be  carried 
out  with  any  colour  of  law,  turned  the  occupiers  adrift.  The  conversion  of 
arable  into  pasture  meant  that  few  labourers  were  required  where  many 
had  been  employed  before.  Thus  great  numbers  of  labourers  found  them- 
selves without  employment  ;  and  the  diminution  of  tillage,  the  reduced 
production  of  food-stuffs,  raised  the  price  of  food.  Hence  the  country 
began  to  swarm  with  men  for  whom  there  was  no  employment,  since  the 
former  agricultural  labourer  could  not  betake  himself  to  the  urban  indus- 
tries, which  sought  rigorously  to  exclude  new-comers.  By  the  middle  of 
the  reign  of  Henry  VII.,  as  we  may  learn  from  Sir  Thomas  More's  Utopia, 
the  swarms  of  sturdy  vagabonds  wlio  might  be  willing  enough  to  work  but 
could  get  no  work  to  do  were  already  becoming  a  serious  pest,  and  for 
more  than  half  a  century  the  evil  was  continuously  on  the  increase. 


HENRY   VII  257 


IRELAND 

Ireland  claimed  its  share  of  attention  from  the  new  monarchy.  In 
the  old  days  it  had  been  an  outlying  dominion  of  the  Crown,  practically 
remote  from  England,  and  playing  no  part  in  England  itself.  Since  the 
failure  of  Edward  Bruce  to  convert  it  into  a  kingdom  for  himself,  it  had 
been  difficult  enough  to  provide  Ireland  with  any  semblance  of  a  govern- 
ment ;  but  sheer  incapacity  for  co-operation  on  the  part  of  its  chiefs, 
whether  Celts  or  Normans,  destroyed  any  prospect  of  its  seeking  to  achieve 
independence.  Within  the  Pale,  English  law  and  institutions  modelled  on 
those  of  England  prevailed.  Outside  the  Pale,  the  Fitzgeralds  or  Geral- 
dines  of  Kildare  and  Desmond,  the  Butlers  of  Ormond,  and  the  Burkes  who 
had  been  De  Burghs,  went  their  own  way  in  the  south  and  west,  while 
MacNeills,  O'Donnells  and  O'Connors  did  likewise  in  the  north.  Edward  III. 
had  sent  his  son  Lionel  of  Clarence  as  Lieutenant ;  his  rule  was  sig- 
nalised by  the  Statute  of  Kilkenny,  a  desperate  attempt  to  stop  the  pro- 
cess by  which  the  Normans  were  becoming  increasingly  Celticised.  The 
fusion  of  the  races  by  intermarriage,  and  the  adoption  of  Celtic  customs 
and  language,  were  prohibited  on  the  hypothesis  that  the  Irish  were  an 
inferior  and  incurably  barbarian  people  ;  nevertheless,  things  went  on  very 
much  as  before. 

No  English  king  except  Richard  II.  visited  Ireland  in  person.  Richard 
of  York,  his  uncle  Edmund  Mortimer,  and  his  grandfather  Roger,  all  served 
as  Lieutenants  of  Ireland,  whither  they  were  sent  in  part  at  least  to  keep 
them  out  of  the  way.  But  all  had  made  themselves  popular,  with  the  result 
that,  in  the  War  of  the  Roses,  Ireland  provided  a  safe  refuge  for  Yorkists 
and  a  base  for  Yorkist  pretenders  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VII.  ;  although  the 
rivalry  between  Geraldines  and  Butlers  kept  the  house  of  Ormond  on  the 
Lancastrian  side.  By  this  time  the  post  of  Lieutenant  had  become  an  honor- 
ary one.  Prince  Henry,  afterwards  Henry  VIII.,  was  named  Lieutenant  at 
the  age  of  three.     But  the  functions  were  discharged  by  a  Deputy. 

The  Deputy  appointed  by  Edward  IV.  had  been  the  great  Earl  of  Kildare, 
Gerald  Fitzgerald,  whose  relations  with  Henry  VII.  were  unique.  The  ablest 
as  well  as  the  most  powerful  of  the  Irish  lords,  he  was  a  man  who  could 
himself  rule  but  had  no  idea  of  being  ruled  by  anybody  else.  The  King  of 
England  thoroughly  appreciated  his  qualities,  and  despite  his  turbulence  and 
insubordination,  even  his  notorious  complicity  in  rebellion,  retained  him  in 
the  office  of  Deputy  except  when  some  peculiarly  outrageous  proceeding 
necessitated  his  temporary  removal.  Henry's  attitude  is  exemplified  in  an 
anecdote.  '<  All  Ireland,"  complained  a  victimised  bishop,  ''  cannot  rule  this 
man."      "Then,"  quoth  the  king,   "I  see  this  man  must  rule  all  Ireland." 

R 


258  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

But  in  one  of  the  intervals  when  Kildare  was  deposed,  Henry  found  an 
efficient  EngHsh  Deputy  in  the  person  of  Sir  Edward  Poynings,  a  good 
soldier  and  an  able  administrator,  who  in  his  brief  term  of  office  established 


Ireland  under  the  Tudors. 


the  foundations  of  a  permanent  organised  government  by  Poynings*  Law, 
which  remained  its  basis  for  nearly  three  hundred  years.  In  England, 
according  to  existing  practice,  legislation  was  initiated  by  the  ministers  of 
the  Crown,  though  it  might  be  on  the  petition  of  the  commons,  and  though 
it   required    the    assent    of    parliament.     Theoretically    the    system    under 


HENRY    VII  259 

Poynings'  Law  did  not  greatly  deviate  for  Ireland  from  this  practice,  but 
the  effect  was  very  different.  The  Irish  parhament  did  not  on  its  own  ac- 
count pass  Bills  which  were  sent  up  for  the  royal  assent  ;  it  could  only  accept 
or  reject  without  modification  Bills  which  were  shaped  by  the  King  in 
Council  in  England.  Since  the  King's  Council  looked  upon  Irish  affairs  with 
English  eyes,  this  meant  practically  that  Irish  legislation  was  controlled  by 
English  ideas,  which  were  not  less  pronounced  because  they  were  formed 
in  almost  total  ignorance  of  Irish  conditions.  But  the  great  problem  for 
Ireland  was  not  that  of  legislation  but  of  efficient  administration.  On  the 
whole,  Henry  himself  aimed  at  the  principle  of  endeavouring  to  induce  the 
Irish  magnates  to  range  themselves  on  the  side  of  law  and  order  and  central- 
ised government ;  a  policy  to  which  the  only  alternative  was  the  establish- 
ment of  a  military  government  emphatically  and  manifestly  capable  of 
enforcing  law  and  order  by  the  strong  hand.  It  was  unfortunate  that  the 
Tudor  governments  perpetually  vacillated  between  these  two  policies,  and 
while  they  generally  leaned  to  the  latter,  persistently  refused  to  provide  the 
Deputies  with  sufficient  military  force  to  give  it  effect. 


VI 

SCOTLAND 

We  left  James  III.  of  Scotland  at  the  moment  when  he  had  triumphed 
over  the  baronial  factions  headed  by  his  brother  the  Duke  of  Albany. 
James,  however,  lacked  the  capacity  for  securing  his  position.  Precisely 
how  or  why  the  new  antagonism  was  aroused  is  not  very  clear  ;  but 
in  1488  there  was  a  new  "band"  among  the  most  powerful  of  the 
nobles,  headed  by  Angus,  popularly  known  as  Archibald  Bell-the-Cat  be- 
cause he  had  announced  his  intention  of  ''belling  the  cat"  in  accordance 
with  the  well-known  fable.  In  the  face  of  this  combination  James  himself 
withdrew  to  the  North,  where  he  was  sure  of  support.  The  insurgents, 
however,  captured  the  person  of  Prince  James,  the  heir-apparent,  who 
allowed  himself  to  be  used  as  a  figurehead,  he  being  then  a  boy  of 
fourteen.  Angus  in  the  past  had  held  treasonable  correspondence  with 
England,  though  the  insurgents  now  made  anglicising  tendencies  one  of 
their  charges  against  King  James.  A  battle  was  fought  at  Sauchie  Burn, 
not  far  from  Stirling,  where  the  royalist  force  was  routed.  The  king 
escaped  from  the  field  only  to  be  murdered  on  the  same  day,  though  the 
actual  murderer  remained  unknown. 

Young  James  was  at  once  proclaimed  king.  His  father's  death  pre- 
vented his  title  from  being  challenged,  while  the  manner  of  it  imposed  upon 
the  Lords  the  need  of   a   particularly  careful  display  of  constitutionalism. 


26o  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

The  result  was  that  the  newly  constituted  government  abstained  from  violence, 
and  could  fairly  claim  credit  for  devoting  itself  to  the  general  establish- 
ment of  order. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  young  king  showed  himself  capable  of 
assuming  the  reins  of  government.  He  was  a  prince  of  brilliant  accom- 
plishments, mentally  and  physically  vigorous,  romantic  and  chivalrous  of 
temperament,  alive  to  the  duties  of  a  ruler,  but  dangerously  impulsive. 
For  twenty  years  Scotland  advanced  under  his  rule,  and  became  a  flourish- 
ing and  orderly  State  not  wholly 
negligible  in  European  politics.  That 
James  was  a  strong  king  is  sufficiently 
demonstrated  by  the  absence  of  any 
of  those  great  contests  with  baronial 
factions  in  which  each  of  his  three 
predecessors  had  been  involved. 
Before  he  was  twenty  years  old  it  is 
true  that  there  were  troubles,  and  that 
Angus  again  entered  into  treasonable 
relations  with  the  King  of  England. 
But  there  was  no  recurrence  of  these 
alarms.  The  one  serious  internal  con- 
flict which  occupied  Scotland  was  that 
with  the  Lords  of  the  Isles,  the  ancient 
feud  of  the  Western  Celts  with  the 
supremacy  of  the  Crown.  In  this  con- 
test James  was  completely  successful, 
and  during  the  latter  part  of  his  reign 
secured  not  only  the  submission  but 
the  loyalty  of  the  chieftains  of  the  west. 
The  relations  of  James  with  Eng- 
land were  habitually  what  is  called 
strained.  Border  raids  and  piratical  encounters  at  sea  provided  an  eternal 
cause  of  complaints  and  counter-complaints.  We  have  seen  James 
espousing  the  cause  of  Perkin  Warbeck  and  finally  settling  down  into 
comparatively  friendly  relations  with  Henry  VII.,  who  never  wanted  to 
quarrel  with  him.  But  even  after  his  marriage  with  Margaret  Tudor 
there  were  occasions  when  only  a  skilful  diplomacy  averted  war  between 
the  two  nations.  In  the  different  phases  of  his  relations  with  Henry  VII. 
James  did  not  show  himself  a  particularly  far-sighted  politician,  but  he  did 
prove  himself  an  efficient  ruler.  Similarly  he  proved  his  natural  soundness 
and  efficiency  by  great  improvements  in  the  administration  of  justice,  and 
by  careful  endeavours  to  foster  Scottish  commerce.  He  too  was  moved 
by  the  educational  sjiirit  which  was  abroad,  and  insisted  upon  the  education 
of  his  subjects  at  grammar  schools,  besides  establishing  a  new  university  at 
Aberdeen  and  introducing  the  printin^f-press.      Most  notable  also  was  his 


James  III.  of  Scotland 
[Taken  from  a  painting  of  James  and  his  S( 


Holyrood.] 


HENRY    VII  261 

zeal  for  the  creation  of  a  navy,  a  project  to  which  Robert  Bruce  had 
devoted  attention  and  energy,  but  which  had  remained  in  abeyance  since 
his  day.  If  James  had  died  before  the  battle  of  Flodden  was  fought,  if  he 
had  not  given  way  to  the  fatal  impulse  which  brought  about  that  great 
national  disaster,  he  would  probably  have  been  remembered  by  posterity  as 
the  greatest  royal  benefactor  of  Scotland  since  the  days  of  Bruce.  But  on 
that  fatal  field  half  his  work  was  undone.  That,  however,  is  a  story  which 
belongs  to  our  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE    DEFENDER    OF    THE    FAITH 

I 

THE   CARDINAL 

In  strong  contrast  to  Henry  VH.,  stained,  to  the  public  eye,  by  the  sordid 
craftiness  of  his  later  years,  stood  the  brilliant  young  prince  who  succeeded 
him  on  the  throne ;  a  goodly  youth,  a  champion  in  all  manly  sports,  of  a 
notable  versatility,  highly  accomplished,  a  scholar  and  a  lover  of  letters, 
the  whole  nation  acclaimed  Henry  with  enthusiastic  anticipations.  His 
first  actions  added  to  his  popularity  since  he  at  once  struck  down  the 
worst  agents  of  his  father's  extortion,  the  notorious  Empson  and  Dudley. 
It  mattered  not  much  to  the  public  that  the  actual  charges  on  which  they 
were  put  to  death  could  scarcely  be  sustained.  They  met  with  their  deserts, 
and  no  one  inquired  too  curiously  into  the  technical  justification.  The 
pomp  and  festivities  of  the  young  king's  marriage  with  Katharine  of  Aragon 
encouraged  the  general  rejoicing. 

The  European  monarchs  also  rejoiced.  Ferdinand  of  Spain  and  the 
Emperor  Maximilian  were  extremely  experienced  politicians,  who  hoped  to 
find  in  the  young  monarch's  warlike  ambitions  a  means  whereby  they 
could  use  his  innocence  to  achieve  their  own  ends  at  his  expense,  their 
immediate  object  being  the  depression  of  France.  There  was  in  England 
an  inclination  to  revive  the  martial  glories  of  the  past  at  the  expense  of 
France,  and  before  long  it  seemed  that  the  old  schemers  would  have  their 
way.  Henry  was  drawn  into  a  league,  and  plunged  into  a  French  war  in 
15 1 2.  His  prize  was  to  be  the  recovery  of  Guienne.  This  was  the  bait 
offered  him  by  Ferdinand  and  Maximilian,  though  neither  of  them  had  the 
slightest  intention  of  helping  him  to  get  it. 

The  first  expedition  despatched  for  the  attack  on  Guienne  was  a  mere 
fiasco.  But  the  failure  brought  to  the  front  the  minister  who,  in  the  public 
eye,  was  to  dominate  Henry's  policy  almost  throughout  the  first  half  of  his 
reign.  Thomas  Wolsey,  the  son  of  a  grazier,  or  of  a  butcher  according 
to  his  enemies,  had  been  sent  to  Oxford  at  an  early  age  ;  and  having  dis- 
tinguished himself  there,  entered  the  household  of  Lord  Dorset  as  a  tutor. 
By  Dorset  he  was  brought  to  tlie  notice  of  Bishop  Fox,  one  of  the  great 
ecclesiastical  ministers  of  Henry  Vll.     Fox  introduced  him  to  the  king, 


THE   DEFENDER   OF   THE    FAITH  263 

who  soon  discovered  his  unusual  abilities.  When  young  Henry  came  to 
the  throne  Wolsey  was  attached  to  the  Council,  probably  as  the  right-hand 
man  of  Bishop  Fox,  who  remained  the  official  representative  of  the  old 
king's  policy  ;  while  the  war  party  who  hoped  to  carry  the  king  with  them 
was  headed  by  the  Earl  of  Surrey,  Thomas  Howard.  But  Henry 
had  an  unfailing  eye  for  character,  and  he  perceived  in  Wolsey  precisely 
the  man  he  wanted — 
a  man  ambitious  for 
England  and  for  him- 
self, but  one  whose 
birth  and  conditions 
precluded  him  from 
becoming  dangerous 
to  the  Crown  ;  a  man 
with  an  inlinite  grasp 
of  detail  and  an  in- 
hnite  capacity  for 
labour,  but  with  a 
breadth  of  view  which 
completely  removed 
him  from  the  class 
of  merely  capable 
officials.  Wolsey's 
conception  of  policy 
appealed  to  the  king, 
and  Wolsey  would  re- 
lieve him  of  all  the 
troublesome  part  of 
carrying  it  out. 

Since  the  war  had 
been  embarked  upon, 
it    was    Wolsey's    im- 
mediate policyto  carry 
it  through  with  effici- 
ency.    There  were  to  be    no   more   fiascoes,    and    a   vigorous    campaign 
was  arranged  for    1513,  in   which  the  king  himself  took  part.      His   zeal 
for  military  glory  was  rewarded  by  the  capture  of  Terouanne  and  Tournai. 
But  the  great  event  of  the  year  was  the  battle  of  Flodden. 

The  relations  between  James  IV.  of  Scotland  and  his  brother-in-law 
vrere  strained  in  spite  of  the  treaties  of  friendship  struck  in  the  previous 
reign.  There  were  mutual  charges  of  piracy  between  English  and  Scottish 
sea  captains  ;  there  were  quarrels  about  border  raids ;  there  were  squabbles 
about  the  alleged  dower  of  Queen  Margaret.  James  had  always  refused  to 
repudiate  the  old  alliance  with  France,  and  his  fatal  passion  for  knight 
errantry  was  roused  by  the  French  queen's  appeal  to  him  to  strike  a  blow 


Cardinal  Wolsey. 
[After  the  portrait  by  Holbein.] 


264  THE   AGE   OF  TRANSITION 

on  English  ground  as  her  knight.  The  bulk  of  the  Scottish  nobility  were 
always  ready  for  a  fight  with  the  English,  and  Henry  had  hardly  sailed 
for  France  when  James  crossed  the  Border  with  a  great  army. 

The  defence  of  the  kingdom  had  been  left  in  the  hands  of  Queen 
Katharine  and  Surrey.  James  advanced  to  Flodden  Edge  in  Northumber- 
land, having  secured  the 
castles  on  his  rear  which 
threatened  his  communica- 
tions. Surrey,  having 
gathered  a  considerable 
force,  challenged  the  Scots 
to  descend  from  the  strong 
position  they  had  occupied 
and  fight  him  on  the  plain. 
The  Scots  were  completely 
masters  of  the  situation,  and 
declined.  Surrey,  whose 
movements  were  masked 
by  the  hilly  country, 
marched  north  towards 
Berwick,  leaving  the  Scot- 
tish army  on  his  left,  then 
wheeled,  crossed  the  river 
Till  so  as  to  cut  off  any  re- 
treat of  the  Scots  army,  and 
advanced  southwards  again 
towards  Flodden.  James 
might  have  held  his  own 
ground  and  laughed  at 
Surrey  ;  but  in  a  moment 
of  infatuation  he  chose  in- 
stead to  descend  from  his 
position  and  give  battle. 
The  conflict  resolved  itself 
into  a  furious  hand-to-hand 
struggle.  The  wings  of  the 
Scottish  army  were  broken, 
the  centre  was  enveloped, 
the  flower  of  the  Scottish  nobility  were  cut  to  pieces,  and  James  himself 
was  slain  as  Harold  and  his  brothers  had  been  slain  at  Senlac.  The 
effective  military  force  of  Scotland  was  utterly  ruined  ;  and  Scotland,  with 
a  babe  in  arms  for  its  king,  was  once  again  plunged  into  the  miseries 
of  a  prolonged  regency.  It  was  fortunate  for  her  that  Surrey  was  quite 
unable  to  follow  up  his  victory  by  a  counter-invasion. 

Henry's  successes  had  by  no  means  been  to  the  liking  of  Ferdinand,  who 


5 

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Scots  Camp    /  Edge 

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Englishjcamp 

The  Battle  of  Flodden. 
[Showing  the  English  feint  march  towards  Berwick.] 


THE    DEFENDER   OF   THE    FAITH  265 

saw  that  a  continuation  of  the  war  was  not  unHkely  to  secure  to  the  EngHsh 
king  the  hon's  share  of  the  spoils.  Therefore  he  drew  off  Maximihan,  and 
tiiose  two  deserted  their  EngHsh  ally  and  made  peace  on  their  own  account 
with  France.  But  Wolsey  had  learnt  in  the  school  of  Henry  VII.  to  pursue 
his  objects  by  diplomacy  rather  than  by  war,  and  he  counteracted  the  deser- 
tion of  Ferdinand  and  Maxmilian  by  negotiating  an  alliance  between  England 
and  France,  regardless  of  the  traditional  sentiment  of  hostility  between  the 
two  countries.  His  immediate  intentions  were  frustrated,  because  although 
the  French  king,  Louis  XII.,  married  the  English  king's  younger  sister, 
Mary,  his  consort  having  just  died,  he  himself  died  three  months  after- 
wards, and  was  succeeded  by  his  cousin,  Francis  I.,  who  was  slightly  younger 
than  King  Henry. 

In  the  course  of  the  next  four  years  both  Maximilian  and  Ferdinand 
died  ;  with  the  result  that  Charles,  the  grandson  of  both  of  them,  succeeded 
to  the  entire  heritage  of  Spain,  Burgundy,  and  Austria,  and  was  very 
shortly  afterwards  elected  Emperor.  Thus  in  15 19  three  potentates  domi- 
nated the  world,  of  whom  the  eldest  was  eight-and-twenty  and  the  youngest 
was  nineteen  ;  and  the  domination  of  this  same  trio  lasted  for  more  than  five- 
and-twenty  years.  The  skill  of  Wolsey's diplomacy  from  i5i5toi5i9  cannot 
be  appreciated  without  an  elaboration  of  detail  and  an  intricacy  of  explana- 
tion impossible  in  these  pages.  We  must  be  content  to  say  that  he  out- 
manoeuvred both  Ferdinand  and  Maximilian  in  their  own  game  of  diplomacy, 
and  encouraged  the  former  to  check  the  aggressions  of  Francis  in  Italy, 
while  he  successfully  kept  England  out  of  war.  The  one  remaining 
important  factor  on  the  Continent  was  the  Pope,  Leo  X.  ;  and  Wolsey 
succeeded  in  making  all  the  Powers  realise  that  his  own  diplomatic  ability 
made  it  extremely  dangerous  for  any  of  them  to  incur  the  hostility  of 
England. 

The  accession  of  Charles  V.  to  the  Empire  made  the  rivalry  between 
Charles  and  Francis  one  of  the  two  dominant  features  of  continental  politics. 
The  other  was  the  rupture  of  Christendom,  following  upon  Luther's  revolt 
against  the  Papacy  ;  but  this  did  not  immediately  come  into  play.  In  1520 
Wolsey  found  both  Charles  and  Francis  eager  to  secure  the  English 
alliance,  while  it  was  his  own  object  so  to  avoid  committing  himself  to  either, 
that  England  might  be  able  to  act  as  arbiter  between  them,  and  might 
extract  her  own  advantage  out  of  that  position.  Hence  that  year  witnessed 
the  ostentatious  display  of  cordiality  between  the  kings  of  England  and  France 
at  the  famous  meeting  of  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold — and  also  a  quite 
unostentatious  meeting  in  England  between  the  English  king  and  Charles. 
The  meetings  left  the  real  situation  practically  unaltered.  Henry  was  the 
good  friend  and  ally  of  both  the  continental  monarchs,  but  neither  of  them 
knew  which  he  would  support  if  they  should  come  to  blows. 

While  the  collision  was  still  approaching,  the  immense  ascendency 
which  the  Crown  had  achieved  in  England  was  demonstrated  by  the  fall 
of  the    Duke   of   Buckingham    the  nobleman   who   stood   nearest   to    the 


266 


THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 


Crown  in  viiiue  of  his  descent  both  from  the  house  of  Beaufort  and  from 
the  house  of  Thomas  of  Woodstock,  Duke  of  Gloucester,  the  youngest  son 
of  Edward  III.  The  king  can  have  had  Httle  enough  to  fear  from  him  ; 
but  he  was  representative  of  the  hostile  attitude  of  the  nobility  to  Wolsey, 
whose  arrogance  was  particularly  insulting  in  their  eyes.  The  Duke  had 
used  language  which  could  be  interpreted  as  implying  treasonable  senti- 
ments. He  was  tried  by  his  peers  and  was  condemned  without  hesitation, 
though  the  pretence  that  there  was  any  real  treason  was  merely  ridiculous. 
It  was  made  manifest  that  the  peers  at  least  were  entirely  subservient  to  the 
Crown. 

By  the  end  of  1521  Charles  and  Francis  were  at  war  in  spite  of  all 
Wolsey's  efforts.  A  few  months  later,  England,  as  the  ally  of  Charles,  had 
declared  war  upon  France.      Wolsey  in  the  interval  had  been  disappointed 


Francis  I.  and  Henn'  VIII.  at  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold  inPicardy  in  1520. 
[From  a  contemporary  French  sculpture  in  marble.] 

by  a  papal  election  in  which  he  had  been  passed  over.  Eighteen  months 
later  there  was  another  papal  election,  and  Wolsey  was  again  passed  by 
in  favour  of  the  Cardinal  de  Medici,  who  took  the  name  of  Clement  VII. 
On  both  occasions  Charles  had  promised  to  use  his  influence  in  Wolsey's 
favour,  and  on  both  he  conspicuously  failed  to  do  so.  Wolsey  himself 
had  always  been  rather  inclined  to  favour  Francis  rather  than  Charles,  but 
had  taken  the  course  which  he  knew  his  master  would  prefer.  But  after 
the  election  of  Pope  Clement,  he  was  probably  planning  for  a  revival  of 
the  French  alliance.  In  his  own  day  he  was  certainly  credited  with  having 
been  intensely  set  upon  the  acquisition  of  the  papal  crown.  Possibly  he 
did  not  realise  that  he  was  a  greater  power  as  Henry's  minister  than  any 
pope  could  be  ;  but  possibly  also  he  was  already  conscious  that  a  minister 
of  Henry  held  office  by  a  precarious  tenure. 

In  1525  the  French  king  met  with  a  great  disaster  and  fell  into  the 
hands  of  his  enemies  at  the  battle  of  Pavia.  England  had  put  little  energy 
into  the  war,  but  Henry  was  anxious  to  take  advantage  of  Pavia  to  wring 
Guiennc  from  France.      He  wanted  money  for  the  purpose.     The  war  was 


The  army  of  Henry  VIII.  about  15 13. 
[From  a  contemporary  MS.  in  the  British  Museum.] 


t&7 


268  THE   AGE   OF  TRANSITION 

not  in  the  least  popular  in  the  country,  and  Wolsey  feared  that  to  ask 
parliament  for  supplies  would  be  exceedingly  risky.  Instead,  he  resorted 
to  what  was  called  the  Amicable  Loan,  which  was  nothing  more  or  less 
than  an  illegal  tax.  Perceiving  ominous  signs  that  a  storm  of  resentment 
was  brewing,  Wolsey  dropped  the  Amicable  Loan  and  called  for  a  Benevo- 
lence. London  met  the  demand  by  an  appeal  to  the  statute  of  Richard  IlL 
by  which  benevolences  were  declared  illegal.  The  king  saw  how  matters 
stood,  and  rose  to  the  occasion  after  his  own  fashion.  He  withdrew  the 
demand,  claiming  and  receiving  credit  for  a  noble  generosity,  while  Wolsey, 
execrated  by  the  people,  became  a  secret  object  of  the  royal  displeasure  ; 
not  because  of  what  he  had  done,  but  because  of  what  he  had  failed  to  do. 
Wolsey  tried  to  pacify  the  king's  resentment  by  presenting  him  with  his 
palace  at  Hampton  Court.  The  king  accepted  the  present,  and  the 
Cardinal's  favour  was  outwardly  unimpaired 

But  the  fiasco  over  the  loan  reduced  the  French  war  to  an  absurdity. 
Wolsey  achieved  his  own  present  end,  a  pacification  with  France,  which 
was  to  pay  a  heavy  indemnity.  The  defection  of  England  forced  Charles 
to  make  peace.  Events  were  steadily  tending  to  bring  England  and 
France  into  close  friendship  and  to  isolate  Charles.  But  Charles  was  left 
in  a  dominating  position  in  Italy,  a  position  alarming  to  the  Pope  ;  the 
antagonism  of  Pope  and  Emperor  led  in  1527  to  the  capture  and  sacking 
of  Rome  by  Charles's  troops,  and  the  Pope  was  held  in  the  hollow  of  the 
Emperor's  hand.  But  before  we  pursue  the  story  of  the  reign  further,  we 
must  examine  the  progress  up  to  this  period  of  the  movement  to  which 
we  give  the  name  of  the  Reformation,  which  was  now  becoming  a  foremost 
factor  in  European  politics. 


II 

THE   DAWN   OF   THE   REFORMATION 

The  Reformation  in  one  of  its  aspects  was  a  part  of  that  intellectual 
movement  which  is  covered  by  such  terms  as  the  Renaissance  or  the 
Revival  of  Learning  ;  terms  which  refer  primarily  to  the  revolt  of  the 
human  intelligence  against  bondage  to  the  ex  cathedra  dicta  of  authority 
in  every  field.  That  revolt  involved  the  right  of  the  individual  to  inquire, 
to  criticise,  to  judge,  and  to  form  conclusions,  or  at  least  to  choose  the 
authority  to  whose  judgment  he  will  submit  himself.  In  another  aspect 
it  was  a  spiritual  revolt  against  the  interposition  of  any  meditating  agency 
between  the  individual  human  soul  and  its  Maker.  In  a  third  aspect 
it  was  a  moral  revolt  against  the  corruption  which  was  born  of  the  abuse 
of  practices  not  in  their  original  nature  demoralising.  In  a  fourth  aspect 
it  was  merely  another  chapter  in  the  world-long  struggle  between  Secularism 
and  Clericalism,    between    an    organisation    claiming    authority    in    virtue 


THE    DEFENDER    OF   THE   FAITH  269 

of  its  guardianship  of  the  arcana  of  Divine  knowledge,  the  hidden  wisdom 
of  the  Almighty,  and  the  frankly  human  organisation  of  the  State  ;  and 
in  this  contest  the  State  was  the  aggressor,  and  reclaimed  for  itself  much 
which  it  declared  the  Church  to  have  acquired  upon  false  pretences.  But 
in  all  its  aspects  it  displays  one  common  characteristic,  the  rejection 
of  the  authority  of  the  Holy  See.  A  great  and  far-reaching  reformation 
or  reconstruction  was  possible  and  actually  took  place  within  the  Church, 
which  continued  to  acknowledge  the  papal  authority;  but  "the  Reforma- 
tion "  in  the  technical  sense  means  the  schism  between  the  Church  which 
still  clung  to  Rome  and  the  diverse 
Churches  and  sects  which  separated  them- 
selves from  her.  The  Reformation  for 
which  the  government  of  Henry  VUI. 
was  responsible  had  very  little  to  do  with 
any  of  the  first  three  aspects ;  it  was  with 
the  fourth  that  the  State  concerned  itself ; 
but  it  was  with  the  other  three  that  the 
national  life  was  most  vitally  concerned. 

Although  the  Reformation  in  the 
technical  sense  of  the  term  implies  the 
rejection  of  the  Roman  obedience,  the 
movement  which  culminated  in  the  Re- 
formation had  no  such  object  in  view. 
Even  the  theological  speculations  of  Wiclif 
and  Huss,  which  had  prepared  the  way, 
were  not  consciously  directed  against  the 
papacy.  Emperors,  kings,  and  princes,  who 
fought  against  popes  with  the  weapons  of  the 
flesh,  did  not,  until  the  eleventh  hour,  chal- 
lenge the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the  Roman 
pontiff.  They  habitually  looked  upon  themselves  as  faithful  sons  of  the 
Church,  and  Henry  VIII.  himself  obtained  from  Pope  Leo  X.  the  com- 
plimentary title  of  Defender  of  the  Faith.  The  man  who  probably  did  most 
to  undermine  the  papal  authority,  the  supreme  representative  of  the  critical 
spirit,  the  man  of  whom  it  was  said  that  <'  he  laid  the  egg  which  Luther 
hatched,"  Erasmus,  remained  to  the  last  attached  to  the  principle  of  papal 
authority.  The  men  who  in  England  fought  hardest  to  reinstate  the  papal 
authority,  after  it  was  overthrown,  had  been  brought  up  in  the  new  school ; 
and  in  the  early  stages  of  their  careers  they  had  been  looked  upon  as 
advanced  reformers.  The  first  reformers  believed  that  reform  could  come 
from  within,  and  that  purification  of  doctrine  and  practice  could  be  attained 
without  shattering  the  organisation  which  had  hitherto  seemed  inseparable 
from  Christianity  itself. 

Moral  standards  in  the  fifteenth  century  were  low,  and  the  Church  did 
nothing  to  raise  them.     After  the  Great  Schism  had  been  brought  to  an 


Erasmus. 
[From  a  German  medal  of  1519.] 


270  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

end,  the  papacy  itself  had  recovered  some  of  its  prestige  ;  but  at  the  close 
of  the  century  it  again  sank  to  pitiable  degradation,  reaching  its  nadir  when 
the  Borgia  Alexander  VI.  was  elevated  to  the  papal  throne.  No  vice  was 
too  foul  and  no  crime  too  black  for  the  man  whom  Christendom  acknow- 
ledged as  the  successor  of  St.  Peter.  Nor  was  the  spirit  of  religion  fostered 
by  his  successors,  the  militant  politician  Julius  II.  or  the  refined  pagan 
Leo  X.  When  the  head  is  corrupt,  the  limbs  are  not  likely  to  be  healthy. 
We  have  no  need  to  turn  to  the  partisan  diatribes  of  anti-clerical  fanaticism,  or 
to  the  inevitable  exaggerations  of  Protestants  in  the  hour  of  their  persecution 

or  of  their  victory,  to  realise  that  the 
Church  was  in  desperate  need  of 
reform.  We  may  be  content,  so  far 
as  England  is  concerned,  to  call  the 
evidence  of  John  Colet,  Dean  of 
St.  Paul's,  the  founder  of  St.  Paul's 
School,  the  friend  of  Archbishop 
Warham;  of  the  saintly  Bishop  Fisher 
and  of  Erasmus ;  the  evidence  of  Sir 
Thomas  More,  who  himself,  like 
Fisher,  died  for  his  loyalty  to  the 
Church  ;  the  evidence  of  Henry  VII.'s 
great  Archbishop  Morton.  The  higher 
ecclesiastics,  often  against  their  will, 
were  forced  into  politics  and  drawn 
away  from  their  religious  duties. 
Laxity  of  discipline  was  prevalent  in 
most  monastic  establishments,  and 
rank  immorality  in  some  of  them. 
The  lower  clergy  were  uneducated, 
and  their  teaching  was  commonly  a 
wretched  travesty  of  Church  doctrine. 
Gross  superstitions  fostered  by  fraudu- 
lent conjuring  tricks  were  the  vulgar  substitutes  for  religion.  The  re- 
deeming fact  was  that  the  best  of  the  clergy  and  the  best  of  the  laity 
were  alive  to  the  evil,  and  before  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century  were 
applying  themselves  to  its  remedy.  The  paralysing  grip  of  moribund 
conventions  was  being  challenged  on  all  sides,  and  the  general  intellectual 
movements  had  received  a  great  impulse  from  the  revelation  of  the  for- 
gotten literature  of  Greece  consequent  upon  the  dispersion  of  Greek 
scholarship  after  the  fall  of  Constantinople.  In  England,  characteristically 
enough,  the  light  of  the  new  Greek  scholarship  was  turned  first  upon  the 
New  Testament,  and  the  intelligent  criticism  of  Colet  and  Erasmus  began 
to  vitalise  a  still  orthodox  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures.  A  vigorous 
educational  reform  was  fostered  by  the  greatest  of  the  Church  dignitaries. 
Warham,  the  successor  of  Morton,  Bishop  P'ox,  and  Bishop  Fisher,  and  not 


John  Fisher,  Bishop  of  Rochester. 
[After  ihe  drawing  by  Holbein.] 


THE    DEFENDER    OF   THE    FAITH  271 

least  by  Wolsey  himself,  the  brilliant  «boy  bachelor,"  with  whom  indeed 
education  was  a  passion.  They  founded  schools  and  colleges,  and 
set  in  them  teachers  who  were  enthusiasts  of  the  New  Learning  ;  and  they 
believed  that  education  was  a  panacea  for  all  the  evils  from  which  the 
Church  was  suffering,  which  would  complete  a  cure  without  impairing  her 
authority,  changing  her  doctrines,  or  altering  her  organisation.  The  purifi- 
cation was  to  be  wrought  by  sweet  reasonableness. 

But  elsewhere  the  study  of  the  Scriptures  was  generating  very  different 
ideas.  Zwingli  at  Zurich  was  finding  biblical  warrant  for  doctrines  akin  to 
the  heresies  of  Wiclif  and  Huss,  and  in  the  university  at  Wittenberg,  in 
Saxony,  arose  Martin  Luther,  bringing  not  peace,  but  a  sword. 


Ill 

THE   EUROPEAN   SCHISM 

The  occasion  of  Martin  Luther's  challenge  to  the  papacy  was  the  desire 
of  Pope  Leo  X.  to  procure  funds.  A  method  of  raising  funds  not  infre- 
quently employed  had  been  the  sale  of  indulgences.  The  theory  of  the 
Church  was  that  the  penitent  sinner  might  obtain  from  the  Church,  but 
not  without  the  mediation  of  the  Church,  absolution  and  pardon  for  his 
sins,  subject  to  the  performance  of  the  penance  imposed  by  the  Church, 
as  the  expression  of  the  sinner's  penitence.  The  penance  imposed  not  in- 
frequently took  the  form  of  some  expenditure  on  behalf  of  the  Church. 
Indulgences  were  in  the  original  idea  pardons  granted  without  the  imposi- 
tion of  any  other  penance  than  the  price  of  the  indulgence.  But  unfor- 
tunately in  the  eyes  of  every  one  concerned,  the  pope,  his  agents,  and  the 
public,  the  sale  of  indulgences  assumed  the  appearance  of  a  simple  com- 
mercial transaction  whereby  absolution  could  be  bought  cheaply,  the 
necessity  for  repentance  being  overlooked,  to  the  material  pyrofit  of  the 
papal  treasury.  The  lay  princes,  who  might  otherwise  have  protested 
against  the  abstraction  of  their  subjects'  money  by  Rome,  made  no 
objection  when  they  received  a  substantial  commission  on  the  sales. 

But  to  Luther  the  whole  thing  appeared  a  monstrous  blasphemy. 
When  the  papal  commissioners  were  coming  to  Saxony,  he  publicly  de- 
nounced indulgences,  and  persuaded  the  "  Good "  Elector  of  Saxony, 
Frederick,  to  forbid  the  sale  in  his  dominions.  This  was  in  15  17.  Such 
a  matter  might  have  ended  by  the  immediate  citation  and  punishment 
of  Luther  as  a  heretic.  But  Leo  had  more  important  matters  on  his 
mind  than  the  opinions  of  a  university  professor.  Luther,  having  issued 
his  challenge,  realised  that  the  theological  conceptions  upon  which  he 
had  acted,  and  in  which  he  intensely  believed,  were  incompatible  with 
the  recognised  teaching  of  the  Church,  and  were  in  fact  closely  akin  to 
those   for   which  Wiclif  and   Huss  had  been   condemned  as  heretics.     If 


272  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

he  and  they  were  right,  the  Church  was  wrong.  If  the  Church  was 
wrong,  the  existing  system  was  based  upon  a  He.  Luther  resolved  to 
fight  at  all  costs  for  the  truth  as  he  conceived  it.  He  proclaimed  the 
truth  ;  but  at  the  same  time  he  gathered  a  large  amount  of  lay  support 
in  all  ranks  from  the  princes  of  the  empire  downwards  by  challenging 
the  whole  system  by  which  the   States  were  laid  under  contribution   for 

the   benefit   of   the   papal    ex- 
chequer. 

In  15 19  young  Charles  V. 
became  emperor.  Towards  the 
end  of  1520,  Pope  Leo  issued 
a  Bull  condemning  Luther. 
Luther  burnt  the  Bull.  A  Diet, 
or  assembly  of  the  Imperial 
Estates,  met  at  Worms.  Luther 
was  cited  to  it  under  safe  con- 
duct, to  be  heard  in  his  own 
defence  before  the  secular  arm 
should  enforce  the  will  of  the 
pope.  In  the  face  of  the 
whole  world  Luther  proclaimed 
his  uncompromising  adherence 
to  the  faith  that  was  in  him. 
"  Here  stand  I.  God  help  me. 
I  can  no  other."  The  irre- 
vocable word  had  sounded  at 
the  moment  when  Christen- 
dom was  ready  to  hear.  Fearful  lest  the  bold  monk  should  be  treated 
as  Huss  had  been  treated  a  hundred  years  before,  Luther's  friends 
kidnapped  him  and  hid  him  in  the  forests  of  Thuringia.  But  his  work 
was  already  more  than  half  accomplished.  Although  the  diet  con- 
demned him  and  he  was  put  to  the  ban  of  the  empire — in  other  words 
outlawed — he  carried  with  him  an  immense  force  of  public  opinion. 
From  that  moment  Germany  was  divided  into  two  camps,  and  the 
division  was  soon  to  spread  all  over  Western  Christendom. 

Charles  himself  had  declared  for  the  papacy  ;  so  also  had  the  King 
of  England,  who  regarded  himself  as  an  expert  theologian.  But  Charles 
could  not  afford  to  develop  the  policy  of  the  Edict  of  Worms  which  had 
condemned  Luther  ;  to  do  so  would  have  involved  Germany  in  civil  war, 
of  which  his  rival  Francis  would  not  have  hesitated  to  take  advantage. 
The  religious  question  was  left  for  the  time  being  to  take  care  of  itself. 
A  great  revolt  of  the  German  peasantry,  although  vigorously  condemned 
by  Luther  himself,  who  was  a  strong  advocate  of  the  civil  authority,  was 
inevitably  attributed  to  the  spread  of  the  new  religious  doctrines,  in  the 
same  sort  of  fashion   as   the   English   peasant  revolt  had  been  associated 


Martin  Luther. 
[From  the  painting  by  Cranach.] 


THE    DEFENDER   OF   THE    FAITH  273 

with  the  teaching  of  WicHf,  The  revolt  had  a  reactionary  effect  upon 
the  intellectual  reformers  in  England,  very  much  as  the  French  Revolution 
exercised  a  reactionary  influence  upon  English  Liberalism  at  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  But  in  Germany  itself,  Luther  was  in  fact 
so  uncompromisingly  on  the  government  side  that  Lutheranism  was 
unshaken.  At  the  diet  of  the  empire  held  at  Speier  in  1526  the  principle 
was  accepted  of  leaving  the  several  States  to  settle  their  own  religious 
affairs  "  as  each  thought  it  could  answer  to  God  and  the  emperor."  The 
Empire  as  such  was  not  to  take  sides.  Charles  and  the  pope  were,  in  fact, 
just  engaging  m  that  quarrel  which 
brought  about  the  sack  of  Rome  by 
the  imperial  forces  in  the  following  year 
and  practically  placed  Clement  under 
the  control  of  the  emperor. 

With  the  alliance  of  the  papacy  thus 
again  secured,  Charles  reverted  to  the 
policy  of  repressing  Lutheranism,  and  a 
second  Diet  at  Speier  in  1529  again 
took  up  the  attitude  of  the  Diet  of 
Worms.  The  Lutheran  princes  entered 
the  Protest,  which  gave  to  the  Lutheran 
party  the  title  of  Protestant,  a  name 
which  was  at  first  applied  to  all  who 
accepted  the  Lutheran  Confession  of 
Augsburg,  which  was  drawn  up  in  the 
following  year  ;  but  in  common  parlance 
the  term  was  presently  extended  to 
cover  all  those  who  rejected  the  Roman 
obedience,  whether  they  were  in  agreement  with  Lutheran  doctrines  or 
not.  The  Protestants  at  this  time  felt  the  attitude  of  the  anti-Lutherans 
to  be  so  threatening,  that  they  united  themselves  in  the  League  of 
Schmalkald.  A  war  of  religion  seemed  on  the  verge  of  breaking  out, 
but  the  aggression  of  the  Turks  on  the  East  impressed  responsible  persons 
with  the  necessity  for  preserving  a  religious  truce.  During  the  sixteen 
years  which  passed  before  the  death  of  Luther  himself,  there  was  no  out- 
break of  religious  war  in  Germany.  But  such  a  war  w^as  always  possible, 
and  the  possibility  was  a  constant  factor  in  the  politics  and  diplomacy  of 
the  period. 

It  has  to  be  borne  in  mind,  further,  that  while  Luther  was  the  head  and 
front  of  the  revolt  against  Rome,  that  revolt  was  following  a  somewhat 
different  course  in  the  schools  of  theology,  whose  headquarters  were  at 
Zurich  and  Geneva.  The  reformers  themselves  were  to  be  divided 
into  two  main  camps  under  the  standards  of  Lutheranism  and  Calvinism 
when  the  Swiss  school  was  dominated  by  John  Calvin.  But  as  yet 
divisions  had  not  crystallised.      The  fundamental  fact  was  that  the  ultimate 

S 


The  Pope  struggling  with  Calvin  and  Luther. 
[From  Jaime,  "  Mus^e  de  Caricature."] 


274  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

seat  of  authority  had  been  suddenly  brought  into  dispute,  while  all  men 
seemed  to  require  that  some  ultimate  authority  should  be  established. 
The  Reformation  did  not  at  this  stage  mean  anything  like  the  recognition 
of  the  right  of  private  judgment  ;  but  it  meant  that  every  man  sought  for 
the  establishment  of  an  authority  which  would  be  in  agreement  with  his 
own  private  judgment.  There  was,  in  short,  a  common  desire  for  a 
settlement  which  would  have  involved  at  least  a  high  degree  of  uniformity. 
The  obvious  method  of  achieving  a  settlement  was  by  means  of  a  General 
Council  of  the  Church  ;   therefore  every  one  professed  to  desire  the  holding 

of  a  General  Council.  But  no  one  was 
prepared  to  accept  a  Council  in  which 
views  adverse  to  his  own  were  likely  to 
prevail.  Each  party  and  each  potentate 
wanted  to  secure  the  predominance  for 
themselves.  The  ultimate  outcome  was 
the  Council  of  Trent,  which  was  opened 
in  1545  and  closed  in  1563  ;  but  its 
constitution  so  absolutely  ensured  papal 
predominance  that  the  reformers  re- 
pudiated its  authority  from  the  outset, 
and  it  was  resolved  into  a  council  of  the 
papal  branch  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
which  condemned  all  who  were  outside 
its  own  pale  as  schismatics,  arrogating  to 
itself  alone  the  title  of  Catholic.  In  spite 
of  the  fact  that  other  branches  of  the 
Church  entirely  repudiated  this  papal 
claim,  popular  parlance  accepted  the  ter- 
minology and  treated  the  terms  Papist 
and  Catholic  as  synonymous.  The  his- 
torian is  practically  reduced  to  accepting  the  popular  names  of  Catholic 
and  Protestant  ;  nor  is  there  any  reason  why  they  should  be  regarded  as 
misleading,  so  long  as  it  is  clearly  understood  that  they  are  used  merely  as 
party  labels  without  any  implication  of  their  theological  accuracy. 


The  Music  of  the  Demon. 
[A  contemporary  Catholic  caricature  of  Luther.] 


IV 


THE    BREACPI   WITPI    ROME 


A  reformation,  as  we  have  seen,  was  in  actual  progress  in  England. 
The  *' intellectuals  "  found  favour  in  high  places;  the  leading  churchmen 
belonged  to  the  group,  and  the  one  English  layman  with  a  European 
reputation,  Sir  Thomas  More,  was  greatly  sought  after  by  the  king — rather 
to  his  own  annoyance.     Moreover,  the  intellectualism  was  broad-minded, 


THE    DEFENDER   OF   THE    FAITH  275 

not  self-centred  ;  and  it  strove  honestly  and  zealously  to  educate  the  people. 
The  churchmen  themselves  were  conscious  of  being  excessively  absorbed 
in  temporal  affairs,  and  many  of  them  were  sincerely  desirous  of  a  relief 
therefrom,  although  Wolsey  was  himself  a  conspicuous  example  of  the 
worldly  prelate.  Of  the  monasteries  specifically,  we  shall  have  to  speak 
later.  The  standard  of  clerical  morals  was  not  particularly  depraved,  and 
the  general  tendency  was  certainly  towards  the  higher  standards.  It  was 
a  long  time,  too,  since  the  Church  had  set  itself  to  do  battle  with  the 
secular  authority.  Aggressive  heresy  was  suppressed,  but  with  a  compara- 
tive gentleness.  It  might,  in  short, 
have  been  fairly  anticipated  that 
sweet  reasonableness  was  destined  to 
triumph. 

It  is  no  doubt  probable  that  the 
undercurrent  of  Puritan  zeal  would 
in  any  case  have  proved  too  strong 
for  mere  liberalism  ;  but  it  was  the 
action  of  the  king  himself  which  swept 
England  into  the  revolution.  Henry, 
after  some  fifteen  years  of  married 
life  with  Katharine  of  Aragon,  deter- 
mined to  marry  one  of  her  maids  of 
honour,  Anne  Boleyn.  This  involved 
the  nullification  of  his  marriage  with 
Katharine,  which  again  required  the 
papal  assent.  When  Henry  found 
that  the  papal  assent  was  refused,  he 
resolved  to  take  the  law  into  his  own 
hands,  which  involved  the  repudiation 
of  the  papal  authority  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  that  of  the  Crown.  The 
complete  subordination  of  the  Church 
to  the  State  was  the  logicaJ  corollary,  and  the  methods  by  which  that  sub- 
ordination was  carried  involved  a  complete  breach  with  tradition  entailing 
an  internal  struggle  which  ended  by  ranging  England  on  the  side  of 
Protestantism. 

Henry's  ostensible  motive  for  seeking  what  is  always,  though  incorrectly, 
called  a  "divorce"  from  his  wife,  was  a  conscientious  conviction  that  the 
papal  dispensation  which  had  sanctioned  his  marriage  with  his  brother's 
widow  was  invalid — such  a  marriage  being  contrary  to  the  moral  law  of 
God,  as  distinguished  from  the  law  of  the  Church,  to  which  the  dispensing 
power  of  the  pope  applied.  Church  law  forbade,  for  instance,  the  marriage 
of  first  cousins  ;  but  no  one  pretended  that  such  marriages  were  in  them- 
selves immoral,  and  the  pope's  dispensing  power  was  unquestioned.  But 
every  one  recognised  the  marriage  of  a  brother  and  sister  as  immoral,  and 


The  overthrow  of  the  Pope  by  the  Reformation. 
[From  a  drawing  by  Lucas  Cranach,  1521.] 


276  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

no  one  pretended  that  in  such  a  case  the  papal  dispensation  would  be  valid. 
Henry's  contention  was  that  marriage  with  a  brother's  widow  was  in  the 
same  category  as  marriage  with  a  sister.  But  Henry  was  not  content  with 
the  obvious  remedy  which  should  have  satisfied  conscience,  namely,  that  he 
should  live  as  a  celibate  instead  of  as  a  married  man.  He  was  determined 
to  marry  again,  which  he  could  not  do  unless  the  marriage  itself  were 
nullified.  For  re-marriage  there  was  a  very  strong  political  reason.  Of  the 
children  born  to  him  by  Katharine,  male  and  female,  only  one  had  survived, 
the  Princess  Mary  ;  and  the  succession  of  a  woman,  even  if  it  should  be 
undisputed,  as  was  by  no  means  likely,  would  certainly  be  fraught  with 
dangers  in  the  future.  So  far  statesmanship  endorsed  Henry's  desire.  But 
it  is  further  perfectly  certain  that  Henry  was  bent  not  merely  on  re-marriage, 
but  on  marriage  to  Anne  Boleyn,  that  lady  being  astute  enough  to  reject 
his  advances  on  any  other  terms,  although  statesmanship  could  not 
possibly  approve. 

Wolsey  found  that  his  master  expected  him  to  subordinate  all  other 
considerations  to  procuring  the  divorce.  But  Katharine  was  the  aunt 
of  the  emperor,  and  after  1527,  Pope  Clement  dared  not  incur  the 
emperor's  wrath  by  acceding  to  Henry's  wishes.  Wolsey,  on  the  one  hand, 
desired  the  divorce,  but,  on  the  other,  he  did  not  desire  the  marriage 
with  Anne  Boleyn  ;  consequently  he  incurred  the  hostility,  both  of  the 
queen  herself  and  of  the  Boleyn  party. 

Now,  if  the  case  were  to  be  settled  by  Clement  in  Rome,  it  was  tolerably 
certain  that  he  would  not  venture  to  give  Henry  the  verdict  he  wanted. 
It  was  possible  for  Wolsey  to  take  the  responsibility  upon  himself,  since 
by  the  king's  desire  he  had  been  appointed  papal  legate,  and  in  virtue 
thereof  was  the  supreme  ecclesiastical  judge  in  England.  But  Wolsey  had 
no  mind  to  be  made  directly  responsible,  especially  as  there  was  no  security 
against  an  appeal  from  his  decision  as  legate  to  Clement  himself.  His  aim 
therefore  was  to  procure  a  court  which  he  could  control,  but  whose  judg- 
ment the  pope  would  be  committed  to  accept.  Thus  the  affair  would  be 
practically  in  Wolsey's  hands,  while  the  ultimate  responsibility  could  still 
be  laid  on  Clement.  But  all  that  he  could  succeed  in  procuring  was  a 
commission  consisting  of  himself,  with  another  legate  appointed  ad  hoc, 
Cardinal  Campeggio ;  while  the  decision  of  the  commission  w\as  still  to 
be  referred  to  Rome  for  confirmation. 

Between  the  emperor  and  the  King  of  England,  Clement's  most  earnest 
desire  was  to  evade  giving  any  decision  at  all.  He  procrastinated  to  the  utmost 
of  his  power,  and  instructed  Campeggio  to  do  the  same.  Katharine  was 
determined  to  fight  to  the  last  gasp.  Although  the  commission  was 
sanctioned  early  in  1528,  the  proceedings  of  the  court  were  not  opened 
until  June  1529.  It  was  manifest  that  popular  sympathies  were  entirely 
on  the  queen's  side;  while  the  Boleyn  party  were  doing  everything  they 
could  to  undermine  Wolsey's  influence  with  the  king.  Before  the  pro- 
ceedings   could    be   completed,    a   consummation    which    Campeggio    was 


THE   DEFENDER   OF   THE    FAITH  277 

careful  to  delay,  Clement  revoked  the  whole  case  to  Rome.  Charles  and 
Francis  came  to  terms  and  the  prospect  disappeared  of  utilising  French 
pressure  to  counterbalance  the  emperor.  Wolsey  had  failed  to  do  what 
the  king  wanted,  and  the  king  struck.     Campeggio  had  hardly  embarked 


Henry  VIII. 
[After  a  portrait  generally  attributed  to  Holbein.] 

when  a  summons  was  issued  against  Wolsey  for  acting  as  legate  in  breach 
of  the  Statute  of  Praemunire.  Wolsey  was  deprived  of  all  his  offices, 
though  at  the  beginning  of  the  next  year  he  was  reinstated  in  the  Arch- 
bishopric of  York  and  was  permitted  to  retire  to  his  diocese.  Some 
months  later  he  was  arrested  on  a  charge  of  treason,  and  died  at  Leicester 
Abbey  on  the  way  to   London.      One  voice  only  had  been  raised  in  his 


2/8  THE   AGE   OF  TRANSITION 

defence,  when  his  former  secretary,  Thomas  Cromwell,  opposed  in  the 
House  of  Commons  a  bill  which  had  been  introduced  to  deprive  the 
Cardinal  of  office  for  ever. 

Before  Wolsey  had  actually  fallen,  his  ruin  was  assured.  Had  the 
legatine  court  annulled  the  marriage  with  Katharine,  Henry  would  have 
married  Anne,  and  the  cardinal  would  have  been  sacrificed  to  the  new 
queen.  If  the  divorce  proceedings  failed,  Henry  was  determined  to  bring 
pressure  to  bear  on  the  pope,  for  which  Wolsey  would  have  been  a  most 
inappropriate  instrument.  The  pope  was  to  be  made  to  feel  that  he  could 
not  ignore  the  wishes  of  the  King  of  England  without  paying  a  heavy 
penalty. 

An  anti-papal  and  anti-clerical  policy  was  likely  to  be  popular,  and 
Henry  resolved  to  take  the  nation  into  partnership,  to  make  it  share  the 
responsibility  for  his  policy.  Only  twice  during  the  twenty  years  of  his 
reign  had  he  called  parliament  ;  for  the  next  ten  years,  parliament  was  to  be 
the  instrument  whereby  the  king  obtained  his  ends.  The  assembly  which 
met  at  the  end  of  1529  was  not  dissolved  till  its  seventh  year,  and  is  variously 
known  as  the  Seven  Years  or  Reformation  Parliament.  It  was  not  till  some 
time  after  Wolsey's  death  that  any  one  person  again  became  prominently 
the  first  minister  of  the  Crown  ;  but  it  is  certain  that  Thomas  Cromwell, 
Wolsey's  former  secretary,  was  very  soon  taken  into  the  royal  favour  ;  and 
it  is  probable  that  he  at  once  secured  the  royal  confidence  and  shaped  the 
king's  policy.  For,  though  Henry  chose  the  ends  which  he  set  before 
himself,  he  was  not,  when  left  to  himself,  skilful  in  his  application  of  means. 
Whenever  he  went  behind  the  cardinal's  back,  he  failed  ;  and  when  he 
forced  the  cardinal  to  act  against  his  own  judgment,  he  went  wrong.  After 
Cromwell's  death,  he  showed  no  real  grip  of  government.  Hence  it  may  be 
assumed  that  throughout  the  decade  in  which  he  appears  conspicuously  as 
a  strong  man,  he  was  guided  by  a  more  astute  politician  than  himself. 

This  year  1529  and  its  predecessors  introduce  to  us  three  men,  all  of 
whom  were  to  become  exceedingly  prominent.  First  in  order  of  time 
comes  Stephen  Gardiner,  a  cleric  brought  up  in  the  New  Learning,  who  in 
1528  was  employed  in  the  negotiation  wuth  Pope  Clement.  In  his  diplo- 
matic capacity  he  had  done  something  more  than  hint  to  the  pope  that  the 
recognition  of  his  authority  in  England  was  at  stake,  and  that  he  might  find 
England  prepared  to  dispense  with  a  pope  who  obstinately  ignored  her  just 
demands.  Gardiner  was  rewarded  with  the  bishopric  of  Winchester,  vacated 
by  Wolsey  ;  possibly  Henry  at  this  time  intended  him  to  go  to  Canterbury 
when  old  Archbishop  Warham  should  die. 

But  before  that  time  arrived  Henry  had  discovered  a  man  much  better 
suited  to  serve  as  his  instrument  in  the  campaign  wiiich  he  contemplated. 
Gardiner  had  in  the  interval  shown  an  independence  and  a  loyalty  to  his 
order  which  hardly  commended  him  to  the  king.  Thomas  Cranmer,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  avowedly  an  Erastian  from  the  outset  ;  that  is  to  say,  he 
always  asserted  the  supremacy  of  the  civil  power,  and  the  clerical  duty  of 


THE    DEFENDER   OF   THE    FAITH  279 

submission  lo  the  civil  power  ;  and  this  was  precisely  the  attitude  desired  by 
Henry  for  the  primate  of  the  English  Church.  Cranmer  was  a  Cambridge 
scholar  of  considerable  attainments,  inclining  to  new  ideas,  impressionable, 
of  a  tender  but  adaptable  conscience.  An  accidental  conversation  with 
Gardiner  and  Foxe,  the  king's  almoner,  caused  the  Cambridge  divine  to  be 
brought  to  the  king's  notice — he  had  suggested  that  the  best  way  of  settling 
the  divorce  atfair  was  to  take  the  opinion  of  the  European  universities  on 
the  question  of  the  validity  of  the  dispensation  granted  by  Julius.  If  they 
condemned  it,  the  king's  courts  could  settle  the  matter  without  further 
reference  to  the  pope.  The  king  sent  for 
Cranmer,  detecting  in  him  precisely  the  man 
he  wanted,  and  at  once  employed  him  on  a 
series  of  continental  missions  which  brought 
him  much  in  contact  with  several  of  the 
Reformation  leaders. 

The  third  personage  was  Thomas  Crom- 
well, reputed  to  be  the  son  of  a  Putney 
blacksmith,  a  man  who  had  certainly  spent  a 
good  many  years  in  Italy  and  in  the  Low 
Countries  as  an  adventurer,  possibly  as  a 
soldier,  certainly  as  a  trader.  On  his  return 
to  England  he  added  the  practice  of  the  law 
to  his  other  pursuits.  Wolsey  had  come 
across  him,  employed  him  on  business  of  his 
own,  and  finally  made  him  his  secretary.  He 
had  somehow  found  a  seat  in  the  last  parlia- 
ment, and  appeared  again,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  the  parliament  of  1529.  As  a  politician  he  was  deeply  imbued  with 
the  ideas  crystallised  in  the  Prince  of  the  great  Florentine,  Machiavelli. 
Now  he  became  the  master-builder  to  whom  Henry  entrusted  the  carrying 
out  of  his  policy. 

The  first  business  of  the  parliament  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  attack 
upon  Wolsey ;  the  second  was  an  attack  on  some  quite  obvious  clerical 
abuses  which  even  the  clergy  themselves  hardly  pretended  to  defend.  No 
further  action  on  its  part  was  called  for  till  two  years  had  passed  ;  but  in 
the  interval  the  king  himself  had  struck  a  hard  blow  at  the  clergy.  He 
called  their  attention  to  the  fact  that  they  as  well  as  Wolsey  had  been  guilty 
of  a  breach  of  the  Act  of  Praemunire  in  recognising  the  cardinal's  legatine 
authority.  Technically  the  thing  was  true ;  the  authority  had  been  granted 
and  exercised  at  the  king's  desire,  but  without  the  sanction  of  parliament. 
He  therefore  invited  Convocation  to  procure  pardon  for  the  clergy  by  pay- 
ing a  fine  of  a  hundred  thousand  pounds,  which  to-day  would  be  represented 
approximately  by  a  couple  of  millions.  They  were  at  the  same  time  re- 
quired to  recognise  him  as  "  Protector  and  only  supreme  head  of  the  Church 
in  England."     The  clergy  lay  absolutely  at  the  king's  mercy,  and  were 


Tliomas  Cranmer. 
[After  Holbein.] 


28o  THE   AGE    OF   TRANSITION 

obliged  to  accept  that  objectionable  title,  though  with  the  saving  clause,  "  So 
far  as  the  laws  of  Christ  permit." 

Meanwhile,  however,  to  the  king's  annoyance,  the  Universities  had  re- 
turned answers  strictly  according  to  their  political  leanings.  It  was  quite 
impossible  effectively  to  claim  that  the  learning  of  Christendom  had  decided 
in  favour  of  Henry's  views. 

So  parliament  was  set  to  work  again.  In  the  first  place,  the  pope  must 
be  definitely  threatened,  and,  in  the  second  place,  the  clergy  must  be  com- 
pletely brought  to  heel.  To  the  former  end  was  directed  the  Annates  Act, 
which  authorised  the  king  to  suspend  the  payment  of  what  were  called 
Annates  to  Rome.  The  Annates  were  a  tax,  amounting  to  one  year's  income, 
payable  by  each  of  the  higher  clergy  on  taking  up  an  appointment.  Owing 
to  a  misapprehension,  it  was  universally  believed  till  quite  recently  that  the 
clergy  themselves  petitioned  for  the  abolition  of  the  Annates,  but  this  has 
now  been  proved  to  be  an  error. 

Against  the  clergy  was  directed  a  petition  known  as  the  Supplication 
against  the  Ordinaries.  This  was  a  grand  remonstrance  against  the  legisla- 
tive powers  of  Convocation  in  ecclesiastical  matters,  and  against  the  pro- 
cedure of  the  ecclesiastical  courts.  Convocation  replied  that  they  were 
themselves  dealing  with  the  questions  of  procedure,  while  the  canon  law 
could  not  conflict  with  the  civil  law.  They  were  prepared  to  go  so  far  as 
to  promise  that  in  future  their  ordinances  should  not  be  promulgated  until 
they  had  received  the  royal  assent.  The  king,  however,  was  resolved  that 
the  independent  ecclesiastical  legislation  should  cease.  The  "submission 
of  the  clergy "  was  extorted  from  Convocation  ;  by  which  they  entirely 
surrendered  the  right  to  make  new  canons  except  with  the  king's  authority, 
while  a  portion  or  the  whole  of  the  existing  canon  law — the  language 
employed  is  ambiguous — was  to  be  submitted  to  a  Royal  Commission.  The 
blow  killed  old  Archbishop  Warham,  and  caused  the  chancellor,  Sir  Thomas 
More,  to  resign,  since  he  would  not  be  a  party  to  the  claim  of  the  civil 
authority  to  usurp  a  spiritual  authority  over  the  Church. 

Now  at  the  end  of  1532,  Francis  of  France  was  making  a  display  of 
friendship  to  England  in  order  to  bring  pressure  to  bear  on  the  emperor 
for  his  own  ends.  Henry  felt  so  secure  of  the  support  of  Francis  that  he 
privately  married  Anne,  probably  in  November.  There  were  signs  of  a 
weakening  on  the  part  of  Clement,  who  wished  to  avoid  alienating  France 
as  well  as  Henry.  But  French  diplomacy  achieved  its  end,  Charles  made 
the  concessions  which  satisfied  Francis,  Clement  was  relieved  from  the  fear 
of  France  ;  and  although  he  assented  to  the  appointment  of  Cranmer  as 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  in  place  of  the  deceased  Warham,  a  threat  was 
made  public  of  excommunication  against  Henry  unless  he  again  recognised 
Katharine  as  his  queen,  which  for  some  time  past  he  had  refused  to  do. 
Henry  therefore  was  left  with  the  alternatives  of  complete  submission  or 
point-blank  defiance. 

Henry   chose   defiance — and   vengeance.      His    position  was  decisively 


THE    DEFENDER   OF   THE    FAITH  281 

affirmed  by  the  Act  in  Restraint  of  Appeals,  the  final  confirmation  of  all 
past  pronouncements  and  all  past  legislation  directed  against  the  Roman 
jurisdiction.  Following  this  up,  the  new  Archbishop  convened  a  court 
to  try  the  question  of  the  validity  of  the  marriage  with  Katharine  of  Aragon. 
Katharine  denied  the  jurisdiction  and  refused  to  appear  ;  the  court  pro- 
nounced that  her  marriage  had  been  invalid,  that  it  had  never  at  any  time 
been  a  bar  to  another  marriage,  and  that  by  consequence  the  secret 
marriage  to  Anne  Boleyn  was  valid  and  legitimate.  Cranmer's  action  was 
absolutely  in   accord  with  the  principles  which   he  had  always  professed, 


, 

fe 

ffcntcnm  Dilf initina 

glira  per  rancrlTmum .  TD.lm  'Wodnini .  O .  jCaimitcm .  1P>3p3 .  Vij .  fn  r.-ao/Coiifincrio  Oe 
■J^cucTindiflT.mo.'uin 7r>omm(jniin .  S •  "K  •  <t .  CKClnialnim  confiiio  fupCTVJlidiratc  Jpfoa 
cninoniiiiifcrSircniirmiodft-Xnncum .  vui.j^atbvnufflalloste'i^cgce  CQntraai. 


TRO. 

feeMo  Sere«!Jtnu  Cttherim  An^lut  'Rj^nt, 
CONTRA. 


Heading  of  the  Papal  Bull  against  the  dissolution  of  Henry's  marriage  with  Catherine. 


principles  which  in  a  layman  could  have  excited  neither  surprise  nor 
indignation,  though  the  cleric  who  acted  upon  them  was  necessarily,  in  the 
eyes  of  nearly  every  member  of  his  order,  a  traitor  to  his  spiritual  office. 
Convocation,  however  reluctantly,  declared  against  Katharine.  The  pope 
did  not  immediately  issue  an  excommunication,  but  he  declared  that  the 
judgment  of  the  English  court  was  void.  Henry  rejoined  by  confirming 
the  Annates  Act — the  Annates  themselves  were  not  remitted,  but  appro- 
priated to  the  Crown — and  the  Act  in  Restraint  of  Appeals,  both  of  which 
had  been  held  temporarily  in  suspense.  Early  next  year,  Clement  de- 
finitely pronounced  his  own  judgment  affirming  the  validity  of  Katharine's 
marriage.     The  door  to  reconciliation  was  bolted  and  barred. 


2«2 


THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 


THOMAS   CROMWELL 


When  parliament  again  assembled  in  the  following  year,  1534,  it  pro. 
ceeded  to  re-enact  the  recent  anti-papal  statutes  and  to  abolish  the  one 
remaining  tribute  to  Rome,  known  as  Peter's  Pence.  Also  it  gave  the 
"submission  of  the  clergy"  a  statutory  form  and  secured  to  the  king 
what  is  called  the  conge  d'e'lire,  whereby  the  Crown  nominates  to  all  the 

higher  ecclesiastical  appointments 
and  the  chapters  are  graciously 
permitted  to  elect  the  Crown's 
nominees.  Further,  it  passed  an 
Act  of  Succession  fixing  the  suc- 
cession on  the  offspring  of  Anne 
Boleyn,  who  in  the  previous 
September  had  become  the  mother 
of  Princess  Elizabeth.  The  void- 
ing of  Katharine's  marriage  ipso 
facto  stamped  the  Princess  Mary 
as  illegitimate.  The  Act  author- 
ised the  exaction  of  an  oath  of 
obedience,  which  commissioners 
were  appointed  to  present.  The 
form  of  the  oath  involved  the 
acknowledgment  that  the  marriage 
had  been  invalid,  as  well  as  accept- 
ance of  the  rule  of  succession.  Sir 
Thomas  More  recognised  the  parliamentary  right  to  fix  the  succession, 
but  refused  to  admit  that  the  marriage  had  been  void.  Bishop  Fisher 
of  Rochester  took  the  same  line,  and  both  were  sent  to  the  Tower. 

Henry  and  Thomas  Cromwell  were  both  exceedingly  alive  to  the 
necessity  of  obtaining  every  possible  pronouncement  in  favour  of  their 
position,  because  the  divorce  had  been  extremely  unpopular.  It  was  just 
at  this  time  that  the  pope's  final  rejoinder  was  received,  and  was  answered 
by  a  declaration  of  Convocation  that  "  the  Bishop  of  Rome  has  in  England 
no  greater  jurisdiction  than  any  other  foreign  bishop."  The  Church  was 
to  repudiate  the  Roman  authority,  whether  voluntarily  or  not,  no  less 
emphatically  than  the  State.  The  series  of  statutes  was  rounded  otf  by 
the  "Act  of  the  Supreme  Head,"  which  gave  statutory  confirmation  to  the 
previous  declaration  of  Convocation. 

Not  ostensibly  anti-papal  or  anti-clerical  was  the  Treasons  Act  passed 
by  the  same  parliament  in  the  same  year.     Cromwell  was  in  fact  planning, 


Thomas  Cromwell. 
n  Holland's  "  Herdologia."] 


THE    DEFENDER    OF  THE    FAITH  283 

through  constitutional  forms,  to  make  the  English  monarchy  a  despotism. 
Such  division  of  authority  between  the  spiritual  and  temporal  powers  as 
had  previously  existed  was  already  wiped  out ;  the  whole  power  was 
concentrated  in  the  State,  and  the  ecclesiastical  supremacy  was  vested  in 
the  Crown.  The  Treasons  Act  was  a  new  weapon  for  striking  down  all 
resistance.  Treason  had  hitherto  been,  in  theory  at  least,  a  matter  of 
overt  acts.  The  new  statute  made  treason  of  words,  and  even  of  silence, 
which  were  capable  of  bearing  a  treasonable  interpretation.  Thenceforth 
if  a  charge  of  treason  were  brought  it  would  be  all  but  impossible  to  resist 
it,  since  it  was  the  standing  rule  of  the  law  to  require  not  proof  of  guilt 
but  proof  of  innocence. 

More  and  Fisher,  maintaining  their  refusal  to  take  the  oath  of 
supremacy  in  the  prescribed  form,  were  both  beheaded  for  treason  in  the 
summer  of  1535.  The  heads  of  certain  monastic  establishments  which 
followed  the  lead  given  by  More  and  Fisher  were  also  put  to  death,  and 
their  houses  suppressed.  Thomas  Cromw^ell's  reign  of  terror  under  colour 
of  the  law  was  openly  initiated  when  he  struck  down  the  two  most  admired 
Englishmen  of  the  day,  and  crushed  those  religious  houses  which  enjoyed 
and  deserved  the  highest  reputation  in  the  country. 

It  was  in  this  year  that  Cromwell  appeared  unmistakably  as  the  brain 
which  directed  and  the  hand  which  executed  the  king's  policy.  He  was 
appointed  Vicar-General  ;  in  other  words,  the  king  delegated  to  him  his 
own  authority  as  supreme  head  of  the  Church.  At  the  same  time  he 
became  the  king's  foreign  minister,  so  far  as  such  a  term  could  be  applied, 
although  his  control  of  foreign  policy  was  much  less  complete  than 
Wolsey's  had  been.  It  was  his  primary  aim  in  this  field  to  unite  England 
with  the  Lutheran  princes,  as  Cranmer  desired  a  religious  union  with  the 
reformers  ;  but  both  w^ere  held  in  check  and  in  effect  frustrated  by  the 
orthodoxy  of  the  king,  who  was  antagonistic  to  all  theological  innovations 
unless  he  recognised  in  them  some  political  necessity  which  he  could 
translate  for  himself  into  terms  of  conscience  ;  a  process  which  never 
presented  any  difficulty  to  him.  Cromwell  never  succeeded  in  associating 
England  with  the  Protestant  League,  and  finally  lost  his  head  when  his 
anxiety  in  that  cause  led  him  to  cross  his  master's  matrimonial  tastes. 

The  minister  had  tried  to  make  the  king  a  despot  through  constitutional 
forms  and  with  popular  support.  But  the  first  condition  of  a  despotism  in 
England  was  the  provision  of  a  full  treasury  which  should  make  the  Crown 
independent  of  voluntary  supplies.  Royal  extravagance  had  thoroughly 
exhausted  the  mighty  stores  accumulated  by  Henry  VII.,  and  a  new  source 
of  supply  was  needed.  Cromwell  found  it  in  the  immense  wealth  of  the 
Church,  as  Henry  VII.  had  found  it  in  the  wealth  of  the  baronage.  That 
wealth  had  always  excited  popular  jealousy,  but  some  decent  excuse  had  to 
be  found  for  confiscation.  Cromwell  as  vicar-general  instituted  a  visitation 
of  the  monasteries.  His  commissioners  spent  three  months  in  their  investi- 
gations, collecting  but  hardly  sifting  all  the  evidence  which  told  against  the 


284  THE   AGE   OF  TRANSITION 

monastic  establishments,  and  not  troubling  themselves  about  the  evidence  in 
their  favour.  The  result  was  that  they  were  able  to  present  Cromwell  with 
a  portentous  report  condemning  a  number  of  the  small  establishments  as 
hotbeds  of  vice,  and  many  of  the  larger  houses  as  seriously  lacking  in 
discipline  and  requiring  stringent  supervision.  On  this  basis  a  bill  was 
presented  to  parliament,  and  cheerfully  accepted,  which  condemned  the 
smaller  houses  en  bloc,  though  about  eight  per  cent,  were  excepted  from  the 
condemnation.  From  what  remains  of  the  evidence,  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  a  fair  and  full  enquiry  would  have  quite  warranted  the  sup- 
pression, but  the  enquiry  was  neither  fair  nor  full,  and  the  picture  actually 
presented,  lurid  and  appalling,  was  indubitably  a  gross  exaggeration  of  the 
facts.  The  revenues  were  confiscated,  though  some  compensation  was 
granted  ;  and  the  vicar-general  issued,  for  the  regulation  of  the  greater 
houses  which  were  as  yet  untouched,  injunctions,  of  which  it  can  only  be 
said  that  they  must  have  been  intended  to  make  the  monastic  life  intoler- 
able and  to  drive  the  monasteries  to  a  voluntary  self-suppression. 

In  all  this  there  was  no  attack  on  religious  doctrine,  a  subject  on  which 
men's  minds  were  much  engaged.  An  undercurrent  of  Lollardry  had  always 
survived  official  hostility.  In  Germany  and  in  Switzerland  doctrines  were 
challenged  which  the  Church  had  taught  for  centuries.  Whither  should 
men  look  for  direction  ?  The  preparation  of  an  official  translation  of  the 
Bible  into  English  had  been  authorised  ;  but  it  was  time  for  some  sort  of 
official  pronouncement  on  the  dogmas  which  were  being  called  in  question. 
This  was  provided  in  1536  by  the  issue  of  the  Ten  Articles  "for  stablishing 
Christian  quietness,"  drawn  up  nominally  by  the  king  himself  and  sanctioned 
both  by  parliament  and  by  convocation.  The  Ten  Articles  admitted  no 
innovations  in  doctrine,  but  drew  a  distinction  between  practices  which 
were  necessary  and  essential,  and  those  which  were  "  convenient,"  that  is, 
required  by  public  policy  only. 

But  the  Articles  did  not  "  establish  Christian  quietness."  The  disturb- 
ance and  alarm  created  in  the  people's  minds  by  the  whole  course  of 
recent  events  could  not  be  stilled  by  a  mere  declaration  in  favour  of  ortho- 
doxy. In  the  north  especially  the  dispersed  monks  found  sympathetic 
listeners.  The  monasteries  had  been  popular  landlords,  and  the  poorest 
classes  of  the  community  owed  much  to  them  as  the  only  professionally 
charitable  institutions  in  the  country.  An  insurrection  broke  out  in  Lin- 
colnshire which  was  sharply  suppressed,  but  was  followed  by  the  much 
more  alarming  rising  known  as  the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace. 

The  leadership  of  the  movement  was  laid  upon  Robert  Aske,  a  lawyer 
of  good  family.  By  him  it  was  organised  with  consummate  ability  ;  a  great 
force  was  rapidly  raised  and  held  under  an  admirable  discipline.  But  it 
was  Aske's  one  desire  to  insist  that  the  agitation  was  absolutely  constitu- 
tional, absolutely  loyal,  and  directed  only  against  intolerable  innovations 
and  against  the  "evil  counsellors" — that  is,  Cromwell  and  the  advanced 
bishops,  such  as  Cranmer  and  Latimer — who  were  "  destroying  religion." 


THE    DEFENDER    OF   THE    FAITH  285 

All  over  the  north  Aske  and  his  followers  were  welcomed  and  applauded. 
If  they  had  marched  upon  London,  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  whole 
country  would  have  risen  in  their  support.  But  when  they  came  to  the 
river  Don  they  were  met  by  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  at  the  head  of  a  small 
force.      Aske   wished   to   avoid   bloodshed  ;    Norfolk   opened    negotiations, 


England  and  the  Lowlands  of  Scotland  in  Tudor  times. 


and  the  msurgent  leaders  were  tricked  into  a  belief  that  their  demands  had 
been  conceded.  The  government  was  merely  playing  for  time,  intriguing 
with  the  northern  gentry,  and  secretly  bringing  up  forces.  The  deluded 
insurgents  dispersed,  and  then  began  to  realise  how  they  had  been  de- 
ceived. Against  the  will  of  Aske,  some  of  the  more  headstrong  spirits  rose 
in  arms    and   appealed  to  violence.     But  the  government   now   held  the 


286  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

military  control,  seized  the  excuse  to  cancel  the  pardon  which  had  been 
granted,  and  smote  the  insurgents  with  a  heavy  hand — not  only  those  who 
were  responsible  for  the  new  disturbance,  but  those  who  had  taken  part  in 
the  original  rising.  Aske  and  others  of  the  leaders  were  executed,  and  the 
same  fate  befell  the  heads  of  sundry  abbeys  and  priories  who  were  held  to 
have  been  implicated. 

A  new  formulary  of  faith  was  issued,  commonly  known  as  the  Bishops^ 
Book,  and  the  English  version  of  the  Scriptures  known  as  Matthezvs  Bible 
was  officially  authorised.  But  the  real  use  of  the  rising  to  Thomas  Crom- 
well was  the  opportunity  which  it  gave  him 
to  employ  charges  of  treasonable  complicity 
for  a  further  suppression  of  the  monastic 
establishments  in  the  north.  Meanwhile 
other  events  of  importance  had  been  occur- 
ring. Anne  Boleyn,  like  her  predecessor 
on  the  throne,  presented  her  husband  with 
one  daughter,  and  a  second  child  which 
died  immediately.  The  king  tired  of  her, 
and  fixed  his  favours  on  a  lady-in-waiting, 
Jane  Seymour,  who  was  not  to  be  tempted 
by  illicit  advances.  Anne  was  unpopular, 
flighty,  and  exceedingly  unguarded  in  her 
actions,  besides  being  singularly  tactless. 
Charges  were  brought  against  her  of  gross 
immorality  ;  they  were  proved  to  the  satis- 
faction of  a  court  constituted  with  an  eye 
to  the  appearance  of  strict  impartiality.  It 
could  be  confidently  asserted  both  of  Henry 
and  of  Cromwell  that  they  never  brought  any  one  to  trial  unless  they  felt 
secure  of  a  conviction,  whether  they  relied  for  that  conviction  on  evidence  or 
upon  other  motives  in  the  judges.  Anne  was  condemned  ;  an  ecclesiastical 
court  was  somehow  convinced  that  some  prenuptial  proceedings  either  on 
her  part  or  on  Henry's  made  her  marriage  to  him  void,  and  pronounced 
accordingly.  Anne  was  executed,  and  the  king  was  left  with  a  second 
illegitimate  daughter.  Such  was  the  grotesque  outcome  of  those  divorce 
proceedings  which  Henry's  apologists  justify  on  the  ground  that  a  male 
heir  to  the  throne  was  a  political  necessity. 

Queen  Katharine  was  already  dead.  The  day  after  Anne  was  beheaded, 
Henry  married  Jane  Seymour.  A  year  later  she  bore  him  a  son  who  was 
beyond  all  cavil  the  legitimate  heir  to  the  throne.  Having  thus  done  her 
duty,  she  was  fortunate  enough  to  die  ;  and  the  king  realised  with  some 
reluctance  that  it  was  still  advisable  to  multiply  his  legitimate  offspring, 
especially  as  the  infant  was  sickly.  For  two  years  to  come,  various 
projects  were  proposed  for  a  political  marriage ;  which  culminated  in 
Cromwell's  selection  of  Anne  of  Clcves,  the  Duke  of  Cleves  being  associated 


Queen  Jane  Seymour. 
[After  Holbein.] 


r 


>»• 


,,_„j. 


3    ^ 


.    i- 


\'^ 


\  'L 


THE    DEFENDER    OF   THE    FAITH  287 

with  the  German  League  of  Protestant  Princes,  though  not  actually  a 
member  thereof. 

Meanwhile  Cromwell  had  been  turning  his  attention  in  another  direction. 
The  country  was  restive  under  the  ecclesiastical  policy,  and  there  was  a 
possibility  that  the  insurrectionary  spirit  might  resort  in  desperation  to  an 
attempt  at  restoring  a  Yorkist  dynasty.  Margaret,  Countess  of  Salisbury, 
the  sister  of  the  unlucky  Earl  of  Warwick,  had  been  married  by  Henry  VII. 
to  a  knight  named  Pole,  who,  it  should  be  noted,  had  nothing  whatever  to 
do  with  the  family  of  De  la  Pole.  Her  eldest  son  was  known  as  Lord 
Montague,  and  her  younger  son,  Reginald,  afterwards  famous  as  Cardinal 
Pole,  was  already  prominent  in  the  ecclesiastical  world  on  the  Continent. 
One  of  Edward  IV. 's  daughters  had  been  married  to  Sir  William  Courtenay, 
and  her  son  was  Marquis  of  Exeter.  Exeter  and  Montague  were  on  terms 
of  intimate  friendship.  Hence  it  is  not  surprising  that  Cromwell  discovered 
a  conspiracy.  The  country  was  sown  with  his  spies,  and  he  had  no  sort 
of  difficulty  in  procuring  what  passed  for  evidence  of  verbal  treason  when- 
ever it  suited  his  own  convenience.  Exeter  and  Montague  were  executed 
at  the  end  of  1538.  The  old  Countess  of  Salisbury  was  spared  for  the 
moment,  but  only  for  the  moment. 

The  Exeter  conspiracy  gave  Cromwell  his  final  opportunity.  An  Act 
was  introduced  for  the  entire  suppression  of  the  monasteries  in  view  of 
the  manifest  complicity  in  treason  of  which  some  had  been  guilty,  their 
general  failure  to  satisfy  the  disciplinary  ideals  of  the  vicar-general,  and 
the  common  absence  of  any  sufficient  reason  for  their  continued  existence. 
Perhaps  the  most  astonishing  thing  about  the  great  spoliation  of  the  Church 
was  the  recklessness  with  which  the  confiscated  wealth  was  squandered.  A 
fraction  of  the  proceeds  was  appropriated  to  educational  purposes,  and  a 
larger  fraction  to  the  defences  of  the  southern  seaboard.  But  the  great 
bulk  of  the  estates  were  given  away  or  sold  at  low  prices,  in  many  cases  to 
persons  of  burgess  extraction  who  were  eager  to  become  enrolled  among 
the  landed  gentry.  A  large  new  class  of  country  gentry  was  thus  created, 
which  in  the  second  and  third  generations  was  to  become  a  factor  of  con- 
siderable political  importance.  Meanwhile  the  prominent  fact  was  that  for 
the  old  monastic  landlords  was  substituted  a  new  race  in  whom  the  com- 
mercial instinct  was  highly  developed,  men  who  were  determined  to  make  the 
most  of  their  acquisitions,  untrammelled  by  any  sentimental  consideration. 

The  final  suppression  of  the  monasteries  was  the  coping-stone  of 
Cromwell's  ecclesiastical  policy  ;  that  of  his  constitutional  policy  was  the 
Royal  Proclamations  Act,  by  which  parliament  conferred  the  force  of  law 
upon  royal  proclamations  issued  with  the  assent  of  the  Privy  Council,  As 
the  Privy  Council  had  long  ago  been  transformed  into  an  instrument  of  the 
Crown,  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the  Crown  now  had  complete  control 
both  of  administration  and  of  legislation,  though  it  still  remained  without 
authority  to  impose  taxation.  The  king  was  also  given  authority  to  fix  the 
course  of  the  succession  by  will. 


288  THE   AGE    OF   TRANSITION 

Cromwell  in  1539  was  still  supreme  ;  yet  he  had  warning  that  the 
opposition  to  him  personally  was  still  powerful.  He  could  not  afford  to 
identify  himself  too  closely  with  the  school  of  advanced  reformers.  This 
was  sufficiently  demonstrated  by  a  victory  of  the  opposite  party  when  the 
Act  of  the  Six  Articles  was  passed,  very  emphatically  re-asserting  six  ecclesi- 
astical doctrines  which  were  impugned  by  all  schools  of  Protestants,  Mani- 
festly at  great  risk  to  themselves,  Cranmer  and  others  of  the  advanced 
bishops  offered  a  strenuous  resistance  to  the  measure,  though  they  held 
themselves  bound  to  obey  the  statute  when  it  became  law.  The  victory 
was  perhaps  not  so  decisive  as  it  seemed ;  for  although  the  penalties  imposed 
by  the  Act  were  of  a  most  merciless  character,  Henry  very  decidedly  dis- 
countenanced any  attempt  at  its  extensive  application. 

But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Cromwell  had  already  finished  the  work  for 
which  the  king  wanted  him.  His  fate,  like  Wolsey's,  was  sealed  by  a  royal 
marriage  question.  His  representations  induced  Henry  to  fix  upon  Anne  of 
Cleves  as  his  fourth  wife  ;  there  was  apparent  danger  that  the  Emperor  and 
the  King  of  France  were  on  the  verge  of  making  up  their  quarrels,  an  event 
which  might  bring  trouble  upon  England,  and  gave  the  Lutheran  alliance 
a  new  desirability.  But  when  Anne  arrived  in  England,  she  was  found  to 
be  quite  without  those  charms  of  person  which  she  had  been  represented 
as  possessing.  Henry  was  disgusted  with  her  and  still  more  annoyed  with 
his  minister.  So  he  had  no  sooner  married  the  lady  than  he  discovered 
a  pre-contract  which  provided  a  sufficient  excuse  for  nullifying  the  marriage. 
Precisely  at  this  moment  there  came  a  renewed  rupture  between  Francis 
and  Charles.  Henry  felt  that  he  had  been  doubly  duped,  and  he  turned 
upon  Cromwell.  The  mighty  minister,  the  most  dreaded,  perhaps,  who  had 
ever  held  sway  in  England,  was  suddenly  arrested  at  the  council  table, 
attainted  under  the  Treasons  Act,  and  sent  to  the  block. 


VI 

SCOTLAND   AND    IRELAND 

The  story  of  Scotland  during  these  years  falls  into  two  divisions,  the 
period  of  the  minority  of  James  V.,  and  that  of  his  personal  rule.  After 
Flodden,  the  infant  king's  mother,  Margaret,  the  sister  of  Henry  VIIL,  was 
made  regent.  A  year  later  she  married  the  young  Earl  of  Angus,  who  had 
just  succeeded  old  Archibald  Bell-the-Cat  ;  but  in  the  meantime  a  powerful 
section  of  the  lords  resolved  to  place  the  regency  in  the  hands  of  the  Duke 
of  Albany,  the  son  of  that  Albany  who  pla^^ed  so  active  a  part  in  the  reign 
of  James  III.  The  duke,  it  must  be  observed,  was  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
much  more  of  a  Frenchman  than  a  Scotsman  ;  but  he  stood  next  in  blood 
for  the  succession  to  the  two  infant  princes,  of  whom  the  younger,  a  post- 
humous child,  did   not   long  survive.      Family  relationships  played  so  im- 


THE    DEFENDER    OF   THE    FAITH  289 

portant  a  part,  and  are  at  the  same  time  so  confusing,  tliat  it  is  advisable 
to  grasp  them  clearly. 

Next  to  the  throne,  then,  was  John  Stewart  of  Albany — Stuart  was  the 
French  spelling  of  the  name  ultimately  adopted  by  Queen  Mary.  Next  to 
Albany  stood  the  Hamilton  Earls  of  Arran  ;  the  mother  of  the  actual 
James,  Earl  of  Arran,  was  the  sister  of  James  III.  Next  to  the  Hamiltons 
themselves  were  the  Stewarts  of  Lennox,  the  mother  of  the  present  Earl  of 
Lennox  being  a  sister  of  Arran.  These  Stewarts  themselves  were  not  of  the 
royal  family.  The  house  of  Albany  will  presently  disappear  ;  but  we  shall 
find  the  nearness  to  the  throne  of  the  houses  of  Arran  and  Lennox  playing 
later  on  an  important  part  in  various  political  complications. 

During  the  succeeding  years,  Albany,  from  the  time  of  his  arrival  in 
Scotland  in  15  15,  nominally  held  the  regency,  and  was  predominant  while 
actually  in  the  country.  While  he  was  not  in  the  country,  the  factions  of 
Arran  and  Angus  struggled  for  supremacy.  There  were  frequent  hostilities 
with  England  on  the  Borders.  English  diplomacy  was  largely  engaged  in 
fostering  the  feuds  of  the  Scottish  nobles;  Arran,  with  James  Beaton, 
Archbishop  of  Glasgow,  representing  the  party  which  clung  to  the  French 
alliance  and  the  hostile  attitude  towards  England,  while  the  Douglas  party 
were  the  hope  of  Wolsey  and  Henry.  There  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  Henry 
cherished  the  desire  of  turning  Scottish  factions  to  account  in  order  once 
more  to  assert  the  obsolete  English  claim  to  the  sovereignty  of  Scotland. 
He  appears  never  to  have  grasped  the  fact  that  while  there  were  Scottish 
nobles  who  were  ready  to  make  promises  and  to  receive  gifts,  a  threat  to 
enforce  English  supremacy  was  the  one  absolutely  certain  means  of  uniting 
Scotland  in  an  attitude  of  defiance. 

Albany  himself  finally  threw  up  the  cards  and  left  Scotland  for  ever  in 
1524.  It  is  curious  to  find  Arran  now  leaning  to  the  English  policy,  with 
Angus  on  the  other  side.  Angus  obtained  the  upper  hand,  and  for  a  time 
was  supreme  in  Scotland,  while  he  held  the  young  king  in  an  extremely 
irksome  tutelage  which  inspired  him  with  an  intense  hatred  towards  the 
Douglases.  In  1528  the  king  escaped  from  the  hands  of  his  guardians,  and 
the  moment  he  asserted  himself,  though  he  was  but  seventeen  at  the  time, 
he  found  himself  at  the  head  of  a  powerful  following.  Men  who  supported 
Angus  in  a  struggle  of  factions  supported  the  king  against  him.  Before  the 
year  was  over  the  Douglases  were  driven  out  of  the  country. 

It  was  the  policy  of  James  to  ally  himself  with  the  churchmen,  while 
his  attitude  towards  the  nobility  was  one  of  repression.  Of  the  King  of 
England  and  his  designs  he  was  with  very  good  reason  extremely  suspicious  ; 
and  these  circumstances  combined  to  make  the  Crown  definitely  hostile  to 
the  progress  of  the  Reformation.  An  anti-English  policy  in  Scotland 
always  meant  the  drawing  closer  of  the  French  alliance;  and  in  1537 
James  married  the  French  princess  Madeleine.  The  bride,  however,  did 
not  long  survive  the  marriage,  and  in  the  following  year  James  took  to  wife 
Mary  of  Lorraine,  a  daughter  of  the  house  of  Guise,  now  one  of  the  most 

T 


290  THE   AGE   OF  TRANSITION 

powerful  in  France.  Mary  herself  was  a  woman  of  great  ability,  and  she 
soon  allied  herself  with  David  Beaton,  the  famous  cardinal,  who  succeeded 
to  the  influence  which  had  been  exercised  by  his  kinsman  the  Archbishop 
of  Glasgow,  and  developed  an  extreme  zeal  as  a  persecutor  of  heretics. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  king's  treatment  of  the  nobility,  directed  to 
strengthening  the  power  of  the  Crown,  was  tending  to  drive  the  latter  body 
into  direct  antagonism  with  James's  clerical  supporters.  Hence  we  shall 
presently  find  the  nobility  to  a  great  extent  supporting  the  Reformation, 
and  the  reforming  party  looking  to  England  for  support. 

In  Ireland  the  arrangement  made  by  Poynings  did  not  in  fact  very 
greatly  affect  the  government  of  the  country  at  the  time.      In   England, 

government  worked  to  a  certain  extent 
mechanically  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  general 
administration  of  justice  and  the  ordi- 
nary enforcement  of  law  went  on  as 
a  matter  of  course,  even  when  rival 
claimants  were  fighting  for  the  crown. 
In  Ireland  the  problem  was  to  make 
any  systematic  administration  work  at 

Au  Irish  groat  o/IIemy  VIII  ^^jj^       ^    ^^  ^  y^^^     PoyningS 

[The  first  Iribh  coin  on  which  the  harp  appears.]  <j  x         ^  ./  o 

himself  could  make  his  hand  felt  and 
impress  upon  the  great  men  a  certain  respect  for  authority.  So  also 
could  a  strong  man  of  an  altogether  different  type  such  as  Kildare. 
But  authority  had  to  be  personified  in  a  strong  ruler  ;  in  the  abstract,  it 
counted  for  nothing.  When  Kildare  died,  his  son,  who  was  made  deputy, 
proved  less  efficient  that  his  eccentric  but  capable  father  ;  so  the  Earl  of 
Surrey  was  sent  over  to  take  the  country  in  hand.  The  victor  of  Flodden 
had  been  elevated  to  the  dukedom  of  Norfolk,  the  title  held  by  his  father 
in  the  reign  of  Richard  III.,  and  '<  Earl  of  Surrey"  became  the  courtesy 
title  of  the  eldest  son  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk. 

Surrey,  like  his  father,  was  a  capable  soldier,  and  was  in  frequent 
employment  when  larger  forces  were  required  on  the  Scottish  borders  than 
those  of  the  Wardens  of  the  Marches.  His  frank  opinion  was  that  force 
must  be  vigorously  employed  if  Ireland  was  to  be  brought  into  order. 
But  his  idea  of  an  adequate  force  was  more  than  Henry  was  disposed  to 
allow  him.  So  the  policy  of  governing  by  the  sword  was  rejected.  The 
other  policy,  of  persuading  the  Irish  chiefs  to  range  themselves  on  the  side 
of  law  and  order,  was  tried.  Unfortunately,  their  natural  instincts  were 
all  on  the  other  side.  When  Kildare  was  sent  back  as  deputy,  they  merely 
concluded  that  matters  were  to  go  on  as  before.  At  last  Kildare  Vv'as 
summoned  to  England  and  was  shut  up  in  the  Tower.  A  rumour  reached 
Ireland  that  the  ex-deputy  had  been  put  to  death,  whereupon  his  son, 
known  to  fame  as  Silken  Thomas,  raised  an  insurrection.  There  was 
much  raiding  and  counter-raiding  between  loyalists  and  Geraldines,  and 
nearly  a  year  passed  before  the  distinctly  incompetent  deputy,  Skeflington, 


THE   DEFENDER    OF   THE    FAITH  291 

succeeded  in  capturing  the  strong  fortress  of  Maynooth,  where  the 
garrison  were  for  the  most  part  hanged,  so  that  the  "pardon  of  Maynooth" 
became  a  byword.  Silken  Thomas  w^as  persuaded  to  surrender,  but  was 
ultimately  executed  as  he  had  not  received  definite  promise  of  a  pardon. 
His  captor.  Lord  Leonard  Grey,  was  made  deputy,  and  having  promptly 
proved  himself  much  more  than  a  match  for  Desmond  in  the  south  and 
O'Neill  in  the  north,  he  again  set  out  on  a  policy  of  conciliation,  treating 
the  English  party  with  a  very  high  hand.  Consequently  he  found  himself 
accused  of  treason,  and  his  attainder  was  followed  by  his  execution.  Grey 
had  failed  disastrously,  chiefly  because  of  his  arrogance  and  high-handed- 
ness. That  the  policy  of  conciliation  was  a  sound  one  is  the  natural 
conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  rule  of  his  successor,  St.  Leger.  A 
combination  of  tact  and  firmness,  and  a  shrewd  appreciation  of  the  varying 
characters  of  the  men  with  whom  he  had  to  deal,  enabled  St.  Leger  to 
establish  an  unprecedented  degree  of  order  and  peace.  But  the  root  of 
the  trouble  lay  in  the  fact  that  successful  government  depended  almost 
entirely  on  the  personal  character  of  the  Deputy.  A  series  of  St.  Legers 
might  have  solved  the  Irish  problem  for  the  Tudors,  and  have  delivered 
posterity  from  an  exceedingly  perplexing  heritage  ;  but  unhappily  there 
were  no  more  St.  Legers  forthcoming,  and  trouble  revived  in  the  ensuing 
reign. 


VII 

LAST   YEARS 

In  the  last  years  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  England's  relations  with 
the  continental  powers  and  with  Scotland  again  become  prominent. 
Cromwell  had  completely  established  the  royal  supremacy  in  England, 
where  Henry  was  virtually  absolute.  The  Church's  power  of  resistance 
to  the  royal  will  had  been  completely  shattered,  and  Henry  had  no  inclina- 
tion to  permit  any  extension  of  religious  changes.  He  did  not  choose  that 
Archbishop  Cranmer  should  be  hurt,  and  although  the  party  led  by  the 
Howards  and  by  Bishop  Gardiner  were  on  the  whole  predominant,  they 
were  not  allowed  to  make  active  reprisals  for  their  repression  under 
Cromwell's  regime.  The  Howards,  indeed,  seemed  to  have  achieved  a 
triumph  when  the  king  was  persuaded  to  take  for  his  fifth  wife  Catherine 
Howard,  the  niece  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk ;  but  the  triumph  w-as  short- 
lived, since  the  new  queen  was  very  soon  found  guilty  of  gross  misconduct, 
this  time  on  quite  unquestionable  evidence,  and  was  executed.  Henry 
took  for  his  sixth  wife  Catherine  Parr,  widow  of  Lord  Latimer,  a  lady  with 
leanings  to  the  reformed  doctrines,  but  endowed  w'ith  a  tact  which  enabled 
her  to  retain  the  favour  of  her  royal  spouse  and  so  to  outlive  him. 

Abroad  the  fear  of  a  reconciliation  between  Charles  and  Francis  had 


292  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

enabled  Cromwell  to  hurry  Henry  into  the  Cleves  marriage.     That   was 
a  danger  which  had  now  linally  disappeared.      Moreover,  Henry  was  again 

free  to  revert  to  Wolsey's  balancing 
policy  ;  that  is,  there  was  now  no  in- 
herent reason  against  a  revival  of  amity 
with  Charles,  since  his  aunt  Katharine 
had  been  dead  for  some  years.  More- 
over, there  was  no  love  lost  between 
Henry  and  the  Lutheran  League,  especi- 
ally since  the  Cleves  fiasco  ;  although, 
on  the  other  hand,  there  was  no  more 
chance  of  a  reconciliation  with  the  pre- 
sent pope,  Paul  IIL,  than  there  had 
been  with  Clement  VIL  So  long  as 
Charles  kept  on  good  terms  with  his 
Protestant  subjects,  they  would  not  be 
driven  into  the  arms  of  Henry  ;  but 
there  was  no  reason  why  the  emperor 
should  not  be  on  good  terms  with 
him  at  the  same  time. 

Now  the  relations  were  strained 
between  Henry  and  Francis  ;  partly 
because  the  French  king  delayed  the 
payment  of  certain  long-standing  in- 
demnities due  from  him,  and  was 
somewhat  ostentatiously  drawing  closer 
the  bonds  of  alliance  with  the  King  of 
Scots.  Border  raids  and  public  re- 
criminations continued,  though  England 
and  Scotland  were  nominally  at  peace. 
That  nice  scrupulosity  of  honour  which 
some  historians  have  managed  to  attri- 
bute to  Henry  was  illustrated  by  his 
approval  of  a  scheme  for  the  kidnapping 
of  King  James,  who  was  given  to  private 
rambles  in  search  of  adventure  ;  but  the 
king's  council,  to  its  credit,  rejected  the 
surprising  proposition.  A  particularly 
extensive  English  foray,  however,  at 
the  end  of  1541,  gave  James  warrant 
for  preparing  a  great  invasion  in  the 
following  autumn.  But  the  organisation 
its  commanders  were  inefficient,  and 
James  himself  was  not  present  with  it.  The  great  force  was  entangled  in 
the  morass  called  Solway  Moss,  and  was  cut  to  pieces  by  a  very  much 


Suit  (.f ; 


riiKHir  for  fighting  on  fool,  King 
Henry  VIII. 
[Tower  of  London.] 


of  the   Sccjttish   army   was   chaotic 


The  Siege  of  Boulogne  by  Henry  VIII.,  1544. 

[From  an  engraving  in  "  \'etu5ta  Monuments  "  after  a  contemporary  painting  which  hung  in  Cowdray  House, 

Midhurst,  until  its  destruction  by  fire  in  1793.] 


294  THE   AGE   OF  TRANSITION 

smaller  body  of  English  under  the  command  of  Wharton,  the  energetic 
warden  of  the  marches.  The  Scots  king's  health  had  already  completely 
broken  down  ;  the  blow  of  this  great  disaster  killed  him.  A  fortnight 
after  the  battle,  as  he  lay  on  his  deathbed,  news  was  brought  to  him  that 
his  wife  had  borne  him  a  daughter.  "  It  came  with  a  lass,  and  it  will  go 
with  a  lass,"  he  said,  and  turned  his  face  to  the  wall.  His  words  were  an 
allusion  to  the  fact  that  the  Stewarts  had  succeeded  to  the  Scottish  throne 
through  a  daughter  of  the  Bruce.  A  week  later  he  was  dead.  So  pitifully 
began  the  tragic  reign  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots. 

But  for  Mary's  birth,  Henry  might  have  thought  the  opportunity  a 
fitting  one  for  attempting  to  capture  the  Scottish  crown.  More  wisely, 
he  in  fact  proposed,  like  Edward  I.,  to  betroth  the  infant  queen  to  his  own 
heir-apparent,  a  scheme  to  which  the  one  serious  objection  was  the 
conviction  of  most  Scots  that  such  a  union  would  in  effect  mean  the 
subjection  of  Scotland  to  England.  A  Scots  prince  might  have  married 
an  English  princess  with  comparative  approval,  A  number  of  the  Scots 
lords  taken  prisoner  at  Solway  Moss  were  released  on  promise  of  support- 
ing the  king's  design — promises  which  were  as  easy  to  break  as  to  make. 
Cardinal  Beaton  and  the  queen-mother  established  their  ascendency,  and 
headed  the  irreconcilables  who  desired  a  close  alliance  with  France  to 
counteract  the  English  influence.  The  treaty  which  Henry  had  actually 
proposed  fully  warranted  the  most  determined  nationalist  opposition, 
since  he  had  required  not  only  the  establishment  of  a  Council  of  Regency 
which  would  have  been  virtually  under  his  own  control,  but  also  the 
importation  of  English  garrisons  into  Scotland. 

The  open  countenance  given  by  Francis  to  the  Scots  threw  Henry 
into  the  arms  of  Charles,  who  was  already  at  war  with  the  French.  In 
1543,  English  troops  were  despatched  to  Picardy,  and  a  great  campaign 
against  France  in  conjunction  with  Charles  was  being  planned  for  the 
ensuing  year.  Scotland  was  seething  with  intrigues,  for  Beaton  was  ex- 
ceedingly unpopular,  partly  because  of  his  fierce  persecution  of  Protestants  ; 
and  it  was  almost  as  easy  to  stir  up  hostility  against  French  influence 
as  against  that  of  England.  The  zealots  even  proposed  to  Henry  plans 
for  the  assassination  of  the  cardinal ;  but  he  gave  them  to  understand  that 
although  such  a  design  was  meritorious,  it  was  not  one  to  which  he  could 
lend  official  countenance.  It  sufficed  for  his  present  purposes  to  keep 
the  country  in  a  state  of  chaos,  and  in  the  spring  of  1544  a  great  English 
fleet  sailed  up  the  Firth  of  Forth.  Leith  was  sacked,  Edinburgh  was 
pillaged,  and  the  surrounding  country  was  devastated.  Then  the  English 
troops  retired  ;  Henry's  serious  business  was  in  France. 

Here  Henry's  troops  were  operating  with  success  ;  but  he  declined 
to  embark  on  the  emperor's  plan  of  campaign,  which  was  calculated 
entirely  in  the  emperor's  own  interest.  Francis  negotiated  separately 
with  his  two  enemies.  Henry  refused  to  make  peace  except  in  conjunc- 
tion with  his  ally  ;  Charles,  less  scrupulous,  made  terms  on  his  own  account 


H      ,S 


i  !■ 


THE    DEFENDER    OF   THE    FAITH  295 

at  the  peace  of  Ciepy.  But  Henry  had  taken  Boulogne,  and  was  now 
determined  to  fight  Francis  single-handed  rather  than  abate  any  of  the 
demands  with  which  he  had  entered  upon  the  war.  Francis  found  en- 
couragement in  a  rout  inflicted  on  the  English  by  the  Scots  at  Ancrum 
IMoor,  and  prepared  a  great  armada  for  the  invasion  of  England.  But 
the  English  fleet  was  too  strong  to  be  attacked,  and  the  French  fleet 
was  presently  broken  up  by  an  outbreak  of  the  plague.  Ancrum  Moor 
did  not  prevent  an  English  force  from 
again  spreading  devastation  in  Scotland. 
Francis  realised  that  England  was  ready 
to  go  on  fighting  uniil  he  would  come 
to  satisfactory  terms,  and  peace  was 
made  in  the  summer  of  1546.  France 
agreed  to  pay  up  the  English  claims, 
and  Boulogne  was  to  remain  in  Eng- 
land's hands  for  eight  years  as  security. 
At  the  same  time  Henry  had  the  satis- 
faction of  learning  that  Cardinal  Beaton 
had  been  duly  murdered  in  Scotland, 
and  the  assassins  held  possession  of 
the  castle  of  St.  Andrews,  from  which 
they  could  defy  the  punitory  efforts 
of  the  government. 

There  are  certain  other  character- 
istics of  the  reign  to  which  brief 
allusion  must  be  made.  Henry  had 
come  to  the  throne  with  a  treasury 
far  better  provided  than  any  one  of 
his  predecessors,  thanks  to  his  father's 
peculiar  economic  methods.  That  in- 
heritance he  squandered,  and  he  sought 
for  a  remedy  in  the  spoliation  of  the 
Church.  Yet  those  va^t  spoils  were 
squandered  in  turn.  Henry  took  refuge  in  the  most  ruinous  of  all 
financial  expedients,  the  repudiation  of  debt  and  the  debasement  of 
coinage.  In  the  last  few  years  of  the  reign,  the  actual  value  of  the 
coins  issued  from  the  mint  fell  to  only  about  a  seventh  of  their  face 
value  ;  that  is,  they  contained  only  about  that  proportion  of  the  silver 
which  they  were  supposed  to  contain.  Their  purchasing  power  fell 
accordingly,  a  fact  otherwise  expressed  by  saying  that  prices  rose. 
Wages  did  not  rise  in  proportion,  and  the  wage-earning  population 
suffered  correspondingly.  Only  the  debased  coinage  as  a  matter  of 
course  remained  in  circulation,  and  foreign  commercial  transactions  were 
plunged  into  ruinous  disorder.  The  process  of  enclosure  extended  and 
increased    with    the    redistribution    of    the    monastic    lands.     Agricultural 


An  arquebusier. 
[Trom  an  early  i6th  century  MS.] 


296 


THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 


depression  became  worse  and  worse,  while  the  sturdy  vagabonds  increased 
and  multiplied,  and  trade  of  every  kind  suffered.  It  was  not  till  finance 
was  vigorously  taken  in  hand  by  the  ministers  of  Queen  Elizabeth  that 
the  chaos  wrought  by  Henry  was  remedied  and  the  recovery  of  a  real 
prosperity  became  possible.  The  depreciation  of  the  coinage,  it  may 
be  remarked,  was  made  the  more  serious  when  the  influx  of  silver  and 
gold  from   the  new  Spanish  territorities  in  America  began  to  make  itself 

felt,  because  the  increased  supply  of 
the  precious  metals  lowered  their 
value  in  exchange.  Hence  the 
middle  years  of  the  century  were  in 
many  respects  a  period  of  very  serious 
depression,  felt  perhaps  more  acutely 
in  the  sixth  than  in  the  fifth  decade. 
When  Cardinal  Beaton  was 
murdered,  Henry's  race  was  already 
almost  run.  He  had  been  definitely 
authorised  to  fix  the  course  of  the 
succession,  which  was  to  go  first  to 
Edward  and  the  heirs  of  his  body, 
next  to  Mary  and  the  heirs  of  her 
body,  next  to  Elizabeth  and  her 
heirs,  and  next  to  the  Greys,  the  heirs 
of  Henry's  youngest  sister,  Mary. 
This  Mary,  it  will  be  remembered, 
had  for  a  short  hour  been  the  queen 
of  Louis  XII.  of  France.  She  had 
then  become  the  wife  of  the  king's  in- 
timate companion,  Charles  Brandon, 
Duke  of  Suffolk.  Their  daughter 
Frances  married  Lord  Dorset,  who 
afterwards  became  Duke  of  Suffolk, 
and  was  the  mother  of  three 
daughters,  of  whom  the  eldest.  Lady  Jane  Grey,  was  destined  to  be  a 
nine-days'  queen.  Henry's  will  ignored  the  claims  of  the  Scottish  royal 
family,  through  his  elder  sister,  Margaret,  and  also  the  claims  of  her 
daughter  by  her  second  marriage  with  the  Earl  of  Angus.  This  daughter 
married  Matthew,  Earl  of  Lennox,  so  that  the  Lennox  Stewarts  of  the 
next  generation,  of  whom  the  eldest  was  the  unfortunate  Henry,  Lord 
Darnley,  stood  a  remote  chance  of  succession  both  to  the  English  and 
to  the  Scottish  throne,  though  on  distinct  grounds,  since  Earl  Matthew 
himself  stood  in  the  line  of  the  Scottish  succession,  and  his  wife  in  that 
of  England. 

Henry  had  settled  not  only  the  succession  but  the  form  of  the  govern- 
ment which  was  to  take  control  if  he  died  during  his  son's  minority.      He 


A  pikeman. 

[i'rom  an  early  i6th  cenl 


MS.] 


THE   DEFENDER    OF   THE    FAITH  297 

had  nominated  the  "Council  of  Executors"  (of  his  will)  who  were  to  form 
this  provisional  government.  The  body  was  carefully  selected,  so  that  to 
all  appearance  the  two  parties,  represented  on  the  one  side  by  Edward 
Seymour,  Earl  of  Hertford,  Henry's  brother-in-law,  and  by  Cranmer,  and 
on  the  other  by  the  Howards  and  Bishop  Gardiner,  should  be  evenly 
balanced,  and  the  equilibrium  preserved  until  Edward  came  of  age.  But 
at  the  last  moment  the  Howards  spoilt  the  scheme,  to  their  own  destruc- 
tion. Henry  Howard,  Earl  of  Surrey,  and  his  father,  the  Duke  of  Norfolk, 
were  charged  with  treason.  There  was  evidence  enough  of  guilt  under  the 
very  wide  interpretation  of  treason  permitted  by  the  Treasons  Act.  Surrey 
was  sent  to  the  block,  a  doom  which  seems  to  have  been  by  no  means 
undeserved,  though  much  unmerited  sympathy  has  been  wasted  upon  him 
because  he  was  also  a  poet.  Yet  it  was  scarcely  a  condonation  of  technical 
treason  and  of  a  painfully  deficient  sense  of  honour  that  he  introduced 
blank  verse  into  England.  Norfolk  himself  only  escaped  the  same  fate  as 
his  son,  though  he  was  probably  innocent  of  any  treasonable  intent,  by  the 
happy  accident  of  Henry's  death  before  the  hour  for  the  duke's  execution 
had  arrived. 

Martin  Luther  was  already  gone  ;  Francis  of  France  followed  Henry 
to  the  grave  two  months  afterwards.  Of  the  great  personalities  who 
had  dominated  Europe  for  so  long,  Charles  V.  alone  remained. 


CHAPTER    XI 

IN    DEEP    WATERS 

I 

PROTECTOR   SOMERSET 

Surrey's  conduct  was  probably  responsible  for  the  fact  that  the  Howards 
and  Gardiner  were  not  finally  on  the  Council  of  Executors  to  whom  Henry 
left  the  management  of  the  realm.  The  whole  strength  lay  with  the  pro- 
gressive section,  headed  by  the  Earl  of  Hertford,  the  young  king's  uncle. 
Brief  but  energetic  intriguing  procured  for  Hertford  the  office  of  Protector 
of  the  Realm,  while  the  Council  distributed  honours  and  peerages  among 
themselves.  The  Protector  became  Duke  of  Somerset,  the  name  by  which 
he  is  best  known. 

Somerset  was  a  man  of  intellectual  tastes  and  many  admirable  ideals, 
combined  with  a  quite  exceptional  incapacity  for  adapting  means  to  ends. 
What  he  wanted  was  usually  right ;  the  way  he  set  about  trying  to  get  it 
was  invariably  wrong.  He  wanted  a  union  with  Scotland.  He  wanted 
what  hardly  any  one  else  dreamed  of,  a  wide  religious  toleration.  He 
wanted  an  advance  beyond  Henry's  position,  by  the  admission  of  doctrinal 
innovations  such  as  Cranmer  had  unsuccessfully  striven  for  during  the 
last  reign.  He  wanted  to  remedy  agricultural  depression  and  the  evils 
of  vagrancy.  But  in  almost  every  case  the  methods  he  adopted  tended  to 
defeat  his  own  ends. 

The  immediate  problem  was  that  of  Scotland,  where  the  Anglophile 
party,  the  party  of  the  Reformation,  had  just  achieved  the  assassination  of 
Cardinal  Beaton.  He  had  his  choice  between  giving  an  active  support  to 
that  party,  which  would  have  secured  him  in  return  their  adhesion  to  his 
own  policy  of  marrying  the  little  Queen  of  Scots  to  the  young  King  of 
England  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  of  leaving  Mary  of  Lorraine's  government 
to  win  by  P'rench  help,  and  relying  upon  the  inevitable  reaction  against 
French  influence  to  give  him  his  opportunity  at  a  more  convenient  season. 
He  could  have  followed  the  second  line  without  alienating  the  Scottish  re- 
formers. The  course  he  adopted  was  that  of  allowing  the  regent  Arran 
and  the  queen  dowager  to  triumph  by  French  assistance,  and  then  inter- 
vening to  compel  Scotland  at  the  sword's  point  to  accept  his  marriage 
policy.  He  marched  into  Scotland,  thereby  uniting  the  entire  nation 
against  him.      At  Pinkie  Cleugh,  near  Edinburgh,  he  inflicted  a  tremendous 

298 


IN    DEEP    WATERS  299 

and  bloody  defeat  upon  the  Scots,  then  sacked  Edinburgh,  ravaged  the 
country,  and  retired.  He  had  made  no  preparations  for  garrisoning  the 
south,  and  the  practical  effect  of  Pinkie  was  to  draw  closer  the  bond  between 
Scotland  and  France  ;  whither  the  little  queen  was  sent,  to  be  brought  up 
at  the  French  court,  betrothed  to  the  French  dauphin,  and  ultimately 
married  to  him.  Somerset  had  successfully  destroyed  an  anglicising  party 
in  Scotland  by  explicitly  reasserting  the  English  claim  of  sovereignty.  He 
had,  however,  achieved  a  military  glory  which  won  him  popularity  in 
England  and  increased  his 
already  overweening  self-con- 
fidence. 

Meanwhile  the  Council, 
within  which  the  advanced 
party  had  practically  silenced 
opposition,  was  moving  to- 
wards the  adoption  of  re- 
formed doctrines.  Even 
Henry  had  gone  some  way  in 
sanctioning  the  abolition  of 
notoriously  gross  abuses  in 
the  current  religious  practices, 
including  the  destruction  of 
what  were  called  "  abused 
images."  The  term  was  now 
practically  extended  to  in- 
clude almost  anything  which 
might  conceivably  lose  its 
merely  symbolical  meaning 
and  be  transformed  by  super- 
stition into  an  actual  object  of  worship  ;  and  a  crusade  against  such  images 
was  carried  on  which  degenerated  into  wanton  violence  and  irreverence. 
The  injunctions  issued  were  resisted  b}'  Gardiner,  and  by  Bonner,  Bishop 
of  London,  as  being  notoriously  opposed  to  the  wishes  of  the  dead  king, 
which  the  Council  was  bound  to  observe  until  Edward  VI.  should  come  of 
age  and  formulate  his  own  policy.  The  remonstrances  of  the  two  bishops 
were  answered  by  their  confinement  in  the  Fleet  prison. 

When  the  victorious  Somerset  returned  from  Scotland,  parliament  met. 
The  Protector's  paternal  benevolence  was  demonstrated  by  the  repeal  of  a 
series  of  the  harshest  statutes  of  the  preceding  reign — the  Treasons  Act,  the 
Six  Articles  Act,  and  with  them  the  old  Acts  against  the  Lollards.  On  the 
other  hand,  some  of  the  religious  foundations  which  Henry  had  omitted  to 
suppress  were  now  absorbed  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  even  the  reforming 
bishops.  In  answer  to  the  petition  of  Convocation  itself,  parliament  sanc- 
tioned the  marriage  of  the  clergy,  and  the  administration  of  the  cup  to  the 
laity  in  the  Sacrament  of  Holy  Communion,   both  of  which  had  been  ex- 


A  portrait  medal  of  Edward  VI.,  1547. 
[Ill  the  British  Museum.] 


300 


THE    AGE    OF   TRANSITION 


pressly  prohibited  by  the  Six  Articles.      Further,  a  general  pardon  set  the 
two  recalcitrant  bishops  again  at  liberty. 

During  the  following  year,  although  there  was  no  actual  introduction 
of  new  doctrines,  the  party  of  the  advanced  reformers  was  exceedingly 
active.  On  the  plea  of  preventing  unseemly  controversy,  preaching  was 
forbidden  except  to  licensed  preachers  ;  but  as  only  those  were  licensed 
who  held,  and  gave  vent  to,  extremely  advanced  views,  the  general  effect  was 
extremely  inflammatory,  and  again  Gardiner's  opposition  caused  him  to  be 
sent  to  the  Tower.  At  the  same  time  a  number  of  foreign  Protestants, 
especially   of  the  Swiss   school,  were  flocking  into  the  country,  owing  to 


^ZMZZl 


Part  of  the  Coronation  Procession  through  London  of  Edward  VI.,  1547. 
[From  an  engraving  of  a  contemporary  painting  at  Cowdray  House,  Midhurst,  destroyed  in  1793.] 

their  dissatisfaction  with  the  religious  compromise  which  Charles  had  de- 
creed by  what  was  known  as  the  Interim  of  Augsburg.  The  emperor  had 
crushed  the  Protestant  League,  it  must  be  remarked,  at  the  battle  c  f 
Miihlberg,  but  was  at  odds  with  the  pope,  and  was  at  the  same  time  endeav- 
ouring to  concentrate  in  his  own  hands  an  effective  political  power  over  the 
empire,  which  was  arousing  the  keen  hostility  of  the  princes. 

When  parliament  met  again  at  the  end  of  the  year,  its  main  business 
was  the  passing  of  the  first  Act  of  Uniformity,  requiring  the  clergy  to  adopt 
a  new  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  This  prayer-book  of  1549  had  been 
prepared  by  a  commission  in  which  Archbishop  Cranmer  undoubtedly  had 
the  strongest  influence  ;  but  it  was  composed  upon  such  broad  lines  that 
the  most  advanced  and  the  most  reactionary  of  the  bishops  alike  found 
themselves  able   to    use  it  without    violation   of   conscience.     The  Act    of 


IN    DEEP    WATERS  301 

Uniformity  was  opposed,  as  it  seems,  not  because  the  new  prayer-book 
itself  was  objected  to,  but  because  it  was  imposed  upon  the  Church  by 
parhament. 

At  this  time  trouble  came  upon  the  Protector  through  his  brother  WiUiam, 
the  Lord  AdmiraL  The  admiral  resented  his  own  exclusion  from  a  position 
of  practical  equality  with  the  Protector.  That  he  was  an  ambitious  and 
unprincipled  intriguer  is  beyond  question.  He  was  at  last  charged  with 
treason,  and  there  is  no  room  to  doubt  that  if  he  had  had  a  fair  trial  he  would 
have  been  condemned  with  perfect  justice.  But  the  Protector  was  per- 
suaded to  proceed  by  Act  of  Attainder  instead  of  by  trial,  and  the  execution 
of  his  brother  gave  his  enemies  a  handle  against  him. 

Enemies  he  had  in  plenty,  owing  them  to  the  combination  of  virtues 
and  weaknesses  in  himself.  His  arrogance  and  autocratic  bearing  gave 
oftence  on  one  side  and  his  popular  sympathies  on  another.  Half  the 
Lords  of  the  Council  and  half  the  members  of  parliament  belonged  to 
that  numerous  class  who  had  profited  by  the  distribution  of  monastic  lands, 
and  sought  to  make  further  profit  by  the  extension  of  enclosures,  which 
they  were  now  carrying  on  with  a  lordly  disregard  of  law — safely  enough, 
since  its  administration  rested  in  the  hands  of  men  of  their  own  class.  The 
whole  of  that  class  was  roused  against  the  Protector  when  he  appointed  a 
commission  of  enquiry,  and  based  on  its  reports  bills  for  remedying  what 
was  a  manifest  and  flagrant  evil.  Parliament  would  have  nothing  to  say 
to  the  bills,  yet  Somerset  was  apparently  quite  unconscious  that  danger 
was  brewing. 

Now  with  the  summer  came  two  popular  insurrections,  one  in  the  west 
country,  the  other  in  the  eastern  counties.  The  latter  was  agrarian  without 
qualification  ;  the  former  was  complicated  by  religious  motives.  In  the 
eastern  counties  the  monasteries  had  not  been  popular  landlords  ;  even  in 
the  old  days  of  Wat  Tyler,  popular  indignation  had  been  very  largely 
directed  against  them.  For  this  and  for  other  reasons  Protestantism  found 
its  stronghold  among  them,  as  did  Puritanism  in  the  following  century. 
Religion  had  nothing  to  do  with  this  insurrection,  which  was  headed  by  a 
tanner,  Robert  Ket,  and  was  directed  entirely  against  illegal  enclosures. 
It  was  avowedly  a  movement  not  to  protest  against  the  existing  law,  but 
to  procure  its  enforcement.  In  the  west,  on  the  other  hand,  the  agrarian 
grievance  was  probably  at  the  bottom  of  the  matter,  but  the  existence  of 
that  grievance  was  attributed  by  the  rural  population  to  the  suppression  of 
the  monasteries  and  the  substitution  for  them  of  the  new  greedy  lay  land- 
lords. The  popular  sympathies  were  therefore  wholly  antagonistic  to  the 
reformers  and  the  Reformation.  Thus  with  them  the  introduction  of  the 
new  prayer-book  was  the  spark  which  kindled  the  conflagration.  To  the 
Cornishmen  the  old  Latin  services  were  familiar  if  unintelligible  ;  but  their 
native  tongue  was  still,  as  it  seems,  a  Welsh  dialect,  and  a  new  English 
service  was  unfamiliar  as  well  as  unintelligible. 

On  the  agrarian  question  the  personal  sympathies  of  the  Protector  were 


302  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

with  the  insurgents,  and  he  displayed  no  enthusiasm  in  putting  them  down. 
The  rest  of  the  Council  took  a  different  view.  The  eastern  rising  was 
stamped  out  by  John  Dudley,  wlio  had  been  made  Earl  of  Warwick  when 
the  Council  were  loading  themselves  with  honours  at  the  beginning  of  the 
reign.  The  western  rising  was  crushed  by  Herbert  and  Russell.  Warwick 
headed  the  opposition  which  now  turned  upon  Somerset  ;  and  the  Protector 
found  himself  wholly  without  support  among  the  magnates  of  the  realm. 
He  yielded,  was  deposed  from  the  protectorship  by  parliament,  and  was 
deprived  of  a  portion  of  his  estates  ;  but  after  a  brief  sojourn  in  the  Tower 
was  again  set  at  liberty. 

Meanwhile  St.  Leger's  rule  in  Ireland  had  been  brought  to  a  close  by 
his  recall.  There  were  signs  of  a  recrudescence  of  disturbance  due  to 
various  causes,  and  not  least,  perhaps,  to  the  religious  conservatism  of  the 
Irish,  who  very  much  more  than  the  English  were  under  the  influence  of 
the  clergy.  The  policy  of  the  strong  hand  again  found  favour  with  the 
government,  and  St.  Leger  was  replaced  by  Sir  Edward  Bellingham.  No 
better  man  perhaps  could  have  been  found  to  carry  out  a  policy  of  stark 
justice  untempered  by  sympathy.  Bellingham  established  his  mastery  with 
complete  success,  but  in  doing  so  he  destroyed  all  possibility  of  reverting 
successfully  to  a  policy  of  conciliation.  There  was  no  chance  of  resisting 
the  stern  Deputy,  but  a  new  hatred  of  English  domination  was  created  ;  and 
Bellingham's  own  death  in  1549,  the  year  of  Somerset's  fall,  left  Ireland 
without  the  masterful  hand  which  could  hold  it  in  control. 


n 

JOHN    DUDLEY 

It  is  necessary,  though  it  is  not  always  customary,  to  recognise  a  real 
distinction  between  the  period  of  Somerset's  rule  and  that  of  his  successor 
in  the  control  of  the  government,  John  Dudley,  Earl  of  Warwick,  who  is  best 
remembered  by  the  title  of  Duke  of  Northumberland,  which  he  subsequently 
appropriated.  Somerset  had  in  him  much  of  the  visionary.  His  concep- 
tion of  religious  toleration  was  far  in  advance  of  his  time  ;  his  conception 
of  union  with  Scotland  went  much  further  than  the  mere  union  of  Crowns 
which  actually  took  place  little  more  than  half  a  century  after  his  fall — it 
was  rather  such  a  union  as  the  treaty  of  1707  sought  to  achieve.  His 
attitude  on  the  agrarian  question  was  more  akin  to  that  of  Sir  Thomas  More 
than  to  that  of  any  man  of  his  own  class.  He  made  no  attempt  to  sweep 
England  suddenly  out  of  her  traditional  beliefs  into  a  zealous  Calvinism. 
The  prayer-book  for  which  he  was  responsible  carried  with  it  the  repudia- 
tion of  no  doctrine  which  was  held  as  an  article  of  faith  by  the  most  stub- 
born adherents  of  the  ancient  ways,  nor  did  it  carry  with  it  the  affirmation 
of  anything  positively  abhorrent  to  the  followers  of  John  Calvin.      There  was 


IN    DEEP   WATERS  303 

no  religious  persecution  in  his  time  ;  not  one  person  was  sent  to  the  stake. 
Gardiner  was  placed  in  confinement,  not  on  account  of  his  religious  opinions, 
but  because  he  set  himself  in  open  opposition  to  the  government.  The 
Act  of  Uniformity  was  an  order  to  the  clergy,  and  did  not  touch  the  laity. 
The  final  acts  of  spoliation  were  at  the  worst  the  logical  conclusion  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  previous  reign  by  which  no  layman  had  refused  to 
profit  ;  nor  did  any  layman,  however  orthodox,  surrender  one  scrap  of  the 
booty  which  he  had  gained  thereby.  Unfortunately  for  his  own  reputation, 
Somerset  was  personally 
greedy,  and  set  a  particularly 
bad  example  in  the  appro- 
priation of  what  had  been 
Church  property  to  his  own 
enjoyment ;  but  that  is  the 
worst  that  can  be  said  of 
his  ecclesiastical  proceedings 
from  what  may  be  called  the 
Anglican  point  of  view.  It 
was  not  till  the  time  of  his 
successors  that  the  attempt 
was  made  to  transform  the 
Enghsh  Church  into  a  Cal- 
vinistic  body  and  to  impose 
Calvinistic  doctrines  and 
practices  upon  the  com- 
munity— an  attempt  which 
was  partially  stemmed  mainly 
by  the  persistency  with  which 
Cranmer  acted  as  a  drag  on 
the  extremists. 

The  man  who  supplanted 
Somerset  was  anything  but  a  visionary.  He  was  clever,  with  that  kind 
of  cleverness  v.'hich  is  happily  apt  to  overreach  itself,  a  politician  with 
no  aims  except  self-aggrandisement.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
he  had  any  religious  convictions  ;  at  the  moment  when  he  stepped  into 
Somerset's  place,  it  seemed  perfectly  possible  that  he  would  lead  a  re- 
action. But  he  saw  no  advantage  for  himself  in  that  course.  Among 
the  men  who  had  identified  themselves  with  the  new  ideas  he  saw 
no  rivals  to  fear  now  that  Somerset  had  fallen.  Cranmer  was  assuredly 
not  the  man  to  challenge  his  leadership  ;  whereas  reaction  would  mean 
the  reappearance  in  public  life  and  activity  of  the  ablest  ecclesiastical 
politician  living,  Bishop  Gardiner  ;  and  not  only  of  Gardiner,  but  also  of 
the  old  Duke  of  Norfolk.  Warwick  had  no  intention  of  relegating  himself 
to  a  secondary  place.  His  policy  was  clear.  If  the  Reformation  was  to 
go  forward,  the  party  of  the  future  was  the  party  which  drew  its  inspiration 


Murnrnerj  at  a  feast  about  the  middle  of  the  i6lh  centuiy. 


304  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

from  Geneva.  It  was  Warwick's  business  to  identify  himself  with  that 
party  as  its  champion. 

Bishop  Bonner  had  already  for  the  second  time  been  imprisoned,  and 
besides  his  imprisonment  had  been  deprived  of  his  see,  which  was  given  to 
Nicholas  Ridley,  who  was  at  that  time  the  man  on  whom  Archbishop 
Cranmer  most  leaned.  By  degrees  excuse  was  found  for  treating  other 
prelates  of  the  old  school  in  similar  fashion,  their  sees  being  conferred  in 
every  case  upon  reformers  of  the  most  advanced  school.  It  is  interesting  to 
observe  that  the  grim  champion  of  the  Reformation  in  Scotland,  John  Knox, 
came  very  near  being  appointed  to  an  English  bishopric.  He  had  been 
taken  prisoner  by  the  Scottish  government  when  the  castle  of  St.  Andrews 
was  captured,  and  on  being  released  from  his  captivity  in  France,  where 
he  had  been  sent  to  the  galleys,  betook  himself  to  England  ;  since  it  would 
have  been  merely  courting  destruction  to  return  to  Scotland,  where  the 
French  and  clerical  party  were  now  entirely  predominant. 

The  strength  of  the  Swiss  school  made  itself  felt  in  a  revision  of  the 
Prayer  Book  which  took  effect  in  1552.  The  first  Prayer  Book  had  been 
so  carefully  vague  that  it  was  possible  alike  for  those  to  make  use  of  it  who 
held  the  Romish  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation  or  the  Zwingiian  doctrine 
that  the  Communion  service  is  purely  commemorative.  In  the  new 
volume  which  was  sanctioned  by  parliament  the  forms  and  expressions 
laid  down  could  no  longer  be  reconciled  with  adherence  to  the  doctrine 
of  Transubstantiation,  although  a  mystical  character  in  the  Sacrament  was 
still  implied  if  not  positively  affirmed,  while  the  precise  nature  of  the 
mystery  was  undefined.  Further  than  this  Cranmer  and  Ridley  would 
not  go.  The  manifest  intention  was  still  to  allow  the  largest  possible 
latitude  of  interpretation  short  of  the  Roman  doctrine  that  the  substance 
of  bread  and  wine  is  transformed  into  the  substance  of  the  Body  and 
Blood  of  Christ  by  the  Act  of  Consecration.  The  extreme  reformers  had 
to  be  content  with  the  explicit  rejection  of  the  sacrificial  doctrine  of  the 
Roman  Mass,  accompanied  by  the  retention  of  ceremonial  observances 
which  many  of  them  were  inclined  to  stigmatise  as  idolatrous  or  tending  to 
idolatry.  The  authorisation  of  the  new  Prayer  Book  was  accompanied  by 
a  second  Act  of  Uniformity,  imposing  penalties  for  non-compliance  not 
only  upon  the  clergy  but  upon  laymen  also.  Forty-two  Articles  of  Belief, 
which  vary  very  sHghtly  from  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  afterwards  embodied  in 
the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  were  issued  separately  in  1553,  by  the  royal 
authority,  without  express  sanction  of  either  parliament  or  convocation. 

In  matters  of  religion,  then,  the  new  government  did  not  reverse  the 
policy  of  Somerset,  but  applied  it  with  increased  violence  and  more  in 
accordance  with  the  views  of  the  extremists.  In  other  respects  Warwick's 
aims  were  directly  antagonistic  to  those  of  the  Protector.  Somerset,  in 
spite  of  his  treatment  of  his  brother,  iKid  been  opposed  to  the  employment 
of  those  weapons  of  arbitrary  power  which  had  been  forged  by  Cromwell. 
Warwick's  first  parliament  made  a  new  Treasons  and  F'elonies  Act  which 


IN    DEEP    WATERS  305 

included  as  treason,  or  as  felony  punishable  by  death,  the  gathering  of 
assemblies  disturbing  to  the  public  peace  or  aiming  at  the  alteration  of 
the  law ;  and  brought  sundry  offences  against  members  of  the  Council 
under  the  same  category  as  similar  offences  against  the  king's  person. 
The  new  Act  was  presently  utilised  against  Somerset,  who  after  his  release 
had  been  readmitted  to  the  Council.  Since  he  exerted  himself  in  opposition 
to  the  more  rigorous  members  of  the  body,  fears  arose  lest  he  should 
gather  to  his  standard  a  moderate  party  which  would  restore  him  to  power. 
He  was  arrested  on  the  charge  of  compassing  the  death  of  Warwick  and 
others.  Since  he  had  brought  himself  within  the  toils  of  the  law  concerning 
felonious  assemblies,  Warwick,  who  had  now  taken  the  title  of  Duke 
of  Northumberland,  made  a  show  of  magnanimity  by  withdrawing  the 
charge  of  compassing  his  own  death — which  would  have  been  exceedingly 
difficult  to  prove  and  was  quite  unnecessary  to  securing  Somerset's  destruc- 
tion. The  former  Protector  was  condemned  on  the  charge  of  felony, 
and  was  executed  at  the  beginning  of  1552,  amid  remarkable  manifestations 
of  sympathy  from  the  populace  whose  welfare  he  had  sincerely  at  heart, 
however  ineffective  had  been  his  attempts  to  promote  it. 


Ill 
THE   SUCCESSION 

Northumberland  had  not  achieved  popularity.  The  fact  was  clearly 
implied  when  still  a  new  Treasons  Act  was  introduced  at  the  time  of 
Somerset's  death.  The  Commons  were  ready  to  restore  "  verbal  treason  " 
to  the  Statute  book,  but,  with  pointed  reference  to  the  evidence  produced 
against  Somerset,  they  demanded  that  the  evidence  of  at  least  two  witnesses 
should  be  held  necessary  to  condemnation.  The  plain  fact  was  that  the 
fall  of  Somerset  in  1549  had  introduced  changes  of  policy  and  a  change 
of  persons  in  the  government,  but  no  improvement  at  all  in  administration, 
while  the  changes  of  policy  had  not  commanded  popular  assent.  The 
national  finances  were  in  appalling  disorder,  the  fleet  which  Henry  VIH. 
had  created  was  falling  to  pieces,  and  the  government  had  been  obliged 
to  surrender  Boulogne  to  France  without  getting  the  indemnities  for  which 
it  had  been  held  in  pledge.  When  a  new  parliament  met  in  1553,  it 
showed  very  little  inchnation  to  adapt  itself  to  Northumberland's  views, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  every  effort  had  been  made  to  pack  it  with  satis- 
factory representatives.  Northumberland's  influence  was  indeed  supreme 
with  the  young  king ;  but  Edward,  though  of  an  extraordinary  precocity, 
had  always  been  extremely  delicate.  Northumberland  knew  that  he 
was  dying,  and  that  he  himself  had  not  time  to  secure  his  position  before 
a  successor  to  Edward  should  be  seated  on  the  throne. 

The    law    had    settled    indisputably    who    that    successor    was    to    be. 

u 


3o6  THE   AGE    OF   TRANSITION 

Parliament  had  not  onty  authorised  Henry  VIII.  to  fix  the  course  of  the 
succession  by  his  own  will ;  it  had  also  expressly  ratified  that  course  as 
he  laid  it  down.  The  question  of  legitimacy  was  suspended  and  Mary 
was  nominated  the  heir  to  Edward  VI.;  failing  Mary,  her  half-sister 
Elizabeth.  After  Elizabeth  under  the  will  stood  Frances  Grey,  who  was 
now  Duchess  of  Suffolk,  and  her  daughters.  If  the  will  were  challenged, 
the  question  of  legitimacy  at  once  took  the  first  place.  Every  adherent 
of  the  old  religion  was  bound  to  look  upon  Mary  as  Henry's  legitimate 
child.  If,  however,  the  decisions  of  the  English  Law  Courts  were  relied 
upon,  Mary  and  her  sister  were  both  illegitimate,  and  in  that  case  it 
was  manifest  that  the  legitimate  heir  was  Mary  Stuart,  not  any  of  the 
Greys.  Even  on  the  hypothesis  that  Mary  Stuart  was  barred  as  an  alien, 
the  Lennox  Stewarts,  being  English  as  well  as  Scottish  subjects,  were 
not  similarly  barred  and  came  before  the  Greys. 

Nevertheless,  Northumberland  conceived  a  desperate  plan  of  placing 
Lady  Jane  Grey  upon  the  throne  as  his  own  puppet ;  to  which  end  he 
procured  her  marriage  to  one  of  his  sons,  Guildford  Dudley.  Mary's 
succession  was  absolutely  certain  to  mean  his  own  ruin,  since  she  was 
passionately  attached  to  the  Roman  Church,  besides  having  been  treated 
personally  with  extreme  harshness  during  his  own  tenure  of  power.  As  a 
substitute,  Jane  Grey  was  more  likely  to  serve  his  purposes  than  Elizabeth. 
His  plan,  then,  was  to  claim  that  the  dying  king  could  subvert  his  father's 
will  and  himself  nominate  his  successor.  Edward's  Protestantism  was  as 
fervid  as  Mary's  Romanism,  and  Northumberland  found  no  great  difficulty 
in  persuading  him  to  fall  in  wdth  the  scheme  in  view  of  the  danger  to  Pro- 
testantism attendant  on  Mary's  accession.  It  was  no  such  easy  matter  to 
persuade  the  Council.  Its  members  had  indeed  little  enough  to  hope  from 
Mary  ;  Lady  Jane  Grey  would  suit  most  of  them  much  better.  But  it  was 
next  to  impossible  to  find  any  sort  of  constitutional  justification  for  the 
scheme,  which  was  doomed  to  disastrous  failure  unless  the  nation  acquiesced, 
as  it  was  exceedingly  unlikely  to  do.  Still  Northumberland  succeeded. 
Reluctant  members  of  the  Council  suddenly  realised  that  their  lives  and 
liberties  would  be  in  immediate  danger  unless  they  threw  in  their  lot  with 
Northumberland:  so  they  gave  their  assent  subject  to  the  approval  of 
parliament.  The  judges  declined  to  draw  up  the  necessary  Letters  Patent 
without  parliamentary  authority,  until  they  received  their  orders  under  the 
Great  Seal  together  with  a  formal  pardon  in  case  it  should  subsequently  be 
held  that  they  had  acted  illegally.  The  Letters  were  signed  by  members  of 
the  Council  and  others  ;  among  them  Cranmer,  who  refused  until  he  was 
induced  to  believe  that  the  judges  had  declared  the  whole  proceedings 
to  be  legal,  and  the  Secretary  William  Cecil,  who  afterwards  averred 
that  he  had  signed  merely  as  a  witness.  Fifteen  days  later  the  king  was 
dead.  Two  more  days  passed  before  the  fact  became  known,  and  on  the 
fourth  day  Lady  Jane  Grey  was  proclaimed  queen. 

Ail  tiiat  cunning  could  accomplish  Northumberland  had  done.     He  alone 


IN    DEEP    WATERS  307 

had  soldiers  available  ;  not  a  member  of  the  Council  could  move  against 
him.  He  had  control  of  the  pulpits,  which  were  perhaps  the  nearest 
equivalent  of  the  time  to  our  newspaper  press,  and  could  count  on  im- 
passioned appeals  against  the  succession  of  a  papist.  For  his  puppet  he 
had  a  child  of  sixteen,  the  new-made  bride  of  a  son  of  his  own.  Yet  it  was 
from  this  same  child  that  he  received  the  first  check.  When  the  great 
men  of  the  realm  came  to  her  and  declared  to  her  with  one  consent  that 
she  was  the  lawful  Queen  of  England,  with  plenty  of  plausible  demonstra- 
tions, what  could  she  do  but  believe  them 
and  accept,  however  reluctantly,  the  responsi- 
bilities laid  upon  her  ?  But  when  Nor- 
thumberland would  have  claimed  that  her 
husband  should  be  crowned  king,  she  flatly 
refused.  Guildford  Dudley  might  be  her 
husband,  but  he  assuredly  had  no  right  to 
the  Crown  of  England.  Northumberland 
discovered  that  the  puppet  might  prove 
dangerously  independent,  if  the  path  which 
he  meant  her  to  follow  should  be  crossed 
by  the  path  of  her  duty  as  she  conceived  it. 

Ominous  too  was  the  silence  with  which 
the  Londoners  received  her  proclamation,  a 
silence  broken  by  a  voice  from  the  crowd 
saying,  "  The  Lady  Mary  hath  the  better 
title."  Ominous,  again,  was  the  escape  of 
Mary  herself,  who  had  received  the  news 
of  her  brother's  death  just  in  time  to  enable 
her  to  ride  h.rd  out  of  the  reach  of  the  men 
who  had  been  despatched  to  secure  her 
person.  Ill  news  poured  in.  The  forces  with  which  two  of  Dudley's 
sons  went  in  pursuit  of  Mary  turned  against  them,  and  the  Dudleys  had  to 
ride  for  their  lives.      The  country  was  rising  in  arms. 

The  duke  was  in  a  dilemma.  If  he  remained  in  London  to  overawe 
the  Council,  the  whole  country  would  declare  for  Mary.  If  he  went  forth 
himself  to  crush  revolt  the  Council  might  turn  against  him.  He  chose  the 
second  risk  as  the  lesser.  Five  days  after  his  departure,  watched  in  grim 
silence  by  the  Londoners,  the  Council  declared  for  Mary,  proclaimed  her 
queen  at  Paul's  Cross  amid  general  acclamations,  and  sent  a  messenger 
post-haste  after  Northumberland  ordering  him  to  lay  down  his  arms.  The 
message  was  superfluous.  The  traitor  had  realised  that  in  spite  of  all  his 
intrigues  he  stood  alone,  deserted.  The  bubble  was  pricked.  He  had 
played  a  gambler's  throw  and  lost,  and  in  the  hour  of  defeat  he  showed 
himself  pure  craven.  He  threw  himself  on  the  queen's  mercy  ;  and  she 
would  have  spared  even  him  in  her  magnanimity  had  she  not  yielded  to  the 
unanimous  voices  of  her  counsellors.     In  deference  to  them  and  to  the 


Lady  Jane  Grey. 
[After  Holbein.] 


3o8  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

pressure  of  public  opinion,  Northumberland  himself  and  two  of  his  accom- 
plices were  sent  to  the  death  which  they  very  thoroughly  deserved.  Lady 
Jane  was  sent  to  the  Tower.  Bishop  Ridley,  who  had  preached  a  fervid 
sermon  in  favour  of  Queen  Jane,  was  imprisoned  ;  so  were  a  very  few  more  ; 
but  the  generous  extension  of  pardons  was  almost  without  parallel.  None 
could  have  guessed  from  the  commencement  of  Mary's  reign  that  she 
would  be  singled  out  among  English  monarchs  to  be  labelled  with  that 
cruel  title  by  which  posterity  has  known  her. 

The  completeness  of  Mary's  victory  is  in  no  wise  astonishing.  There 
was  absolutely  no  conceivable  ground  for  challenging  her  title  except  the 
fact  that  Cranmer's  ecclesiastical  court  had  pronounced  her  mother's 
marriage  invalid,  a  plea  which  was  equally  effective  against  the  only  other 
child  of  Henry  VIII.  Had  there  been  a  male  claimant  to  the  throne  it  might 
have  been  urged  that  there  was  no  precedent  for  the  occupation  of  the 
throne  by  a  woman  ;  but  every  other  possible  claimant — Elizabeth,  Mary 
Stuart,  Jane  Grey,  even  Lady  Lennox — was  also  a  woman.  No  one  could 
pretend  for  an  instant  that  Lady  Jane  had  been  put  up  with  any  object 
whatever  except  that  of  securing  the  ascendency  of  Northumberland,  and 
that  ascendency  was  already  becoming  intolerable.  The  people  of  England 
had  acquiesced  in  deflections  of  the  succession,  but  those  changes  had 
always  been  born  of  rebellions  which  represented  a  strong  national  opposi- 
tion to  flagrant  misgovernment.  Here  there  was  nothing  of  the  kind.  The 
usurpation  was  attempted  in  order  to  maintain  a  thoroughly  bad  government 
in  power.  The  extreme  Protestants  might  indeed  feel  that  a  Romanist 
restoration  must  be  prevented  at  any  price ;  doubtless  Northumberland  had 
hoped  that  such  was  the  dominant  sentiment  of  the  country.  But  the 
reformers  had  moved  forward  far  in  advance  of  popular  sentiment  ;  the 
public  at  large  were  prepared  to  acquiesce  in  whatsoever  rc'igious  forms 
might  be  imposed  upon  them  by  authority.  It  was  the  Marian  persecu- 
tion itself  which  created  in  England  the  deep-seated  hatred  of  "  popery." 
Protestantism  had  rooted  itself  firmly  in  a  portion,  but  not  in  the  major 
portion,  of  the  nation,  which  was  quite  prepared  for  a  return  to  the  position 
as  it  had  been  under  the  Protector  or  even  under  Henry  VIII.  in  his  last 
years  ;  and  the  nation  had  no  reason  to  anticipate  that  the  reaction  would 
go  further,  no  particular  sympathy  for  the  advanced  Protestants  who  might 
suffer.  And  at  the  outset  of  Mary's  reign  there  was  every  appearance  that 
the  national  anticipations  would  be  justified. 


IV 

MARY 

It  was  inevitable  that  there  should  be  a  reaction,  but  there  was  no 
sudden  and  sweeping  attack.  Ample  time  and  opportunity  were  given  for 
Protestants,   lay   and  clerical,  to   leave  the  country  if  they  felt  themselves 


IN    DEEP    WATERS  309 

too  deeply  committed  to  remain  in  safety  ;  of  which  not  a  few,  including 
John  Knox,  took  advantage.  Ridley  was  imprisoned,  not  for  his  rehgious 
opinions,  but  for  his  active  promotion  of  treason.  Cranmer  and  Latimer 
chose  to  invite  arrest  and  deserve  full  credit  for  their  courage  ;  but  they, 
who  had  been  privy  to  Gardiner's  imprisonment  for  years  past,  had  certainly 
no  ground  of  complaint.  For  the  rest,  Gardiner  and  Norfolk  were  of 
course  released,  and  it  was  obvious  that  the  party  so  long  suppressed 
would  now  have  the  upper  hand  ;  but 
there  was  no  vindictive  treatment  of 
the  other  side. 

Anxiety,  however,  soon  began  to 
grow.  The  queen  would  marry,  and 
much  would  depend  on  her  choice  of 
a  husband.  Her  choice  fell  on  her 
cousin  Philip,  the  Prince  of  Spain,  the 
son  of  the  still  reigning  Emperor 
Charles  V.  The  marriage  was  exceed- 
ingly unpopular,  since  men  felt  that 
such  a  union  was  in  danger  of  sub- 
ordinating English  to  Spanish  interests, 
and  also  of  strengthening  the  Romanist 
reaction.  How  far  the  country  was 
prepared  to  go  was  shown  by  the 
parliament,  which  formally  asserted 
Mary's  legitimacy  and  repealed  the 
ecclesiastical  legislation  of  Edward  VI., 
but  declined  to  touch  Henry's  legis- 
lation at  all  ;  while  the  Commons 
petitioned  the  queen  not  to  marry  a 
foreigner.  The  queen's  advisers,  how- 
ever, including  Gardiner,  found  her  so  determined  on  this  head  that  they  were 
obliged  to  content  themselves  by  insisting  on  the  insertion  in  the  marriage 
treaty  of  every  possible  safeguard  against  the  exercise  of  Spanish  influence. 

It  was  not  by  any  means  only  the  Protestants  who  detested  the  Spanish 
marriage.  Within  a  fortnight  of  the  signing  of  the  treaty  an  insurrection 
had  broken  out,  headed  by  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  which  was  ostensibly 
directed  against  the  marriage.  Wyatt's  undoubted  intention  was  to  depose 
Mary,  set  Elizabeth  on  the  throne,  and  marry  her  to  an  English  nobleman, 
the  young  Edward  Courtenay,  Earl  of  Devon,  who  was  descended  from 
Edward  IV.  Of  complicity  on  Elizabeth's  part  there  was  no  sort  of  proof. 
The  common-sense  of  all  such  conspiracies  required  that  the  figurehead 
should  be  able  to  proclaim  innocence  with  righteous  indignation  if  matters 
went  wrong.  That  rule  applied  to  all  operations  involving  breaches  of  the 
law  or  of  what  passed  for  international  law.  Elizabeth  herself,  Mary 
Stuart,  Henry  of  Navarre,  and  Philip  of  Spain,  nearly  always  managed  to 


Queen  INIary. 
[From  a  miniature  painting  by  Luis  de  Vargas,  1555.  J 


3IO  THE   AGE   OF  TRANSITION 

be  in  a  position  to  repudiate  any  personal  association  with  illegalities  com- 
mitted in  their  name  ;  and  yet  we  can  be  tolerably  certain  that  they 
generally  knew  precisely  as  much  as  they  wished  to  know  of  what  was 
going  on. 

For  a  long  moment  it  seemed  possible  that  Wyatt's  insurrection  might 
develop  into  a  general  rebellion.  The  troops  sent  against  him  deserted 
with  the  cry  "We  are  all  English."  London  was  in  a  panic,  and  the 
Council  appeared  to  be  at  their  wits'  end.  Mary's  own  masculine  courage 
and  audacity  stemmed  the  tide.  Wyatt,  unable  to  cross  the  bridge  at 
Southwark,  moved  up  the  Thames,  crossed  at  Kingston,  and  so  marched 
towards  the  city.  But  his  long  straggling  column  was  cut  in  two.  The 
portion  which  reached  Ludgate  was  already  exhausted  and  was  overcome 
with  no  great  difficulty,  Wyatt  himself  being  taken  prisoner.  Wyatt,  who 
stoutly  declared  Elizabeth  to  be  completely  innocent,  was  executed ;  so 
were  about  a  hundred  of  his  followers.  Suffolk,  the  father  of  Lady  Jane 
Grey,  was  implicated,  in  spite  of  the  generosity  with  which  he  had  been 
treated  in  Northumberland's  affair.  He  too  was  now  deservedly  executed, 
together  with  his  hapless  daughter  and  her  husband  Guildford  Dudley. 
Elizabeth  was  sent  to  the  Tower,  but  was  shortly  afterwards  released,  though 
she  was  held  under  very  strict  surveillance  throughout  the  reign. 

In  the  summer  Mary  and  Philip  were  married.  The  parliament  which 
met  between  the  rebellion  and  the  marriage  showed  the  state  of  public 
feeling  by  refusing  to  restore  the  persecuting  acts  directed  against  heresy, 
or  to  exclude  Elizabeth  from  the  succession ;  on  the  other  hand,  the 
tendencies  of  the  government  were  disclosed  when  those  of  the  clergy  who 
had  availed  themselves  of  the  statute  passed  in  the  previous  reign  to  take 
to  themselves  wives  were  deprived  of  their  benefices. 

-  A  new  parliament  which  met  in  November  was  more  complaisant. 
There  was  a  formal  reconciliation  with  the  papacy,  when  the  queen's 
cousin  Cardinal  Pole  was  received  as  legate  and  solemnly  pronounced  the 
absolution  of  the  repentant  nation.  Gardiner  from  the  pulpit  confessed 
his  own  sin  in  the  past  ;  for,  indeed,  he  had  taken  an  active  part  against 
the  Pope  in  Henry's  quarrel,  although  in  other  respects  he  had  resisted  the 
Reformation.  National  repentance,  however,  stopped  short  of  the  restora- 
tion of  ecclesiastical  property,  and  it  was  soon  to  be  made  clear  that  a  part 
of  the  nation  had  in  no  wise  repented.  The  reaction  for  the  moment, 
however,  was  triumphant.  The  new  parliament  restored  the  persecuting 
Acts,  and  repealed  the  whole  of  Henry's  anti-Roman  legislation,  always 
excepting  his  confiscations  of  Church  lands. 

In  January  1555  began  the  great  persecution  which  converted  the  people 
of  England  to  a  passionate  Protestantism.  It  was  sanctioned  by  parlia- 
ment and  pressed  forward  by  the  Council  collectively,  though  not  without 
opposition  from  some  of  its  members.  It  was  not  encouraged  by  Spain, 
for  Charles  V.  had  learnt  by  experience  that  persecution  is  unpopular,  and 
it  was  the   policy  of    Spain   to   minimise  the  unpopularity  of  the  Spanish 


IN    DEEP    WATERS  311 

marriage.  During  the  lirst  year  it  was  probably  directed  largely  by 
Gardiner,  and  throughout  that  period  it  was  consistently  marked  by  the 
selection  of  conspicuous  victims,  pointing  clearly  to  the  idea  that  such 
drastic  action  would  achieve  its  end  without  any  prolonged  and  miscellaneous 
persecution  ;  and  it  is  only  fair  to  remark  that,  throughout,  the  most 
vigorous  of  its  agents,  the  restored  Bishop  of  London,  Bonner,  made 
strenuous  efforts  to  induce  the  victims  to  recant  and  be  pardoned  rather 
than  to  send  them  to  the  stake. 

But  there  is  one  outstanding  fact  which  marks  the  Marian  persecution 
apart  from  all  other  persecutions  which  have  taken  place  in  England. 
In  every  other  case  the  pretext  was  political. 
In  this  one  case  there  was  no  official  pretence 
of  any  other  purpose  than  the  suppression 
of  false  doctrines.  For  more  than  two  cen- 
turies afterwards,  Romanism  was  penalised 
by  English  governments  cruelly  and  som^e- 
times  even  savagely,  but  always  on  the  plea 
that  Romanism  was  a  political  danger — the 
plea  on  which  Christianity  itself  had  been 
persecuted  during  the  first  three  centuries  of 
the  Christian  era.  The  Marian  persecution 
put  forth  no  such  plea,  and  for  that  reason 
it  has  been  indelibly  stamped  on  the  British 
mind  as  the  one  example  of  a  religious  per- 
secution ;  though  to  this  reason  must  be 
added  another,  that  it  was  the  one  persecu- 
tion in  which  the  stake  played  a  prominent 
part,  and  the  stake  appeals  to  the  imagination 
more  luridly  than  any  other  method  of  per- 
secution. The  three  hundred  martyrs  of  Mary's 
reign  made  an  infinitely  more  vivid  impression  on  the  popular  mind  than 
all  the  rest  of  the  martyrs  English  or  Irish,  Romanist  or  Protestant,  who 
have  suffered  for  conscience'  sake  ;  more  vivid  even  than  the  twenty  thousand 
Huguenots  who  were  slaughtered  in  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew. 

First  of  the  martyrs  was  Rogers,  reputed  to  be  the  author  of  the  great 
translation  of  the  Scriptures  known  as  Matthew's  Bible.  He  was  followed 
by  men  renowned  for  their  sainthness:  Rowland  Taylor  of  Hadley,  and 
Bradford.  Then  came  the  bishops  Hooper  and  Ferrar,  and  in  the  autumn 
Ridley  and  Latimer,  and  then  the  man  who  for  more  than  twenty  years  had 
been  primate  of  all  England,  Archbishop  Cranmer.  Him  the  world  has 
chosen  to  despise.  To  the  extreme  Protestants  he  has  appeared  as  a 
Laodicean,  a  temporiser  ;  those  who  take  the  high  Anglican  view  of  the 
priesthood  cannot  forgive  the  man  who,  holding  the  highest  office  in  the 
Anglican  Church,  deliberately  acted  on  the  principle  that  the  Church  is 
subordinate  to  the  State.     Cranmer  alone  among  the  martyrs  gave  way  in 


Stephen  Gardiner. 
[After  Holbein.] 


312 


THE   AGE   OF  TRANSITION 


the  terrible  ordeal  and  recanted  ;  but  to  Cranmer  came  the  reward  of  the 
sinner  who  repents,  for  at  the  last  hi  utter  abasement  of  soul  he  repented 
and  repudiated  his  recantation  ;  nor  did  any  one  of  the  martyrs  suffer  the 
last  torments  with  a  more  unflinching  courage.  The  roll  of  the  victims  in 
the  first  twelve  months  numbered  about  seventy,  nor  was  there  ever  much 
variation  in  the  persistence  of  the  persecution.  But  after  Cranmer  no 
person  of  prominence  was  sent  to  the  stake  ;  all  were  humble  folk,  harmless, 
with  no  widespread  influence  while  they  lived,  whose  martyrdom  made  a 
hundred  converts  for  every  one  whom  they  had  made  in  their  lives.      Mary 


The  martyrdom  of  Latimer  and  Ridley. 
[From  Foxe's  "  Book  of  Martyrs,"  1563.] 

had  not  shrunk  from  the  terrible  duty,  as  she  conceived  it,  of  saving  the 
souls  of  her  people  from  eternal  flames  by  destroying  the  bodies  of  a  few 
in  earthly  fires.  She  lived  long  enough  to  feel,  or  at  least  to  fear,  that  the 
sacrifice  was  in  vain  ;  for  instead  of  extirpating  what  she  had  accounted 
heresy  she  had  ensured  the  victory  of  Protestantism. 

Save  for  the  splendid  heroism  of  the  martyrs,  the  tragedy  of  Mary's 
reign  is  unrelieved.  There  was  no  relaxation  of  the  agricultural  depression, 
no  mitigation  of  the  financial  chaos.  France  and  Spain  were  at  open  war 
in  1556;  Charles  V.  had  just  abdicated  and  Philip  was  King,  Lord  of  the 
Spanish  and  Burgundian  dominions,  while  his  uncle  Ferdinand  held  the 
Austrian  possessions  of  the  house  of  Hapsburg,  with  Hungary  and  Bohemia, 
and  the  Imperial  Crown   remained  with  the  Austrian  branch  of  the  house. 


IN    DEEP    WATERS  313 

England  was  dragged  into  the  French  war,  which  was  unpopular  because  it 
was  the  direct  outcome  of  the  Spanish  marriage.  Moreover  England  was 
in  such  a  strait  that  she  could  put  neither  an  effective  fleet  on  the  seas  nor 
an  effective  army  in  the  field.  The  crowning  disaster  came  when  at  the 
close  of  1557  Calais  was  besieged  by  the  French  and  was  forced  to 
surrender  in  the  first  week  of  the  new  year.  Calais,  treasured  by  English- 
men as  we  treasure  Gibraltar,  was  lost  after  it  had  been  held  for  something 
over  two  centuries.  Of  Mary's  many  bitter  griefs  the  bitterest  was  the  loss 
of  Calais.  Ten  months  later  she  passed  away,  the  most  tragically  pitiable 
figure  among  all  the  sovereigns  who  have  ruled  over  England, 


CHAPTER    XII 

THE   ELIZABETHAN    RECONSTRUCTION 
I 

THE   QUEEN 

Elizabeth,  the  daughter  of  Henry  VHI.  and  of  Anne  Boleyn,  was  five-and- 
twenty  years  of  age  when  she  came  to  the  throne.  At  that  moment  she 
found  herself  with  an  empty  exchequer  and  a  ruined  fleet ;  with  a  country 
engaged  in  the  interests  of  Spain  on  a  French  war  which  could  only  be 
disastrous.  Financial  dishonesty  and  the  debasement  of  the  coinage  had  dis- 
organised trade  ;  agricultural  depression  was  at  its  worst,  having  been  aggra- 
vated by  bad  seasons.  Pestilence  too  had  been  at  work,  and  the  country  had 
been  sickened  by  the  religious  persecution.  Since  the  death  of  Cromwell, 
no  statesman  had  emerged  whom  the  world  could  recognise  as  an  efficient 
guide  and  support  for  the  young  queen  ;  there  were  clever  men  in  Queen 
Mary's  council,  but  those  whose  honesty  was  to  be  relied  on  were  not 
amongst  that  number.  The  outlook  would  have  been  black  enough  for  a 
new  king  whose  title  to  the  throne  was  beyond  cavil.  It  seemed  still 
blacker  for  a  girl  of  five-and-twenty  whose  title  was  very  far  indeed  from 
being  indisputable. 

For  there  was  a  claimant,  a  possible  claimant,  in  whose  favour  the  whole 
power  of  France  might  be  exerted  in  conjunction  with  that  of  Scotland. 
Mary  Stuart,  now  nearly  sixteen  years  old,  had  just  been  married  to  the 
Dauphin  Francis.  As  a  matter  of  legitimacy  she  was  beyond  all  question 
the  heir  of  Henry  VII.  unless  Elizabeth  herself  was  legitimate.  But  Elizabeth 
could  not  possibly  be  legitimate  in  the  eyes  of  any  Romanist,  because  in  the 
eyes  of  any  Romanist  Henry's  marriage  with  Katharine  was  vaUd,  and  his 
marriage  with  Elizabeth's  mother  was  void.  Moreover,  apart  from  the 
question  of  Rome,  the  mere  fact  that  Mary  Tudor  had  taken  priority  of 
Elizabeth  without  any  formal  act  of  legitimation  was  incompatible  with  the 
theory  that  Elizabeth  was  herself  legitimate.  In  plain  terms,  the  queen's 
title  rested  on  the  fact  that  she  had  been  nominated  to  the  succession  by  her 
father's  will,  with  the  express  sanction  of  parliament ;  a  sufficient  title  as  it 
proved  in  the  eyes  of  the  nation,  but  entirely  futile  in  the  eyes  of  legiti- 
mist upholders  of  divine  right.  For  nearly  thirty  years  of  Elizabeth's 
reign,  the  existence  of  Mary  Stuart  and  her  title  to  the  throne  remained  a 
cardinal  factor  in    policy.      So    vital   was  it   now  that    the    Spanish    court 


THE   ELIZABETHAN    RECONSTRUCTION      315 

assumed  that  if  she  were  sane,  she  must  recognise  that  the  security 
of  her  own  crown  depended  entirely  on  her  retention  of  the  goodwill  to 
Spain. 

Nevertheless,  to  the  intense  indignation  and  disgust  of  the  Spanish 
ambassadors,  Elizabeth,  with  a  complete  disregard  of  the  wishes  of  Spain, 
established  an  administration  as  capable  as  England  had  ever  known,  and 
followed  out  her  own  perfectly  independent  policy.  She  had  her 
father's  genius  in  the  selection  of  ministers,  and  had  already  chosen  for 
her  chief  counsellor  a  consummate  administrator  who  was  at  the  same  time 
exceptionally  shrewd  and  absolutely  trustworthy.  William  Cecil  was  no 
idealist,  but  he  was  perhaps  the  most  level-headed  opportunist  who  ever 
served  an  English  monarch.  Cecil  and  Elizabeth  saw  with  unerring  clear- 
ness of  vision  that  she,  not  Philip,  was  in  fact  mistress  of  the  situation. 
Philip  could  not  afford  at  any  price  to  allow  Mary  Stuart  to  become  Queen 
of  England.  For  Mary  was  already  Queen  of  Scotland  ;  she  would  in  the 
natural  course  of  events  become  Queen  of  France  ;  and  if  she  became  queen 
of  England  also,  France,  England  and  Scotland,  united  under  a  single 
crown,  would  form  a  power  destructive  to  the  Spanish  ascendency  in  Europe, 
completely  severing  Spain  from  the  Netherlands  by  sea  as  well  as  by  land. 
Hence,  whatever  Elizabeth  might  do,  it  was  absolutely  imperative  for  Philip 
to  maintain  her  on  the  English  throne.  She  was  under  no  necessity  for 
seeking  his  support,  since  for  his  own  sake  he  was  bound  to  give  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  fact  that  Mary  was  the  prospective  queen 
of  France  gave  Elizabeth  additional  security  within  her  own  realm.  The 
nation  had  had  a  very  unpleasant  taste  in  the  last  reign  of  the  effects 
of  having  a  queen  whose  consort  was  King  of  Spain.  If  Mary  Stuart, 
queen  of  France  and  Scotland,  were  queen  of  England,  France  would 
be  the  leading  State  in  the  combination,  and  English  policy  would 
inevitably  be  made  subservient  to  French  policy.  Whatever  the  religious 
leanings  of  the  majority  of  the  population  might  be,  two-thirds  of  the 
Romanists  would  certainly  not  stir  a  finger  to  set  a  French  queen  on 
the  English  throne. 

But  it  was  imperatively  necessary  to  arrive  at  a  religious  settlement 
which  should  give  the  country  religious  peace.  Was  Elizabeth  to  follow 
a  Romanist  or  a  Protestant  policy  ?  She  could  not  if  she  would  be  frankly 
Romanist,  because  that  would  involve  her  own  admission  of  her  own 
illegitimacy,  while  it  would  deprive  her  Protestant  subjects  of  their  religious 
grounds  for  supporting  her,  and  might  even  drive  them  to  fall  back  upon 
asserting  the  claims  of  Catherine  Grey,  the  sister  of  Lady  Jane.  Moreover, 
a  Romanising  policy  could  not  stop  short  at  a  mere  reversion  to  the 
position  at  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  which  was  what  Elizabeth 
herself  would  certainly  have  chosen.  Nor  was  that  a  policy  which  could 
have  found  support  from  the  men  on  whom  the  queen  knew  that  she 
must  rely.     A  Protestant  settlement  was  the  only  possible  solution. 

There  still  remained  an  undecided  question  of  great  importance.      Whom 


3i6  THE   AGE  OF   TRANSITION 

should  the  young  Queen  of  England  marry  ?  All  England  took  it  for 
granted  that  she  must  marry  somebody,  if  only  in  order  to  settle  the  succes- 
sion. Elizabeth  herself  had  probably  made  up  her  mind  from  the  outset 
that  she  would  not  marry  at  all,  though  no  statesmen  either  at  home  or 
abroad  ever  believed  that  this  was  her  real  intention.  She  did  not  mean 
them  to  believe  it.  She  recognised  in  her  own  unwedded  state  an  eternal 
diplomatic  lure.  Until  she  should  be  married,  her  hand  was  a  prize  which 
could  be  made  the  subject  of  negotiation  ;  once  she  was  married,  an  actual 
husband  in  the  flesh  would  certainly  be  an  incubus.  And  accordingly 
for  five-and-twenty  years  of  her  reign  she  retained  the  possibilities  of 
a  marriage  with  herself  as  an  invaluable  diplomatic  asset. 


II 

THE  SETTLEMENT  IN  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND 

The  first  marriage  proposal  came  from  Philip  of  Spain  himself.  He 
would  get  a  papal  dispensation  allowing  his  marriage  with  his  deceased 
wife's  half-sister.  To  his  great  astonishment,  his  offer  was  politely  declined 
by  the  daughter  of  Anne  Boleyn,  who,  if  such  a  dispensation  were  valid, 
could  not  herself  claim  to  have  been  born  in  wedlock.  The  disappointed 
suitor  took  another  wife,  a  princess  of  France.  A  curious  popular  supersti- 
tion that  he  sent  the  Spanish  Armada  thirty  years  afterwards  to  punish 
Elizabeth  for  refusing  him  must  be  put  away  among  the  fairy  tales  of 
history.  The  matter  of  pressing  importance  to  Elizabeth  was  to  free 
herself  from  foreign  complications  for  the  moment.  There  was  an 
armistice  in  the  French  war,  and  the  treaty  of  Cateau  Cambresis  allowed 
England  to  retire  with  her  honour  saved  by  the  French  king's  promise 
to  restore  Calais  after  eight  years,  supplemented  by  the  formal  recognition 
of  Elizabeth  as  the  lawful  Queen  of  England  ;  while  she  herself  evaded 
the  formal  recognition  of  Mary  as  heir-presumptive. 

The  religious  question  was  promptly  dealt  with.  No  changes  were 
made  till  parliament  met  at  the  beginning  of  1559.  The  Marian  legislation 
was  then  reversed,  and  the  new  settlement  took  shape  in  the  new  Acts  of 
Supremacy  and  Uniformity.  By  the  former,  the  title  of  Supreme  Head 
was  dropped,  but  the  Crown  was  declared  to  be  "  supreme  in  all  causes 
as  well  ecclesiastical  as  civil."  The  refusal  of  the  oath  was  not  to  be 
counted  as  treason,  but  was  a  bar  to  office.  Religious  opinions  were 
to  be  a  ground  for  proceedings  only  when  they  controverted  decisions 
of  the  first  four  General  Councils  of  the  Church  Universal,  or  were  in 
plain  contradiction  to  the  Scriptures.  The  Act  also  authorised  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  court  for  dealing  with  ecclesiastical  offences,  which  was  actually 
constituted  twenty-four  years  later  as  the  Court  of  High  Commission. 
The   new    Act    of    Uniformity    required    the    use   of    a    new   service-book 


THE   ELIZABETHAN    RECONSTRUCTION      317 

which  differed  very  little  from  that  of  1552,  though  in  some  respects 
it  reverted  to  the  less  emphatically  Protestant  volume  of  1549.  Refusal 
to  accept  the  two  Acts  caused  the  deprivation  of  all  the  bishops  except  one, 
and  the  ejection  of  a  small  number  of  the  lower  clergy  from  their  benefices. 
The  vacated  sees  were  filled  almost  entirely  from  among  the  less  extreme 
Protestants,  Matthew  Parker  being  made  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
Critics  hostile  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  con- 
tinuity of  the  English 
Church  and  of  the 
apostolic  succession  in 
its  priesthood  rest  their 
case  on  doubts  of  the 
validity  of  the  ordina- 
tion of  Bishop  Barlow, 
who  consecrated  Arch- 
bis  hop  Parker  — 
doubts  for  which  the 
evidence  gives  no  suf- 
ficient warrant.  The 
principle  of  the  settle- 
ment was  approxi- 
mately that  at  which 
Somerset  had  aimed 
— the  enforcement  of 
a  sufficient  uniformity 
of  practice  and  cere- 
monial along  with  the 
admission  of  very  wide 
variations  of  doctrine 
but  a  definite  rejection 
of  transubstantiation. 
Methods  of  Church 
government  and  ques- 
tions of  ceremonial, 
not  questions  of  actual  doctrine,  were  those  which  for  the  most  part 
disturbed  the  peace  of  the  comprehensive  Church  which  was  thus  estab- 
lished. 

Financial  administration  was  also  vigorously  taken  in  hand.  Immediate 
confidence  was  inspired  by  the  known  probity  of  the  financial  agents 
selected  by  Cecil,  by  the  obvious  self-reliance  with  which  the  government 
faced  its  difiEiculties,  and  by  its  hardly  expected  stability.  It  soon  became 
manifest  that  there  was  to  be  no  w^astage,  and  that  every  penny  of  the 
public  supplies  would  be  strictly  expended  on  national  objects  under 
stringent   supervision.      Every  loan  that  was  negotiated   was   repaid   with 


Queen  Elizabeth. 

[From  the  painting  attributed  to  Marcus  Gheeraedts  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.] 


3i8  THE   AGE    OF   TRANSITION 

an  admirable  punctuality  ;  and  with  the  restoration  of  public  credit,  the 
negotiation  of  loans  became  a  comparatively  easy  matter.  The  financial 
problem  was  in  great  part  solved  by  the  skill  with  which  the  whole  of  the 
debased  coinage  in  general  circulation  w^as  called  in  and  was  replaced  by 
a  new  coinage  of  which  the  real  and  the  nominal  values  were  the  same. 

During  the  same  period  Scotland  was  also  setthng  her  own  affairs, 
which  were  reaching  a  crisis  at  the  moment  of  Elizabeth's  accession.  In 
the  eleven  years  since  Somerset's  invasion  in  1547,  the  French  party  had 
held  the  ascendency.  Although  the  Earl  of  Arran,  the  heir-presumptive, 
who  held  also  the  French  title  of  Duke  of  Chatelherault,  was  nominally 
regent,  Mary  of  Lorraine  was  the  real  ruler  of  the  country,  and  in  1554 
she  became  actually  regent,  Chatelherault  retiring.  It  was  in  fact  her 
policy  to  turn  Scotland  into  a  province  of  France — by  no  means  with 
Scottish  approval.  The  appointment  of  Frenchmen  to  the  most  responsible 
oiiices  of  the  state  intensified  the  general  uneasiness.  An  attempt  to 
establish  a  property  tax  had  to  be  promptly  abandoned,  and  when  the 
regent  in  1557  proposed  to  invade  England  in  the  interests  of  France,  she 
met  with  an  obstinate  refusal  from  the  leading  nobles.  In  the  following 
year  Queen  Mary  was  married  to  the  Dauphin,  and  the  Scottish  com- 
missioners for  the  marriage  treaty  returned  from  France  with  an  angry 
consciousness  that  if  they  had  given  way  to  the  French  demands,  which 
they  refused  to  do,  Scotland  would  have  ceased  to  be  the  ally  and  would 
have  become  in  effect  the  subordinate  of  France. 

Now  hostility  to  France  meant  of  necessity  inclination  towards  England. 
In  the  past  it  might  at  almost  any  time  have  been  claimed  that  patriotism 
and  hostility  to  England  would  go  hand  in  hand  ;  but  under  the  existing 
conditions  patriotism  came  near  to  involving  hostility  to  France.  Moreover, 
the  coming  of  the  Reformation  had  introduced  a  new  factor.  The  Guises  in 
France  were  at  the  head  of  what,  in  that  country  at  least,  may  be  called 
without  offence  the  Catholic  party  ;  Mary  of  Lorraine  in  Scotland  had 
identified  herself  with  the  Clerical  party.  If  Protestantism  triumphed  in 
England,  Scottish  Protestantism  would  inevitably  turn  to  England  for 
support,  as  it  had  done  a  dozen  years  before.  Scotland  would  in  any 
circumstances  refuse,  as  she  had  always  refused,  anything  that  pointed 
to  subjection  to  the  richer  country,  but  the  idea  of  a  union  which  involved 
no  subordination  was  one  which  now  might  possibly  be  rendered  accept- 
able to  the  Scottish  people,  even  as  it  had  seemed  desirable  to  far-seeing 
statesmen  in  both  countries. 

During  Mary  Tudor's  reign  in  England,  the  regent  in  Scotland  had 
been  obliged  to  walk  warily  in  matters  of  religion,  and  the  reformed 
doctrines  had  spread  apace,  several  of  the  nobles  ranging  themselves  upon 
that  side  ;  prominent  among  whom  were  the  Lord  James  Stuart,  the  young 
queen's  illegitimate  half-brother,  and  the  Earls  of  Argyle  and  Morton,  to 
whom  was  shortly  to  be  added  the  Earl  of  Arran,  a  title  which  was  now 
borne  by  the  son  of  the   Duke    of   Chatelherault,      The   Protestant  lords, 


THE   ELIZABETHAN    RECONSTRUCTION      319 

soon  to  be  known  as  the  Lords  of  the  Congregation,  were  ah-eady  in  1557 
assuming  an  aggressive  attitude,  which  became  directly  defiant  in  the  next 
year  when  an  old  man  named  Walter  Mills  was  burnt  for  heresy.  And 
before  the  end  of  that  year  the  professed  Protestant  Elizabeth  was  on  the 
throne  of  England. 

Before  the  end  of  May  1559  it  was  already  certain  that  there  would  be 
an  armed  struggle  in  Scotland.  In  July  Henry  II.  of  France  was  killed  in  a 
tournament;  his  son  Francis  II.  and  Mary  Stuart  became  king  and  queen. 
Both  in  France  and  Scotland  the  Guise  interest  was  predominant ;  and  the 
Lords  of  the  Congregation  opened  communications  with  England,  while 
French  troops  were  landed  in  Scotland  to  support  the  regent. 

It  was  at  this  stage  that  Elizabeth  got  fairly  started  on  her  matrimonial 
diplomacy.  Philip  of  Spain  now  wished  her  to  marry  his  cousin  the 
Austrian     Archduke    Charles.       The    Scots 

proposed  that  she  should  marry  the  young  P 

Earl  of  Arran,  whose  prospective  claim  to  Xl^^^^^iP 

the    Scottish    throne    might    be    made    an    ^^,,__^        V.-Pjff^^^^^^)) 
immediate  one  by  the  deposition  of  Mary  ^"i--^^^^^^^^^^^^^"^^^^^ 
Stuart.     Elizabeth  played  with  both  offers,     ^~~~^^^^=^^^^^^^^^\ 

though    she    had    no    intention    of    accept-     *^  ]/J*i^ny        ^[^ 1^^ 

ing   either.      It  was   her   favourite   method        '^ 

,^  ■  ,  -ii-     _     1  ir     X  u      '  Queen  Elizabeth's  State  Caniciffe. 

to    avoid    commiUmg    herself    to   anybody.  ^  ^ 

But  in  the  next  year,  under  persistent  pressure  from  Cecil,  she  did 
commit  herself  to  supporting  the  Lords  of  the  Congregation  ;  not,  in 
theory,  against  the  queen,  but  against  the  regent  who  was  abusing  the  royal 
authority.  Elizabeth  was  already  able  to  send  an  efficient  fleet  to  sea,  and 
the  arrival  of  an  English  squadron  in  the  Forth  cut  off  all  prospect  of 
French  reinforcement  for  the  regent.  This  was  followed  up  by  tl :e  despatch 
of  an  army  to  help  the  Lords  of  the  Congregation.  The  regent  was  shut 
up  in  Leith,  which  was  vigorously  defended ;  but  in  June  she  died,  ^nd 
with  her  death  the  position  of  the  French  troops  in  Scotland  became 
practically  untenable.  An  arrangement  was  entered  upon  variously  known 
as  the  Treaty  of  Edinburgh  or  of  Leith.  The  French  were  to  evacuate 
Scotland,  having  given  a  pledge  that  the  demand  of  the  Lords  of  the 
Congregation  for  religious  toleration  should  be  recognised,  as  well  as 
Elizabeth's  own  right  to  the  throne  of  England.  Virtually  the  triumph  of 
the  Lords  of  the  Congregation  was  secured  with  the  death  of  the  regent 
and  the  disappearance  of  the  French  troops.  It  was  certain  that  after  this 
any  serious  attempt  to  bring  back  the  French  would  be  impracticable. 
Mary  might,  and  did,  refuse  to  ratify  the  treaty,  but  the  fact  of  the  evacuation 
was  decisive. 

Before  the  end  of  the  year,  the  death  of  Mary's  husband  changed  the 
whole  situation.  She  was  no  longer  Queen  of  France.  The  queen-mother, 
Catherine  de  Medicis,  meant  to  secure  her  own  ascendency  over  the  new 
King  Charles  IX.,  and  France  had  no  longer  the  same  interest  as  before  in 


320  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

the  possibilit}^  of  Mary's  accession  to  the  EngHsh  throne.  The  presumption 
remained  that  such  an  event  would  bring  England  into  close  alliance  with 
France,  but  nothing  more.  There  was  a  possibility  that  Philip  might 
attach  Mary  to  himself,  though  unless  he  could  succeed  in  doing  so  it 
would  still  be  emphatically  opposed  to  his  interests  to  see  Mary  on  the 
English  throne.  Elizabeth  could  for  the  present  remain  free  from  the  fear 
of  Spanish  intervention  on  Mary's  behalf,  and  would  rather  make  it  her 
aim  to  attach  Mary  to  England.  The  Scots  of  both  parties  saw  possibilities 
of  advantage  for  themselves  in  the  return  of  the  young  queen  to  her  native 
country.  In  August  1561  Mary  left  the  land  in  which  she  had  been  bred 
and  reached  the  bleak  shores  of  her  own  northern  kingdom. 


Ill 

THE    CONTINENT:  MARY    STUART    IN    SCOTLAND 

For  a  few  years  to  come,  England  itself  was  settling  down  and  rapidly 
developing  strength  and  wealth  under  Burleigh's  administration.  Mary  was 
following  out  her  own  dramatic  destiny  in  Scotland.  But  on  the  Continent 
events  were  taking  place,  the  meaning  of  which  must  be  grasped  in  order 
to  make  the  subsequent  history  intelligible. 

In  the  first  place  the  Council  of  Trent  was  brought  to  a  conclusion.  It 
had  never  been  in  any  sense  a  Council  of  Christendom,  since  it  had  excluded 
from  its  deliberations  so  much  of  Christendom  as  challenged  the  spiritual 
supremacy  of  the  papacy.  But  it  defined  Catholic  doctrine  from  the  Roman 
point  of  view,  drawing  its  own  ring-fence  round  the  Church  and  parting 
those  whom  it  recognised  as  Catholics  from  the  rest  of  the  world.  The 
party  label  was  accepted  in  common  speech,  but  without  any  admission  of 
the  implied  contention  that  those  whom  the  Church  of  Rome  chose  to 
exclude  were  not  members  of  the  Church  Catholic  ;  precisely  as  an  English 
political  party  calls  itself  and  is  called  by  its  opponents  Liberal  or  Conserva- 
tive without  implying  its  exclusive  possession  of  the  qualities  expressed  by 
those  terms.  F'urther,  within  the  Roman  Church  there  was  being  perfected 
that  militant  organisation  known  as  the  Order  of  the  Jesuits,  which  played 
an  extremely  active  part  in  the  coming  politico-religious  struggle. 

Next  ;  in  France  began  a  series  of  wars  of  religion  which  continued 
into  the  last  decade  of  the  century.  Among  the  nobility  and  the  common 
people  there  was  something  like  a  balance  between  the  Catholics  and  the 
Huguenots  ;  the  Huguenots  being  headed  by  the  Bourbon  branch  of  the 
royal  family,  which  stood  next  in  succession  after  the  four  brothers  of 
whom  the  reigning  king  Charles  IX.  was  the  second.  At  the  head  of  the 
Catholics  stood  the  powerful  Guise  family.  But  between  the  two  stood  a 
middle  party  whose  main  object  was  the  political  one  of  preventing  either 
Huguenots  or  Guises  from  becoming  over  powerful.     This  was  the  party 


THE    ELIZABETHAN    RECONSTRUCTION      321 

of  Catherine  de  Medicis,  who  herself  cared  nothing  for  religion,  but  in- 
clined towards  repression  or  toleration  of  the  Huguenots  according  to  the 
exigencies  of  political  strife.  These  came  to  be  known  as  the  Politiqnes. 
This  strife  of  parties  prevented  P'rance  from  concentrating  on  a  national 
policy. 

In  the  third  place,  Spain  became  involved  in  a  long  struggle  with  the 
Netherlands,  which  formed  the  main  portion  of  Philip's  Burgundian  in- 
heritance. Here  there  were  two  factors  at  work.  The  several  states  which 
made  up  the  Netherlands  or 
Low  Countries  had  in  effect 
been  self-governing  states  in  the 
past  ;  whereas  it  uas  Philip's 
aim  to  subject  them  to  Spanish 
domination,  to  which  none  of 
them  were  inclined  to  submit. 
But  further,  the  Northern  Pro- 
vinces were  fervent  adherents  of 
the  Reformation,  whereas  the 
Southern  Provinces,  roughly 
corresponding  to  the  modern 
Belgium,  remained  on  the 
Catholic  side.  Philip  regarded 
the  suppression  of  heresy  as  his 
own  special  function.  The 
Northern  Netherlands  therefore 
had  the  double  grievance  that 
Philip's  policy  sought  to  deprive 
them  both  of  political  and  of 
religious  liberty  ;  the  Southern 
States  had  only  the  political 
grievance.  In  1567  the  Duke 
of  Alva  was  sent  to  the  Nether- 
lands as  governor  to  crush  re- 
sistance in  general  and  heresy  in  particular,  and  in  1568  the  Netherlands 
broke  out  in  open  revolt.  From  that  time  the  recognised  hero  of  the 
struggle  for  liberty  was  William  the  Silent,  of  Orange  and  Nassau,  and 
the  subjugation  of  the  Netherlands  took  precedence  of  all  other  objects 
in  the  mind  of  Philip  of  Spain. 

The  dramatic  interest  centres  entirely  in  Scotland.  There  the  young 
queen  on  her  arrival  found  the  Lords  of  the  Congregation  completely 
dominant,  while  the  two  most  powerful  men  in  the  country  were  the 
preacher  John  Knox  and  her  own  half-brother  Lord  James  Stuart,  better 
known  to  posterity  by  his  later  title  of  Earl  of  Moray.  In  Scotland  there 
was  no  question  of  a  Catholic  element  extending  toleration  to  Protestants; 
the   question   was   as    to    the   amount   of   toleration   which    the   Calvinistic 


Queen  Mary  Stuart. 
[After  the  painting  by  Fran9ois  Clouet.  ] 


322  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

Protestants  of  the  country  would  extend  to  the  CathoHcs.  A  Cathohc 
herself,  all  that  Mary  could  do  was  to  place  herself  ostensibly  in  Moray's 
hands,  whatever  hopes  she  may  have  cherished  of  ultimately  restoring  the 
ascendency  of  her  own  faith.  But  she  was  able  and  ambitious,  and  she 
had  been  bred  in  a  political  atmosphere.  She  was  also  beautiful,  and 
endowed  with  an  extraordinary  fascination.  With  her  as  with  Ehzabeth, 
the  great  problem  was  to  find  a  suitable  husband,  a  matter  which  was  of 
extreme  interest  to  the  French,  the  Spanish,  and  the  English  courts. 

Elizabeth  tried  hard  to  persuade  her  cousin  to  marry  her  own  favourite 
Robert  Dudley,  Earl  of  Leicester,  a  younger  son  of  the  traitor  Duke  of 
Northumberland.  The  Queen  of  England  had  driven  her  own  ministers 
to  the  verge  of  despair  by  giving  colour  to  the  suspicion  that  she  had 
thoughts  of  marrying  Leicester  herself ;  and  the  proposal  that  Mary  should 
marry  him  was  resented  as  insulting.  Both  Charles  IX.  of  France  and 
Don  Carlos  the  heir-apparent  of  Spain  flitted  across  the  Scots  Queen's 
matrimonial  horizon,  but  neither  was  ever  a  probable  suitor.  Mary, 
however,  selected  for  herself  Henry  Stewart,  Lord  Darnley — the  eldest 
son  of  the  Earl  of  Lennox — who  as  we  have  seen  stood  not  far  from 
the  succession  to  the  thrones  both  of  England  and  of  Scotland,  in  right 
of  his  descent  on  one  side  from  a  daughter  of  Henry  VH.  and  on  the 
other  from  a  daughter  of  James  H.  Darnley  himself  passed  ipv  a  Catholic, 
and  the  union  would  strengthen  Mary's  hold  on  the  English  Catholics. 
Unhappily  for  Mary,  Darnley  was  utterly  unfitted  for  the  position  she  gave 
him.  Intellectually  and  morally  he  was  entirely  despicable,  as  she  was 
soon  to  find  to  her  cost.  Moreover  the  marriage  alarmed  and  angered 
many  of  Mary's  Protestant  subjects,  including  Moray,  who  took  up  arms, 
but  then  thought  it  better  to  retire  from  Scotland.  Mary  was  now  manag- 
ing her  own  affairs  and  ignoring  her  husband,  who  was  easily  inspired 
with  a  furious  jealousy  towards  her  Italian  secretary,  David  Rizzio.  The 
secretary  was  likewise  detested  by  the  Scots  Lords  because  the  queen 
placed  her  confidence  in  him  and  distrusted  them.  Several  of  them 
entered  into  a  "band"  with  Darnley  himself  for  the  slaying  of  Rizzio,  and 
the  secretary  was  butchered  almost  before  Mary's  very  eyes  in  the  palace 
of  Holyrood. 

Mary  was  without  a  friend  she  could  trust,  tied  to  a  husband  whom 
she  loathed  most  deservedly,  surrounded  by  men  who  had  proved  them- 
selves utterly  unscrupulous.  And  yet  there  was  one  daring  ruffian  whom 
she  did  trust,  or  at  least  on  whose  loyalty  to  her  she  relied,  James  Hepburn, 
Earl  of  Bothwell  ;  but  for  practical  purposes  she  was  a  woman  helpless 
in  the  hands  of  her  enemies — a  girl  rather,  for  she  was  but  three-and- 
twenty  when  her  husband  and  his  fellow-conspirators  committed  their 
unpardonable  outrage.  She  would  have  been  either  more  or  less  than 
human  if  her  soul  had  not  longed  for  vengeance,  and,  above  all,  vengeance 
on  her  husband.  Yet  since  she  could  not  strike,  she  suffered  herself 
to  make  some  show  of  reconciliation  leading  up  to  a  new  tragedy.     There 


THE    ELIZABETHAN    RECONSTRUCTION 


323 


were  many  of  the  Scots  Lords  who  were  ready  to  help  her  to  that,  for 
Darnley  was  unendurable.  Before  twelve  months  were  out  the  vengeance 
fell.  Mary  and  her  husband  were  together.  He  was  ill,  and  they  were 
quartered,  not  at  Holyrood,  but  in  a  house  called  Kirk  o'  Field  close  to 
Edinburgh,  a  house  which  had  been  selected  by  Bothwell  and  Maitland 
of  Lethington,  the  cleverest  politician  in  Scotland.  Fortunately  for  Moray, 
who  had  been  restored  to  favour,  his  wife  fell  ill  and  he  was  summoned 
to  her  side.  One  of  the  queen's  servants  was  to  be  married,  and  late  that 
night  Mary  left  the  doomed  house  to  attend  the  bridal  masque.  Before  she 
could  return,  the  house  was  blown  up.  When  search  was  made,  the  body 
of  Darnley  was  found  close  by,  dead,  but  bearing  no  signs  of  injury. 


Queen  Mary  surrenders  to  the  Confederate  Lords  at  the  battle  of  Carbery  Hill,  1567. 
[From  "  Vetusta  Monumenta."] 

Was  Mary  guilty  ?  On  the  evidence,  as  we  have  it,  a  modern  jury  in 
a  law  court  would  be  obliged  to  acquit  her,  because  guilt  is  not  definitely 
proved  ;  but  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  twelve  men  any  one  of  whom  after 
hearing  the  evidence  believed  in  his  heart  that  she  was  morally  innocent. 
The  first  quite  plain  fact  is  that  the  murder  was  carried  out  by  Bothwell,  the 
next  that  Maitland  and  Morton  were  both  privy  to  it.  It  is  scarcely  possible 
to  doubt  that  Mary  left  Kirk  o'  Field  that  night  without  any  expectation  of 
seeing  her  husband  alive  again.  It  is  not  easy  to  doubt  that  Moray  at  least 
suspected  that  the  tragedy  was  imminent,  and  deliberately  absented  himself 
in  order  to  avoid  inconvenient  entanglement.  But  this  amounts  to  no  more 
than  saying  that  both  Mary  and  Moray  knew  enough  to  enable  them  to 
save  Darnley  if  either  of  them  had  chosen  to  do  so. 


324  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

The  standard  of  political  morality  which  refused  to  connive  at  assassi- 
nation was  exceedingly  rare  outside  of  England.  Philip  of  Spain  and  a  whole 
series  of  his  ambassadors  connived  at  plots  for  the  murder  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  and  for  the  murder  of  William  of  Orange.  In  France  the 
massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  was  the  deliberate  letting  loose  of  religious 
fanaticism  in  order  to  achieve  a  political  end  by  assassination  on  an 
enormous  scale.  In  England  one  Spanish  ambassador  noted  with  extreme 
disgust  the  difficulty  of  getting  any  one  to  lend  himself  to  such  expedients  ; 
the   Englishman's   passion    for  doing  everything   by  form  of  law  was  too 

strong.  Yet  Henry  VIII.  had  en- 
couraged the  murder  of  Cardinal 
Beaton,  while  in  Scotland  assassi- 
nation was  almost  a  commonplace  ; 
and  so  far  as  Mary  herself  was 
guilty,  she  shared  her  guilt  with 
the  very  men  who  sought  to  turn 
her  ruin  to  their  own  advance- 
ment. 

But  the  special  points  are : 
first,  that  there  was  a  political  as 
well  as  a  personal  motive  for  the 
crime,  because  Darnley  had  fully 
proved  that  so  long  as  he  lived 
either  his  follies  or  his  vices  would 
make  havoc  of  every  political 
design  of  Mary's  ;  and  next,  that 
the  current  morality  of  the  period, 
even  while  it  forbade  persons  in 
high  positions  openly  to  associate 
themselves  with  such  crimes,  did 
not  by  any  means  proliibit  a  very  flimsily  veiled  connivance.  The  thing 
that  was  fatal  to  Mary  Stuart  was  precisely  the  recklessness  with  which 
she  permitted  her  actions  to  tear  in  pieces  the  flimsy  veil  which  propriety 
demanded.  If  the  unhappy  queen  had  not  chosen  to  marry  the  murderer 
himself  almost  on  the  morrow  of  his  deed  her  actual  complicity  would 
probably  have  been,  not  acknowledged,  but  both  assumed  and  condoned. 
As  it  was,  she  made  herself  an  accessory  after  the  fact,  and  gave  the 
whole  crime  the  appearance  of  being,  not  political,  but  the  outcome  of  a 
guilty  amour  ;  though  it  can  never  be  proved  beyond  question  that  she  had 
more  than  an  inkling  of  the  plot  beforehand. 

The  drama  moved  forward  swiftly.  Three  months  after  the  murder 
Mary  was  Both  well's  wife.  Another  month,  and  at  Carbery  Hill  she  sur- 
rendered to  the  lords  who  had  risen  in  arms,  while  Bothvvell  made  his 
escape.  She  was  carried  to  Lochleven  Castle,  and  while  there  was  com- 
pelled  to  sign    a   deed   of  abdication  in  favour  of  the  infant  she  had  borne 


^X^^O^^ 


James  Stewart,  Earl  of  Moray. 
[Regent  of  Scotland.] 


THE    ELIZABETHAN    RECONSTRUCTION      325 

between  the  two  murders  ;  Moray  being  nominated  as  regent,  with  a 
council  which  included  Morton,  who  has  already  been  named  as  one  of 
those  privy  to  the  murder  of  Darnley. 

The  arrangements  of  the  new  government  were  by  no  means  to  the 
mind  of  all  the  nobles,  and  Moray  had  some  hard  work  before  his 
authority  was  completely  enforced.  Even  then  the  Hamiltons,  angry  at 
being  set  aside  in  favour  of  Moray,  succeeded  in  contriving  Mary's  escape 
from  Lochleven,  and  gathering  a  force  to  restore  her  to  the  throne.  Just 
eleven  months  after  Carbery  Hill,  Mary  struck  her  last  blow  for  her  crown 
on  Scottish  soil  at  Langside.  The  battle  was  short  and  decisive.  The 
queen's  troops  were  completely  routed  ;  she  herself  fled  southward,  crossed 
Ihe  Solway,  and  threw  herself  on  the  generosity  of  her  loving  sister  of 
England. 

IV 

CROSS   CURRENTS 

The  England  of  1568  was  by  no  means  the  England  of  1558.  Ten 
years  of  a  steady,  honest,  and  business-like  government  had  established  the 
national  finances  on  a  sound  basis,  completely  restored  public  confidence, 
and  revived  the  activity  of  trade.  The  regulation  of  home  trade  and 
industry  had  been  reorganised  by  the  Statute  of  Apprentices.  The  process 
of  enclosure  had  apparently  been  brought  to  a  natural  end,  because  the 
time  had  arrived  when  it  was  no  longer  obviously  advantageous  to  the 
landowner  to  convert  arable  land  into  pasture ;  there  was  no  more  dis- 
placement of  labour,  and  the  labour  which  had  already  been  displaced 
was  beginning  to  find  industrial  instead  of  agricultural  employment.  The 
moral  depression  of  the  years  preceding  Elizabeth's  accession  had  passed 
away,  giving  place  to  a  spirit  of  energetic  self-confidence  which  was  finding 
expression  in  the  adventurous  activities  of  the  seamen.  Elizabeth  was 
firmly  seated  on  her  throne,  and  the  fact  had  become  obvious  to  the  world, 
as  well  as  to  the  queen  and  to  Cecil,  that  neither  France  nor  Spain  would 
or  could  openly  assume  the  championship  of  Mary  Stuart's  title  to  the 
throne  of  England.  Any  attempt  to  do  so  by  one  of  those  two  Powers 
would  compel  the  intervention  of  the  other,  and  both  already  had  too 
much  on  their  hands  to  enter  upon  outside  adventures  which  did  not 
promise  immediate  and  certain  benefit.  England,  in  short,  had  passed  from 
a  condition  of  instability  to  one  of  assured  stability.  The  immediate 
trouble  which  vexed  the  souls  of  her  statesmen  was  the  question  of  the 
succession  if  anything  should  happen  to  Elizabeth,  a  question  which 
Elizabeth  herself  preferred  to  leave  to  chance.  She  had  no  intention  of 
dying,  and  what  might  happen  if  she  should  die  interested  her  less  than 
the  control  of  events  during  her  own  lifetime. 

Such  was  the  position  when   Mary   Stuart  crossed  the   Solway,  and  by 


326  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

so  doing  presented  Elizabeth  with  a  very  inconvenient  problem.  If  she 
restored  her  cousin  in  Scotland  by  force  she  would  alienate  Scottish 
Protestantism.  If  she  handed  her  over  to  the  victorious  Lords  of  the 
Congregation  she  would  be  condoning  rebellion.  If  she  allowed  Mary 
passage  to  France,  and  the  queen  were  reinstated  in  Scotland  by  French 

aid,  she  would  in  effect  be  restoring  the 
old  French  ascendency  in  Scotland.  She 
rejected  each  of  these  courses  and  resolved 
to  keep  Mary  a  prisoner  in  her  own  hands, 
in  spite  of  the  risk  of  her  becoming  a 
figurehead  for  any  conspiracies  directed 
against  Elizabeth  herself. 

But  the  first  thing  to  do  was  to  minimise 
Mary's  power  for  harm  and  at  the  same 
time  to  get  some  sort  of  colour  for  holding 
her  prisoner.  Elizabeth  could  plausibly 
assert  that  she  was  not  justified  in  restoring 
]\Iary  until  the  charges  brought  against  her 
by  her  subjects  had  been  investigated. 
Mary  could  not  prevent  an  investigation, 
however  vehemently  she  might  deny  that 
the  English  queen  had  any  right  of  juris- 
diction in  the  matter.  So  a  commission 
was  appointed  at  York,  and  later  transferred 
to  Westminster,  before  which  the  Scots 
Lords  were  invited  to  defend  their  own 
actions,  which  meant  in  plain  fact  to 
formulate  their  charges.  They  did  so  and 
put  in  their  evidence,  including  the  famous 
Casket  Letters  ;  documents  which,  if  they 
had  actually  been  written  by  Queen  Mary, 
carried  absolute  proof  of  her  guilt.  The 
evidence  having  been  produced,  further 
proceedings    were     stopped.       There    was 

Sir  Thomas  Gresham,  Banker  and  Merchant  no      CrOSS-examination,      nO     admission     of 

evidence  on  the  other  side.  Mary  of  course 
could  not.be  condemned,  but  Elizabeth  did 
not  wish  to  condemn  her  ;  she  merely  wished  to  blacken  her  character 
thoroughly  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  and,  having  done  so  with  complete 
success,  to  retain  a  large  latitude  of  choice  in  such  further  action  as 
expediency  might  suggest. 

Mary  was  kept  in  ward,  but  the  publication  of  the  charges  against  her 
did  not  prevent  her  from  at  once  becoming  the  centre  of  plotting  among 
disloyal  Komanists.  The  Duke  of  Norfolk,  the  premier  peer  of  the  kingdom, 
had   been  one  of  the  commissioners  for  her  trial  ;  but  the  evidence   did 


under  Mary  and  Elizabeth. 
[From  a  statue  in  Gresham  College.] 


THE   ELIZABETHAN    RECONSTRUCTION      327 

not  dissuade  him  from  himself  contemplating  marriage  with  Mary.  The 
earldom  of  Northumberland  had  been  restored  to  the  Percies,  and  in  1569 
the  Northern  earls  rose  with  the  design  of  setting  the  Catholic  Mary  on  the 
throne  of  England.  The  rising  was  crushed,  and  the  earls  of  Northumber- 
land and  Westmorland  were  driven  from  the  country  ;  but  the  general 
effect  was  to  bring  wavering  supporters  of  the  old  religion  decisively  into 
the  ranks  of  the  loyalists.  The  world  as  a  matter  of  course  believed  that 
Mary  had  been  involved  in  the  conspiracy,  and  popular  animosity  towards 
her  was  intensified  ;  though  as 
before  it  did  not  suit  EHzabeth  to 
take  any  steps  for  proving  either 
her  guilt  or  her  innocence. 

Catholic  loyalty  to  the  Crown 
would  probably  have  been  com- 
pletely confirmed,  but  for  the  Pope's 
blunder  in  issuing  a  bull  deposing 
Elizabeth  and  laying  upon  all  good 
Catholics  the  duty  of  seeking  her 
removal  from  the  throne,  while 
instructing  them  to  maintain  an 
appearance  of  loyalty  until  the 
moment  should  arrive  for  striking. 
The  host  of  loyal  Catholics  who 
set  patriotism  before  their  allegiance 
to  the  Pope  were  placed  in  a  hope- 
lessly false  position.  The  most 
fervent  declarations  of  loyalty  were 
compatible  with  complete  accept- 
ance of  the  papal  bull  ;  which 
accordingly  made  every  adherent 
of  the  old  religion  a  suspect,  and 
of  necessity  led  to  a  greatly  in- 
creased rigour  in  the  application  of 
the  laws  against  papal  practices  ;  so  that  from  this  time  onward  adherence 
to  Romanism  became  politically  dangerous,  while  it  entailed  a  considerable 
degree  of  petty  persecution. 

The  sentiment  of  hostility  to  Rome  and  all  her  works  was  intensified, 
and  there  was  a  growing  feeling  in  favour  of  England  standing  forth  as 
the  champion  of  Protestantism  and  the  ally  of  Protestants,  whether  they 
were  French  Huguenots  or  Netherlanders  struggling  against  Alva  and  the 
tyranny  of  Spain.  English  Protestantism  fully  recognised  Spain  as  the 
enemy,  all  the  more  readily  because  English  seamen  were  endeavouring  to 
force  their  way  into  the  New  World,  where  Spain  blocked  the  entry,  and 
sailors  who  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Spaniards  were  handed  over  as 
heretics  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  Inquisition.      But  Elizabeth,  while  she 


Town  houses  in  the  1 6th  century. 
[From  Barclay's  "  Ship  of  Fools,"  1570.] 


328  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

knew  that  sooner  or  later  England  would  have  to  fight  Spain,  was 
determined  to  put  off  the  evil  day  as  long  as  possible.  The  primary  object 
of  her  diplomacy  was  to  avert  war  at  least  until  she  felt  strong  enough  to  be 
sure  of  victory.  She  would  not  openly  quarrel  with  Spain.  But  at  the 
same  time  she  was  supremely  anxious  to  preserve  amicable  relations  with 
the  government  of  France,  whether  Huguenots  or  Catholics  were  dominant. 

At  the  end  of  157 1  an  open  rupture  was  with  difficulty  averted. 
A  plot  was  discovered,  for  which  the  agent  in  England  was  one  Kidolfi, 
which  aimed  at  liberating  Mary,  marrying  her  to  Norfolk,  setting  her  on 
the  throne,  and  killing  Elizabeth.  It  was  abundantly  clear  that  the  Spanish 
ambassador  Don  Guerau  de  Espes  was  in  the  plot.  He  was  expelled  from 
the  country,  and  if  parliament  had  had  its  way  Mary  would  have  been 
attainted  and  executed ;  but  Elizabeth  held  fast  to  her  own  scheme  of 
treatment  for  the  captive.  Philip  himself  was  paralysed  for  action  by  the 
sudden  outburst  of  a  fresh  revolt  in  the  Netherlands,  which  Alva  imagined 
himself  to  have  brought  into  subjection.  Elizabeth  was  dallying  with 
projects  for  her  own  marriage,  first  with  Henry  of  Anjou,  the  heir-presump- 
tive of  his  brother  Charles  IX.  in  France,  and  then  with  his  still  younger 
brother,  Francis  of  Alenfon,  who  was  only  some  twenty  years  younger  than 
herself. 

But  again  the  situation  was  changed  by  an  appalling  tragedy.  France 
was  apparently  on  the  verge  of  a  religious  settlement.  Huguenot  influence 
was  predominant,  and  the  Bourbon  Henry  of  Navarre,  the  Huguenot  figure- 
head, and  heir  to  the  crown  after  the  king's  brothers,  was  about  to  marry 
the  king's  sister.  There  was  a  vast  gathering  of  Huguenots  in  Paris  for  the 
celebration  of  the  wedding,  which  took  place  on  August  i8th.  Six  days 
later  the  streets  of  Paris  were  running  red  with  the  blood  of  the  victims  of 
the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew.  The  possibility  of  a  French  marriage 
for  Elizabeth  for  the  time  being  vanished  completely  ;  to  the  disappoint- 
ment of  Elizabeth's  ministers,  who  had  hoped  by  means  of  it  to  secure 
France  as  a  Protestant  force  in  European  politics.  Indeed,  whether  she 
were  Catholic  or  Protestant,  France's  political  interests  were  so  vitally 
antagonistic  to  those  of  Philip  that  even  after  St.  Bartholomew,  Orange 
would  have  accepted  a  French  protectorate  as  the  price  of  French  aid 
when  he  despaired  of  definite  assistance  from  England. 

In  the  repulsion  aroused  in  England  by  the  massacre,  Philip  found  his 
opportunity  for  reviving  an  appearance  of  amity  with  Elizabeth,  in  order 
to  deter  her  from  active  intervention  on  behalf  of  the  Netherland 
Protestants,  Alva,  by  his  own  wish,  was  recalled  from  the  Netherlands, 
and  a  governor  whose  methods  were  less  drastic  took  his  place.  The 
southern  provinces  were  detached  from  the  revolt  by  proposals  for  meeting 
their  constitutional  demands  as  distinct  from  the  religious  demands  of  the 
northern  provinces.  Popular  sympathy  in  England  remained  with  Orange, 
Init  Elizabeth's  personal  views  were  antagonistic  to  the  encouragement  of 
subjects   who   declined   to    have   their   religion   dictated    to   them  by  their 


THE   ELIZABETHAN    RECONSTRUCTION      329 

legitimate  sovereign.  In  plain  terms,  her  sympathies  as  a  ruler  were  with 
Philip,  though  she  felt  the  political  expediency  of  fostering  the  forces 
which  held  him  in  check.  She  could  not  afford  to  allow  the  Protestant 
provinces  to  be  crushed  completely,  but  she  would  give  them  no  more 
than  just  enough  help  to  preserve  them  from  destruction,  and  that  help 
was  given  grudgingly  and  secretly. 

And  so  she  and  Philip,  each  privily  seeking  to  damage  the  other  as  much 
as  possible,  both  publicly  in- 
sisted on  their  desire  for  a  re- 
conciliation and  an  adjustment 
of  the  grievances  of  which  the 
two  countries  complained.  At 
the  same  time  neither  had  the 
slightest  intention  of  conced- 
ing what  the  other  most 
strongly  insisted  on,  Elizabeth 
demanding  for  English  sailors 
in  Spanish  ports  immunity 
from  the  claims  of  the  In- 
quisition to  seize  them  as 
heretics,  while  Philip  de- 
manded the  suppression  and 
punishment  of  the  seamen 
whom  he  regarded  as  pirates. 
Still  the  mutual  protestations 
of  goodwill  seemed  to  be  quite 
promising  when,  for  the  first 
time  since  the  Ridolfi  plot,  a 
Spanish  ambassador,  Bernar- 
dino   de    Mendoza,   appeared'  ^        ^,.   ,    ,  , 

.  '       •.  L  C^ueen  huzabeth  hunting. 

m       England      m       1578.  The  [FromTurberville.  -Noble  ArtofVencrie.-.srS.i 


when  the  papacy  and  the  Jesuits  were  to  take  up  the  business  of  attacking 
England. 

In  the  meanwhile  Scotland  was  enduring  the  government  of  regencies 
in  the  name  of  the  child  James  VI.  Moray  ruled  with  vigour  and  ability, 
but  eighteen  months  had  hardly  passed  since  Langside  when  he  was  assassi- 
nated. After  that  came  chaos,  which  after  a  considerable  period  issued  in 
the  predominance  of  Morton,  who  became  regent  at  the  end  of  1572.  It 
was  not  till  then  that  that  party  among  the  nobles  who  had  attached  them- 
selves to  the  scheme  of  restoring  Mary  to  the  throne  was  definitely  crushed. 
For  six  years  Morton  remained  supreme,  enforcing  the  law  v^ith  a  strong 
hand,  and  with  justice  except  when  injustice  was  better  suited  to  his 
personal  interest.  But  such  rule  was  popular  with  no  class  of  the  com- 
munity.     He  was  a  political  Protestant  who  would  by  no   means   counte- 


330  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

nance  the  claims  of  the  Calvinistic  clergy  to  assume  the  position  of  the 
prophets  of  Israel.  The  government  needed  money,  and  its  exactions  fell 
heavily  on  the  common  people.  The  nobles  wanted  to  go  their  own  way, 
whereas  Morton  made  them  go  his.  In  1578  he  realised  that  he  had 
brought  together  such  a  formidable  combination  of  enemies  that  he  resigned 
the  regency  ;  but  the  chaos  which  immediately  followed  soon  enabled  him 
to  recover  a  brief  ascendency,  which  was  again  broken  down  through  the 
appearance  in  Scotland  of  the  king's  cousin,  Esme  Stewart  or  D'Aubigny, 
who  was  now  the  male  representative  of  the  Lennox  Stewarts. 


IRELAND 

The  rule  of  St.  Leger  in  Ireland  had  pointed  not  very  conclusively  to 
the  possibility  that  combined  firmness  and  tact  might  introduce  into  the 
country  some  conception  of  law  and  order  as  ends  which  it  might  be 
generally  profitable  to  pursue.  St.  Leger  had  been  superseded  by  Belling- 
ham,  who  had  taught  the  Irish  chiefs  that  lawlessness  and  disorder  might 
entail  very  unpleasant  consequences,  under  a  stern  English  governor  with 
an  adequate  force  at  his  disposal.  But  he  had  also  inspired  the  Irish 
with  a  fervent  dislike  to  any  kind  of  English  government  which  did  not 
allow  them  to  go  their  own  way.  If  they  had  had  any  capacity  for  com- 
bination, Bellingham's  disappearance  would  probably  have  been  the  signal 
for  a  concerted  uprising  with  which  the  governments  of  Edward  VI.  and  Mary 
would  have  been  quite  unable  to  deal.  But  they  preferred  relapsing  into 
general  disorder,  and  English  rule  was  again  hardly  felt  outside  the  Pale 
except  in  the  south,  where,  perhaps  owing  to  jealousy  of  the  Geraldines, 
the  Butlers  were  consistently  loyal  to  England. 

Now,  while  Mary  was  still  reigning  in  England,  there  arose  in  Ulster 
a  leader  who  presently  caused  serious  trouble  to  Elizabeth.  This  was 
Shane  O'Neill,  who  was  the  legitimate  heir  of  the  Earl  of  Tyrone,  although 
the  peculiarities  of  Irish  custom  allowed  the  recognition  in  his  place  of 
a  younger  and  illegitimate  brother.  Matters  were  simplified  when  the 
brother  was  killed,  leaving  a  youthful  heir.  Shane,  in  accordance  with 
another  Irish  custom,  got  himself  elected  as  ''the  O'Neill,"  chief  of  the 
traditionally  dominant  clan  of  Ulster.  In  this  capacity  he  rapidly  made 
his  power  felt,  and  became  practically  master  of  the  north  of  Ireland, 
where  he  exacted  an  obedience  to  his  rule  not  less  effective  than  that 
exercised  by  the  English  government  within  the  Pale.  There  the  English 
Deputy,  the  Earl  of  Sussex,  was  forced  to  rely  upon  his  English  soldiery, 
who  were  generally  speaking  the  worst  kind  of  riff-raff  ;  whose  per- 
petual misconduct  persistently  destroyed  the  moral  effects  which  ought 
to  have   followed   upon    the  enforcement  of  authority.      Shane's  indepen- 


THE   ELIZABETHAN   RECONSTRUCTION      331 

deuce  caused  the  Deputy  to  attack  him  in  arms,  with  the  result  that  his 
expedition  narrowly  escaped  being  cut  to  pieces. 

Elizabeth  made  up  her  mind  that  Shane  was  a  fitter  subject  for  con- 
ciliation than  for  coercion.  He  was  summoned  to  England,  whither  he 
came  under  a  safe  conduct,  and  where  he  studied  English  ways  with 
Lord  Robert  Dudley,  the  future  Earl  of  Leicester,  as  his  tutor.  But  during 
his  absence,  wild  disorder  raged  in  Ulster.  Elizabeth  was  obliged  to  re- 
cognise that  he  was  the  one  man  who  could  rule  Ulster,  and  to  let  him  return 
with  very  large  authority  sanctioned  by  the  queen.  For  the  next  three 
years  O'Neill  was  consolidating  his  rule.  Elizabeth's  ministers,  with 
benevolent  intent,  devised  the  scheme  of  dividing  Ireland  into  four  pre- 
sidencies or  provinces.  One  was  to  be  the  Pale,  that  is  Leinster  ;  O'Neill 
was  to  be  president  in  Ulster,  a  Geraldine  in  Munster,  and  a  Burke  or 
an  O'Brien  in  Connaught.  This  system  in  the  two  latter  provinces  only 
opened  the  way  to  violent  tribal  feuds  ;  while  O'Neill  continued  to  prove 
himself  the  one  strong  man,  though  his  methods  were  rather  those  of 
an  oriental  potentate  than  of  a  western  ruler„ 

In  1566  Sir  Henry  Sidney  came  to  Ireland  as  Deputy,  and  Shane  found 
an  antagonist  who  taxed  his  abilities  to  the  utmost.  Sidney  promptly 
informed  Elizabeth  that,  if  English  government  was  to  prevail  in  Ireland, 
O'Neill  must  be  suppressed,  to  which  end  he  must  have  the  necessary 
forces.  With  extrem-e  difficulty  the  supplies  were  extorted  from  the 
reluctant  queen.  Sidney's  diplomacy  dissuaded  Desmond  from  joining 
O'Neill ;  Sidney  himself  marched  into  Ulster  ;  the  O'Donnells  of  Tyrconnel, 
who  had  an  old  complaint  against  O'Neill,  rose  to  take  vengeance.  O'Neill 
had  to  fly  and  take  refuge  among  his  very  dubious  friends,  the  Scottish 
colony  of  Antrim,  and  there  he  lost  his  life  in  a  brawl. 

So  fell  the  first  Irish  chief  who  may  be  suspected  of  having  formed  the 
deliberate  design  of  throwing  off  the  English  yoke  ;  for  such  a  description 
would  hardly  apply  to  the  men  who  had  supported  the  adventure  of 
Edward  Bruce  two  and  a  half  centuries  before.  And  Shane  had  set  the 
ominous  example  of  opening  correspondence  with  foreign  Powers  on  the 
basis  of  national  Irish  loyalty  to  the  Roman  religion.  With  O'Neill's  fall 
Elizabeth's  government  began  trying  to  enforce  the  Act  of  Uniformity  out- 
side the  Pale  ;  and  from  that  time  forward  the  religious  grievance  took  its 
place  beside  the  national  grievance  against  English  domination. 

In  the  years  that  followed  both  these  grievances  were  greatly  embittered, 
and  a  third,  thenceforth  of  vital  importance,  began  to  assume  an  acute  form. 
Over  the  greater  part  of  Ireland  the  relations  between  the  occupiers  and  the 
owners  of  the  soil  were  fixed  in  fact,  not  by  English  law,  but  by  the  Celtic 
tribal  traditions  of  centuries.  The  customs  according  to  English  ideas 
were  bad  ;  but  bad  or  good,  the  Irish  people  were  passionately  attached  to 
them.  The  Englishman  likes  to  believe  that  political  institutions  are  a 
matter  of  common  sense  in  which  there  is  no  room  for  sentiment.  When 
sentiment  gets  the  better  of  him,  he  persuades  himself  that  it  is  not  sentiment 


332  THE   AGE    OF   TRANSITION 

at  all  but  common  sense.  With  the  Celt,  sentiment  stands  first,  and  a  very 
long  way  first.  The  Elizabethan  Englishman  proposed  to  substitute 
common  sense  for  sentiment  in  the  government  of  Ireland.  His  common 
sense  taught  him  that  if  Ireland  were  planted  with  English  colonies, 
English  laws  were  applied  to  the  holding  of  land,  and  EngUsh  law  generally 
were  enforced,  sentiment  would  die  a  natural  death,  and  Ireland  would 
become  a  second  England.  Incidentally  the  process  appeared  to  demand 
the  treatment  of  the  native  Irish  as  unreasoning  savages,  brutal  and 
treacherous,  on  whom  it  was  useless  to  waste  intelligent  argument  or 
human  sympathy.  They  must  be  ruled  by  brute  force.  There  was  indeed 
a  good  deal  of  excuse  for  the  point  of  view.  Irish  sentiment  being  unin- 
telligible to  the  Englishman,  the  Englishman  attributed  its  existence  to  lack 
of  intelligence  in  the  Irishman  ;  and  the  Irishman,  being  treated  as  outside 
the  pale  of  civilisation,  acted  accordingly.  But  in  his  eyes  it  was  the 
Englishman  who  was  the  aggressor. 

In  an  evil  hour,  then,  the  English  hit  upon  the  happy  expedient  of 
planting  English  colonies  ;  in  an  evil  hour,  because  every  circumstance 
combined  to  ensure  the  maximum  of  hostility  between  the  colonists  and  the 
natives.  The  land  to  be  colonised  was  provided  by  the  seizure  of  domains 
for  which  the  holders  could  prove  no  title  valid  in  English  law,  however 
secure  it  might  be  according  to  Irish  customs.  These  lands  were  conferred 
upon  adventurers,  chiefly  gentlemen  from  Devon,  who  were  prepared  to 
take  care  of  themselves  without  expense  to  the  English  government — an 
arrangement  which  appealed  to  the  economical  soul  of  Elizabeth.  The 
scheme  was  applied  in  the  province  of  Munster  very  shortly  after  the  death 
of  Shane  O'Neill.  Another  experiment  of  the  same  kind  was  tried  in 
Ulster.  In  both  cases  the  attempt  to  rule  with  an  iron  hand  was  met  by 
savage  outbreaks  and  massacres,  answered  by  equally  savage  reprisals ;  and 
the  English  government  still  refused  to  provide  the  government  of  Ireland 
with  the  supply  of  well-paid  troops  under  thorough  discipline  which  the 
situation  absolutely  demanded.  The  alternatives  were  a  despotic  but  care- 
fully just  rule  maintained  by  a  palpably  irresistible  force,  or  a  consistently 
conciliatory  attitude.  There  was  a  possibility  that  either  policy  might  have 
had  a  really  successful  issue.  But  the  Irish  got  neither,  and  every  day 
hatred  of  England  and  of  English  rule  struck  its  roots  deeper  and  deeper. 


VI 

THE   SEAMEN 

In  the  first  twenty  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign  she  and  her  ministers 
restored  order  where  there  had  been  chaos:  a  stable  government,  sound 
finance,  a  religious  peace  in  which  the  great  bulk  of  the  nation  acquiesced. 
France  and   Sp.iin   both   learnt  that   England  would  go  on   its  own  way, 


THE    ELIZABETHAN    RECONSTRUCTION       333 

indifferent  to  any  threats  from  any  foreign  Power,  knowing  that  whatever 
they  might  threaten,  they  were  impotent  to  take  effective  action  against  her. 
England  was  playing  no  heroic  part  ;  she  rejected  the  role  of  the  champion 
of  Liberty,  civil  or  religious.  She  would  embark  on  no  great  adventure. 
The  second  half  of  the  reign  was  to  see  her  challenging  and  breaking  the 
might  of  the  greatest  Power  in  Europe,  and  asserting  for  herself  an  un- 
qualified supremacy  by  sea.  It  was  to  see  her  also  step  into  the  front  rank 
among  the  peoples  who  have  given  to  the  world  great  poets  and  great 
thinkers.  Already,  however,  in  1579,  while  as  yet  scarcely  a  hint  had 
appeared  of  the  literary  splendours  which  were  so  soon  to  burst  forth,  the 
English  seamen  knew  that  when  the  hour  of  conflict  should  arrive,  their  own 
supremacy  was  assured. 

In  the  narrow  seas  English  sailors  had  always  held  their  own  since  the 
days  when  Hubert  de  Burgh  dispersed  a  French  Armada  off  Dover.  The 
two  great  Edwards  and  Henry  V.  had  been  alive  to  the  uses  of  fighting 
fleets,  which  English  statesmen  occasionally  endeavoured  to  foster,  with  no 
very  marked  success,  by  Navigation  Acts.  But,  until  the  sixteenth  century, 
the  recognised  maritime  Powers  were  the  dwellers  on  the  Mediterranean, 
and  the  Portuguese.  The  reign  of  Henry  VI II.,  however,  saw  signs  of 
the  commg  maritime  expansion.  The  creation  of  a  royal  navy  was  that 
monarch's  pet  hobby  ;  it  was  the  one  useful  object  on  which  he  expended 
a  portion  of  the  spoils  of  the  monasteries.  He  was  the  first  king  who  really 
owned  a  considerable  navy  of  fighting  ships,  although  in  the  ten  years  after 
his  death  its  strength  in  numbers  and  in  tonnage  was  reduced  to  about  one 
half. 

But,  in  fact,  England  was  awakening  to  a  consciousness  of  her  maritime 
destiny.  English  sailors  were  making  adventurous  expeditions,  intent  on 
exploration  or  on  commerce  ;  even  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.  witnessed  the 
departure  of  the  expedition  of  Willoughby  and  Chancellor  in  search  of  a 
north-east  passage  to  the  Indies — an  expedition  which  resulted  in  the 
"discovery  of  Muscovy,"  the  opening  of  direct  communications  with  Russia. 
But  by  the  time  of  Elizabeth's  accession  they  were  already  turning  emulous 
eyes  to  the  realms  of  fabulous  wealth  where  the  Spaniard  had  established 
his  dominion.  Apart  from  that  shoulder  of  South  America  which  the  Pope 
had  inadvertently  bestowed  upon  Portugal,  the  whole  of  that  continent,  as 
well  as  North  America  up  to  Florida,  was  regarded  by  the  King  of  Spain  as 
his  private  estate,  in  which  a  strict  trading  monopoly  was  preserved.  That 
trading  monopoly  was  resented  by  the  English,  who  claimed  that  it  was  in 
contravention  of  past  treaties.  Moreover,  it  was  inconvenient  to  the 
Spaniards  themselves,  to  whom  English  sailors  brought  goods  which  they 
were  prohibited  from  buying,  but  were  quite  ready  to  buy  on  some  show  of 
compulsion. 

John  Hawkins,  to  his  profit,  broke  through  the  official  barriers  with  a 
cargo  of  negro  slaves,  purchased  from  native  chiefs  on  the  African  coast. 
The  negro  was  a  much  more  efficient  labourer  than  the  so-called  "  Indian  " 


Knife  which  belonged  to  Drake. 


334  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

of  America,  and  John  Hawkins  repeated  the  experiment.  His  first  venture 
had  displeased  the  King  of  Spain,  and  the  official  barriers  were  less  easily 
penetrated  the  second  time.  But  they  yielded  to  a  formal  display  of  force. 
Hawkins  sold  his  slaves  and  returned  to  England  a  wealthy  man,  but 
under  official  Spanish  condemnation  as  a  pirate. 

He  sailed  a  third  time,  and  with  him  his  young  cousin  Francis  Drake. 
His  previous  experiences  were  repeated,  but  when  he  had  already  started 

for  home  his  three  ships  were 
driven  back  by  stress  of 
weather  to  the  Mexican  port 
of  San  Juan  D'Ulloa.  He 
was  received  with  entire 
friendliness,  but,  while  he 
was  still  in  port,  a  large 
Spanish  squadron  arrived 
on  the  scene.  The  attitude 
of  friendliness  was  maintained ;  but  Hawkins'  suspicions  were  aroused, 
and  he  was  preparing  for  departure  when  the  Spaniards  made  a  sudden 
attack  upon  him.  Hawkins  and  Drake,  with  two  of  the  ships,  escaped  ; 
but  with  the  loss  of  a  large  part  of  the  crews,  many  of  whom  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Inquisition,  to  be  treated  not  as  pirates — for  which  there 
would  have  been  technical  excuse — but  as  heretics.  England  and  Spain 
were  at  peace  ;  but  from  this  time  forward  both  English  and  Spaniards 
acted  on  the  hypothesis  that  beyond  the 
line — not  the  Equator  but  the  Pope's 
boundary  line  between  Spaniards  on  the 
west  and  Portuguese  on  the  east  of  it — 
there  was  a  declared  state  of  war. 

Five  years  later,  in  1572,  Francis 
Drake  set  sail  with  a  small  company  in 
three  ships  for  the  Spanish  Main,  the 
mainland  of  South  America.  The  ex- 
pedition was  in  the  technical  sense  wholly 
piratical,  that  is  to  say,  he  intended  to 
seize  by  force  any  Spanish  treasure 
which  fell  in  his  way.  Cecil,  who  about  this  time  became  known  as 
Lord  Burleigh,  was  perhaps  the  only  prominent  Englishman  who  viewed 
such  proceedings  with  disfavour  ;  he  had  in  full  measure  that  passion  for 
legality  which  has  usually  been  so  marked  a  feature  in  the  English 
character.  But  the  rest  of  his  countrymen,  with  the  queen  at  their  head, 
had  no  compunction  whatever  in  encouraging  such  ventures,  participating 
in  the  risks,  or  sharing  the  profits;  although  the  proprieties  might  compel 
them  personally  to  remain  in  the  background.  Drake  seized  a  quantity 
of  treasure  in  the  Spanish  emporium  Nombre  de  Dios  on  the  Isthmus 
of  Darien.     Then  he  laid   up  his  ships,  penetrated  the   Isthmus,  saw  the 


Drake's  ship,  the  Golden  Hi7id,  at  Java. 
[  Fi  om  the  Chart  of  Drake's  voyages.  ] 


THE    ELIZABETHAN    RECONSTRUCTION      335 

Pacific,  and  swore  that  he  would  sail  upon  those  seas.  On  his  way  back 
to  the  coast  he  fell  in  with  two  treasure-laden  mule-trains,  and  returned, 
well  recompensed,  to  England. 

Thence  he  sailed  again  on  the  most  famous  of  all  his  voyages  in  the 
last  month  of  1577.  Meanwhile  another  adventurer,  John  Oxenham,  more 
reckless  though  not  more  daring,  had  won  the  credit  of  being  the  first 
Englishman  to  sail  on  the  Pacific  Ocean,  having,  like  Drake,  crossed  the 
Isthmus  of  Darien  and  then  built  himself  a  pinnace  with  which  he  surprised 
and  looted  two  Spanish  treasure-ships.  Oxenham,  however,  was  caught 
and  killed. 

Drake  started  on  his  great  voyage  with  the  intention  of  doing  what  only 
one  man  had  done  before  him,  entering  the  Pacific  by  the  Strait  of 
Magellan.  So  daring  a  scheme  was  undreamed  of  by  the  Spaniards,  and 
twelve  months  after  he  first  set  sail,  Drake  with  his  famous  ship  the  Pelican, 
renamed  the  Golden  Hind,  began  his  raids  on  Spanish  ports  and  Spanish 
treasure-ships,  on  the  west  coast  of  South  America.  Enormous  prizes  fell 
into  his  hands ;  but  he  evaded  the  Spanish  ships  which  were  sent  after 
him,  and,  sailing  northward  with  the  idea  of  possibly  discovering  a  north- 
east passage,  he  touched  at  California.  Thither  he  returned  again  to  refit, 
when  further  exploration  decided  him  against  attempting  the  northern 
voyage.  He  declined  the  divine  honours  proffered  to  him  by  the  Cali- 
fornian  natives,  and  made  his  way  home  through  the  Southern  Archipelago 
and  round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope — the  first  captain  who  had  in  person 
conducted  and  completed  the  circumnavigation  of  the  globe.  The  Golden 
Hind  sailed  into  Plymouth  Sound  on  September  26th,  1580. 

Already  another  of  the  great  captains,  Martin  Frobisher,  had  made  three 
Arctic  voyages,  in  the  course  of  which  he  explored  the  waters  now  known  as 
Frobisher's  Sound.  During  the  years  ensuing  his  example  was  followed 
by  John  Davis,  whose  name  stands  second  only  to  that  of  Drake  in  the  list 
of  English  explorers. 

These  are  the  conspicuous  instances  of  the  mighty  spirit  of  adven- 
ture which  had  taken  possession  of  the  English  seamen.  Their  boundless 
audacity  can  be  felt  by  realising  that  Drake's  company  on  his  Darien 
expedition  numbered  less  than  six  score  ;  that  the  Pelican  herself  was  of 
only  one  hundred  tons  burden  ;  and  that  Martin  Frobisher's  first  ship  was 
of  no  more  than  twenty-five  tons.  The  English  seamen,  in  fact,  carried  the 
art  of  navigation  to  a  pitch  hitherto  unprecedented  ;  and  they  discovered 
the  all-important  fact  that  with  sufficient  breezes  the  sailing  ship  in  skilful 
hands  was  a  more  efficient  instrument  than  the  oar-driven  galley.  They 
found  by  practical  experience  that  a  well-handled  English  ship  could  sail 
round  a  Spanish  galleon  of  thrice  the  size  and  pound  it  to  pieces  with  com- 
paratively little  injury  to  itself.  They  learnt  how  to  handle  ships  and  how 
to  build  them,  how  to  mount  their  guns  so  as  to  pour  in  broadsides, 
while  the  Spaniard  still  held  the  conventional  belief  that  the  business  of  a 
ship  in  battle  was  to  ram  or  to  grapple  her  opponent  and  leave  the  fighting 


336  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

to  the  soldiers.  Even  before  Drake's  return,  and  very  much  more  so  after 
it,  the  English  sailors  knew  themselves  a  match  for  the  Spaniards.  They 
had  learned  to  hate  Spain  as  the  instrument  of  the  Inquisition  and  also  as  the 
monopoliser  of  the  wealth  of  the  New  World  ;  to  hate  her  and  to  crave 
for  her  destruction  as  the  enemy  of  England  ;  and  they  had  learnt  also 
how  her  destruction  was  to  be  wrought.     Their  hour  was  at  hand. 


Drake's  voyage  round  the  world,  1577- 1580. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

THE   DAY   OF   TRIUMPH 

I 

THE   JESUIT  ATTACK 

In  the  year  1578,  Philip's  lieutenant  in  the  Netherlands  was  his  half-brother 
Don  John  of  Austria,  who  enjoyed  a  brilliant  reputation  as  a  soldier  and 
was  meditating  grandiose  schemes  of  his  own  which  probably  included  his 
marriage  with  Mary  Stuart.  Elizabeth,  as  we  have  seen,  had  no  real 
sympathy  with  William  of  Orange,  since  she  hated  and  feared  the  doctrine 
that  subjects  might  legitimately  offer  armed  resistance  to  their  lawful  sove- 
reign. But  she  could  not  afford  to  see  the  Provinces  crushed,  because 
Philip  would  then  be  left  free  to  employ  all  his  energies  against  England. 
She  did  not  want  openly  to  take  the  part  of  the  Provinces,  but  there  was 
a  possibility  that  France  might  do  so  out  of  antagonism  to  Philip,  even 
although  the  King,  Henry  IIL,  was  suspected  and  feared  by  the  Protestants 
as  having  been  very  deeply  implicated  in  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew. 
Now  both  Elizabeth  and  Burleigh  in  their  hearts  were  more  afraid  of 
France  than  of  Spain  ;  not  as  matters  actually  stood,  but  if  France  should 
succeed  in  healing  her  internal  discords  and  aggrandising  herself  at  the 
expense  of  Spain. 

Elizabeth  therefore  could  not  view  with  equanimity  the  prospect  of 
Orange  throwing  himself  completely  upon  French  support  and  accepting 
a  French  protectorate.  And  yet  she  wanted  to  impose  upon  France  the 
burden  of  supporting  the  Netherlands  revolt.  To  this  end  in  the  year  1578 
she  revived  the  old  business  of  negotiating  for  her  own  marriage  with 
Francis  of  Alencon.  Alen9on  was  more  or  less  in  alliance  with  the  French 
Huguenots  ;  in  the  event  of  a  French  protectorate  the  office  of  Protector 
would  be  conferred  upon  him  ;  and  Elizabeth  hoped  to  keep  him  virtually 
under  her  own  control  by  dangling  before  him  the  prospect  of  a  marriage 
with  herself.  For  five  years  she  managed  to  keep  up  the  farce,  always 
evading  the  actual  marriage,  although  more  than  once  she  seemed  to  have 
committed  herself  so  far  as  to  make  withdrawal  impossible. 

Late  in  the  year  1578  Don  John  died,  and  was  succeeded  as  governor 
of  the  Netherlands  by  Alexander  of  Parma,  the  ablest  soldier  and  one  of 
the  ablest  statesmen  of  the  age.  Politically  Parma  succeeded  in  narrowing 
the  issue  in  the   Netherlands  by  detaching  the    Southern  Catholics  from 

337  •  Y 


338  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

the  Northern  Protestants  ;  but  by  so  doing  he  gave  the  struggle  the  definite 
character  of  a  war  waged  by  the  United  Provinces  of  the  North  for  the 
preservation  of  their  religious  hberty.  The  one  thing  certain  was  that  those 
provinces  would  hold  out  to  the  last  gasp.  English  volunteers  fought  for 
the  Dutch  in  the  Low  Countries  ;  England  secretly  supplied  Orange  with 
funds  just  sufficient  to  preserve  from  complete  financial  collapse ;  and 
Elizabeth  kept  Alencon  in  play.  Such  was  the  inglorious  part  which  she 
chose  to  take  in  that  glorious  struggle. 

But  England  herself  now  became  the  object  of  attack  ;  a  papal  attack 
which  Philip  of  Spain  fostered  in  the  same  sort  of  fashion  as  Elizabeth 
herself  fostered  Philip's  enemies  and  encouraged  the  depredations  of  the 
English  seamen.  The  agents  of  the  attack  were  the  Jesuits  and  the  English 
Romanist  zealots  trained  by  Cardinal  Allen  in  his  seminary  first  at  Douai 
and  then  at  Rheims.  These  were  men  who  for  the  most  part  believed  with 
an  entire  conviction  that  their  first  patriotic  duty  towards  England  was  to 
bring  her  back  to  the  Roman  fold  at  whatever  political  cost.  The  attack 
was  threefold.  It  was  directed  to  the  resuscitation  in  Scotland  of  a 
Catholic  party,  which  should  appeal  to  national  sentiment  by  pressing  the 
claim  of  the  Stuart  succession  to  the  throne  of  England.  In  Ireland  it 
sought  to  raise  insurrection  ;  and  in  England  itself  it  developed  a  vigorous 
Romanist  propaganda,  associated  with  the  doctrine  that  Romanists  were 
bound  to  do  everything  in  their  power  to  subvert  the  government  of 
Elizabeth  but  were  individually  free  to  follow  any  course  which  might 
divert  suspicions  of  disloyalty. 

In  Scotland  the  agent  of  the  scheme  was  Esm6  Stuart,  w^ho  captured 
the  confidence  of  the  young  king  by  professing  to  have  been  converted  to 
Protestantism  by  his  superhuman  dialectical  skill.  But  though  Esm^ 
Stuart  was  made  Duke  of  Lennox  and  compassed  the  downfall  and  execu- 
tion of  Morton,  there  was  no  effective  Romanist  reaction  ;  and  Scotland 
was  not  attracted  into  hostility  to  the  English  government. 

In  Ireland  the  flame  was  kindled  by  the  Jesuit  emissary  Sandars,  who 
arrived  in  the  island  as  Papal  Nuncio,  and  by  Fitzmaurice,  an  exiled  rebel 
who  was  Desmond's  cousin.  The  murder  of  two  English  officers  started 
the  conflagration.  Half  Munster  rose,  and  Desmond  was  drawn  into 
assuming  the  leadership.  Malby,  the  English  president  of  Connaught, 
dashed  into  Munster,  swept  through  it  with  fire  and  sword,  and  having,  as 
he  hoped,  terrorised  the  province  sufficiently,  fell  back  into  Connaught. 
The  moment  he  was  gone  Desmond  again  issued  from  his  fortress  of 
Ashketyn,  and  recovered  the  mastery  of  Munster.  For  some  time  the  war 
took  the  shape  of  a  series  of  savage  raids  and  counter-raids,  till  Elizabeth 
was  at  last  driven  to  provide  sufficient  supplies.  But  just  as  it  seemed  that 
the  insurrection  would  be  stamped  out,  the  Catholics  in  the  Pale  itself  rose, 
and  a  force  of  Italian  and  Spanish  adventurers  landed  in  the  south-west  at 
Smerwick.  The  Deputy  himself.  Lord  Grey  de  Wilton,  met  with  a  disastrous 
defeat  among  the  mountains  of  Wicklow.     The  revival  of  the  insurrection. 


THE   DAY   OF   TRIUMPH  339 

however,  was  brief.  There  was  no  organisation  among  the  insurgents.  In 
the  late  autumn  Grey  marched  to  the  south  and  laid  siege  to  Smerwick, 
supported  by  a  squadron  of  English  ships  which  had  been  despatched  to 
his  assistance.  Smerwick  was  forced  to  surrender  at  discretion  and  the 
garrison  were  put  to  the  sw^ord.  Its  fall  was  practically  decisive.  A 
desultory  struggle  was  still  maintained,  the  English  hanging  and  slaying 
ruthlessly  wherever  they  met  with  resistance,  while  the  Irish  slaughtered 
the  English  whenever  an  opportunity  occurred.  A  couple  of  years  passed 
before  the  smoulderings  of  revolt  were  completely  stamped  out,  but  the 
Irish  leaders  had  learnt  that  they  were  not  strong  enough  to  fight  the 
English  unaided  and  that  active  aid  from 
Philip  would  not  be  forthcoming.  He  was 
willing  to  use  them  as  catspaws,  but  would 
not  commit  himself  on  their  behalf. 

In  England  the  papal  mission  was  in 
the  charge  of  Parsons  and  Campian. 
Campian  was  a  single-minded  enthusiast, 
ready  for  martyrdom  in  the  holy  cause  of 
the  Redemption  of  England  ;  a  man  with- 
out guile  and  with  no  suspicion  of  the 
sinister  purposes  of  which  his  own  simplicity 
and  enthusiasm  were  being  made  the  in- 
struments. It  was  his  business  to  inspire 
religious  zeal  ;  it  was  that  of  his  colleague 
to  adapt  that  work  to  political  ends — in 
other  words,  to  foster  treason.  The  country 
was  flooded  with  Jesuit  emissaries  of  both 
types.     But  they  found  their  match  in  the 

Secretary  Francis  Walsingham,  who  for  some  twenty  years  counteracted 
every  conspiracy  and  plot  that  v^as  concocted  by  a  consummate  system  of 
espionage.  Invariably  at  the  critical  moment  Walsingham's  hand  fell. 
His  methods  were  unscrupulous.  His  own  hands  were  clean.  He  was 
absolutely  incorruptible,  absolutely  devoted  to  the  cause  of  his  country  and 
of  Protestantism.  He  was  the  one  minister  who  never  hesitated  to  speak 
his  mind  to  Elizabeth,  the  one  man  of  whom  she  herself  was  afraid.  But 
if  his  own  hands  were  clean,  he  had  no  hesitation  in  employing  the  basest 
instruments  and  leaving  them  to  employ  the  basest  means  in  his  warfare 
with  enemies  who,  in  his  belief,  could  be  fought  effectively  only  with  their 
own  weapons.  Walsingham  was  mainly  responsible  for  the  employment 
in  England  of  torture,  not  as  a  form  of  punishment,  but  in  order  to  extract 
evidence  from  reluctant  witnesses.  In  his  excuse  it  can  only  be  urged  that 
torture  was  universally  employed  outside  of  England,  and  w^as  universally 
condoned  by  public  opinion.  It  was  now  freely  employed  against  the 
Jesuits,  who  displayed  the  same  admirable  constancy  which  is  habitually 
shown    by    the    martyrs    of    religious    enthusiasm,    whatever    their    creed. 


Francis  Walsingham. 


340  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

Campian  himself  was  one  of  the  victims  whose  sufferings  and  death  really 
furthered,  instead  of  injuring,  the  cause  for  which  they  died. 

But  the  cause  against  which  Walsingham  was  fighting  was  ruined  by 
the  attendant  disclosures,  in  spite  of  the  aid  it  received  from  the  blood  of 
its  martyrs.  More  than  ever  in  the  eyes  of  the  public  at  large,  as  well  as 
of  statesmen,  Romanism  was  identified  with  treason,  and  the  Jesuit  mission 
drove  the  parliament  of  1581  to  impose  new  penal  lav.'s  upon  the  Catholics. 
Those  who  had  remained  loyal  to  the  old  faith  were  heavily  penalised  for 
celebrating  the  Roman  Mass  and  for  non-attendance  at  Anglican  services. 
It  was  made  treason  to  become  a  convert,  or  to  attempt  to  make  converts, 
to  Rome.  The  lives  of  Catholics  were  made  a  burden  to  them,  and  the 
burden  was  not  removed  for  generations. 

In  1583  the  Alengon  farce  came  to  an  end.  That  contemptible  prince 
entered  on  his  own  account  upon  a  plot  for  the  betrayal  of  the  Nether- 
landers  which  was  discovered  and  frustrated.  From  that  moment  his 
political  career  was  at  an  end,  and  he  vanished  from  the  political  stage  on 
which  he  had  played  so  prominent  and  so  despicable  a  part.  In  the 
following  year  he  died. 


II 

COMING   TO   THE  GRIP 

French  policy  was  complicated  by  the  fact  that  King  Henry  III.  and 
the  court  party,  while  they  would  have  liked  to  crush  the  Huguenot  heresy, 
detested  still  more  the  political  ascendency  of  the  Guise  faction,  which  for 
family  reasons  ardently  favoured  the  cause  of  Mary  Stuart.  Moreover  the 
Guises  and  their  extreme  supporters  were  ready,  in  their  religious  fanaticism, 
to  go  so  far  as  to  seek,  though  not  yet  openly,  an  understanding  with  Spain. 
The  criminal  folly  of  Alengon  strengthened  the  Guises.  Hence  developed 
the  Throgmorton  Plot,  which  as  a  matter  of  course  was  detected  and  dealt 
with  at  the  beginning  of  1584.  The  Guises,  sundry  English  Catholics, 
and  the  Spanish  ambassador  in  England,  Mendoza,  were  involved  in  a 
scheme  for  a  Guise  invasion,  of  course  with  the  object  of  setting  Mary  on 
the  throne.  As  usual  there  was  no  definite  proof  produced  of  personal 
complicity  on  the  part  of  the  imprisoned  queen.  There  was  no  possible 
reason  why  she  should  be  dragged  into  it.  But  quite  enough  was  revealed 
to  intensify  the  common  feeling  that  Elizabeth's  security  demanded  Mary's 
death,  and  to  warrant  also  redoubled  severity  in  applying  the  penal  laws  ; 
while  Mendoza  was  ordered  to  leave  the  country. 

Alcn9on's  death  made  the  Huguenot  Henry  of  Navarre  heir-pre- 
sumptive to  the  French  throne,  a  prospect  intolerable  to  the  Guises,  and 
to  Henry  III.  only  more  tolerable  than  the  Guise  ascendency.  Hence 
France   was    praclicaliy    barred   from  adopting   any   active   foreign    policy 


Queen  Elizabeth  in  Parliament,  15S6. 

[Froin  a  contemporary  print]. 

341 


342  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

whatever.  On  the  other  hand,  the  assassination  of  William  of  Orange,  the 
great  leader  of  the  Dutch  Protestants,  threatened  to  destroy  the  Dutch 
resistance  of  which  he  had  been  both  the  soul  and  the  brain,  while  it 
emphasised  the  unscrupulous  methods  of  Philip  of  Spain.  Manifestly  the 
English  people  were  ready  to  espouse  the  Dutch  cause  whole-heartedly  ; 
had  they  been  allowed  to  do  so  the  French  court  party  would  probably  have 
made  common  cause  with  them  in  association  with  the  Huguenots.  The 
restraining  factor  was  Elizabeth  herself,  with  her  passion  for  abstaining 
from  any  course  which  so  committed  her  that  she  could  not  withdraw. 
The  grim  unanimity  of  the  nation  found  expression  in  the  formation  of 
"The  Association,"  which  might  be  called  a  voluntary  league  of  English- 
men sworn  to  put  to  death  any  one  concerned  in  any  plot  against  the  queen, 
and  any  one — meaning  of  course  Queen  Mary — in  whose  favour  such  a 
plot  should  be  formed.  Elizabeth  herself,  however,  insisted  that  for  such 
a  person  exclusion  from  the  succession  should  be  the  penalty.  At  the 
same  time,  while  the  queen,  then  as  always,  refused  to  recognise  any  speci- 
fied person  as  her  heir,  arrangements  were  made  for  carrying  on  the  govern- 
ment in  case  of  her  sudden  demise. 

Now,  however,  the  Guises  openly  proclaimed  a  Holy  League,  whose 
object  was  the  exclusion  of  Henry  of  Navarre  from  the  French  succession. 
Henry  the  king,  despairing  of  English  support,  joined  hands  with  the 
League.  Philip  of  Spain,  reckoning  that  an  Anglo-French  alliance  was  now 
impossible,  while  Alexander  of  Parma  was  steadily  and  persistently  pressing 
forward  the  subjugation  of  the  Netherlands,  sought  to  frighten  England  by 
the  sudden  seizure  of  all  English  ships  upon  his  coasts.  Instead  of  frightening 
England,  he  kindled  thereby  a  sudden  flame  of  passionate  defiance,  Elizabeth 
was  obliged  to  give  way  to  the  national  feeling,  and  openly  to  league  her- 
self with  the  United  Provinces.  By  the  end  of  the  year  the  Dutch  had 
placed  four  of  their  ports  in  her  hands,  and  an  English  army  under 
Leicester's  command  had  been  landed  in  the  Netherlands, 

Leicester  and  his  troops  were  to  render  no  great  service  to  the  Dutch 
cause  ;  but  the  declaration  of  war  let  Francis  Drake  loose  against  the 
Spaniards.  On  a  private  venture,  though  with  government  sanction,  he 
sailed  with  a  squadron  first  to  the  Spanish  port  of  Vigo,  captured  some 
prizes,  then  betook  himself  to  the  West  Indies,  where  he  held  first  San 
Domingo  and  then  Cartagena  to  ransom,  and  then  returned  home  with  an 
immense  booty,  having  very  efficiently  demonstrated  that  English  seaman- 
ship was  fully  competent  to  take  the  offensive  against  the  might  of  Spain. 

In  the  Netherlands,  Leicester  at  the  best  was  but  an  incompetent 
commander,  and  the  English  were  really  paralysed  by  the  double  dealing 
and  contradictory  instructions  from  the  queen,  which  drove  even  Burleigh 
himself  to  threats  of  resignation.  The  one  thing  accomplished  was  a 
brilliant  but  perfectly  useless  feat  of  arms  at  the  battle  of  Zutphen,  where 
Philip  Sidney  fell,  and  dying,  won  immortal  fame.  Leicester  himself  was 
recalled  before  the  end  of  the  year  (1586),  because,  in  Hat  contradiction  to 


THE    DAY   OF   TRIUMPH  343 

instructions,  he  accepted  the  formal  governorship  of  the  Nethcrhmds,  hoping 
thereby  to  restore  in  the  Dutch  the  confidence  which  EHzabeth's  suspected 
intrigues  with  Parma  had  destroyed. 

Meanwhile  events  in  England  had  been  moving  towards  the  consum- 
mation of  the  tragedy  of  Mary  Stuart.  Through  the  long  years  of  her 
captivity,  voluntarily  or  involuntarily,  she  had  provided  a  focus  for  eternal 


The  Low  Countries  and  Picardy  in  the  1 6th  century. 

plots  and  intrigues.  Nearly  all  England  believed  that  she  had  murdered 
Darnley  to  gratify  her  passion  for  Bothwell.  Nearly  all  England  believed 
that  she  was  actively  engaged  in  plotting  for  the  assassination  of  Elizabeth 
and  her  own  elevation  to  the  throne.  All  England,  with  the  exception 
of  the  extreme  Catholics,  viewed  the  possibility  of  her  accession,  whether 
as  the  result  of  conspiracy  or  in  the  natural  course  of  events  as  the  legiti- 
mate heir,  with  the  gravest  apprehension  ;  and  very  nearly  all  England 
would  at  any  time  have  learnt  with  relief  that  she  was  dead,  or  would  have 


344  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

welcomed  her  execution.  But  Elizabeth  had  stood  in  the  way  of  the 
national  feeling.  In  the  first  place,  Mary,  living,  however  dangerous,  was 
a  valuable  diplomatic  asset  by  means  of  which  Scotland,  if  it  turned  restive, 
could  always  be  coerced.  In  the  second  place,  the  sanctity  of  crowned 
heads  was  a  cardinal  article  of  the  English  queen's  creed.  The  last  thing 
she  wished  was  to  find  herself  compelled  to  sanction  Mary's  execution  ; 
and  whatever  conspiracies  were  detected,  she  resisted  all  pressure  to  proceed 
against  Mary  herself  in  respect  of  them.  Ever  since  1568,  Mary  had  been 
kept  in  strict  confinement  in  the  charge  of  gaolers  who  could  be  trusted 
to  show  her  no  superfluous  kindness  ;  permitted  the  minimum  of  intercourse 
with  the  outside  world,  and  perpetually  conscious  that  her  life  would 
be  forfeited  so  soon  as  the  Queen  of  England  might  deem  it  to  be  in 
her  ov;n  interest  to  strike. 

Now  the  declaration  of  war  between  England  and  Spain  changed 
the  situation.  Of  necessity  it  made  Spain  the  open  instead  of  only  the 
secret  champion  of  Mary's  cause.  There  was  nothing  to  be  feared  from 
Scotland,  where  the  attempt  to  create  a  Romanist  reaction  had  failed 
absolutely.  In  France,  nothing  Elizabeth  could  do  would  increase  the 
hostility  of  the  Guises.  The  uses  of  Mary  as  a  captive  were  over,  while 
every  argument  for  her  removal  had  gathered  rather  than  lost  force. 
Elizabeth  yielded  to  the  pressure  from  Burleigh  and  Walsingham,  which 
had  behind  it  the  whole  weight  of  English  public  opinion,  and  Walsingham 
found  himself  free  to  adopt  measures  which  should  incriminate  Mary 
in  charges  of  compassing  the  queen's  death. 

Mary  was  removed  to  Chartley  Manor,  and  was  placed  in  charge  of 
custodians  officially  less  rigid  than  those  who  had  hitherto  been  re- 
sponsible for  her.  Walsingham  v;as  satisfied  that,  with  increased  facilities 
for  outside  communication,  the  captive  queen  and  her  supporters  would 
commit  some  indiscretion  which  would  place  her  in  his  power.  His 
expectation  was  fully  warranted.  A  plot  of  the  usual  kind  was  set  on 
foot,  in  which  the  leading  part,  which  included  the  assassination  of  Eliza- 
beth, was  assigned  to  a  young  enthusiast  named  Anthony  Babington.  The 
conspirators  found  it  almost  unexpectedly  easy  to  open  communications 
with  Cluirtley  Manor — one  of  the  most  active  and  apparently  most  zealous  of 
their  number  being  a  traitor  in  Walsingham's  pay.  Correspondence  passed 
in  and  out  of  Chartley  Manor,  but  each  letter  passed  en  route  through  the 
hand  of  an  agent  of  Walsingham,  who  took  a  copy  of  it  before  allowing 
it  to  proceed  to  its  destination.  But  no  one  could  condemn  Mary  for 
being  privy  to  a  plot  for  her  own  liberation,  seeing  that  there  was  no 
kind  of  legal  authority  for  her  detention.  It  was  some  time  before 
Walsingham's  agent  could  produce  a  letter  conclusively  associating  Mary 
with  the  plot  as  one  for  the  assassination  of  Elizabeth,  But  with  that 
letter  in  his  hands  Walsingham  had  all  he  wanted.  The  conspirators 
were  arrested,  tried,  condemned  ;  and  a  Commission  was  appointed  for 
the  trial  of  Mary  herself. 


THE   DAY   OF   TRIUMPH  345 

Once  u^ain  the  decisive  evidence  against  Mary  was  contained  in  a 
single  letter.  Without  one  particular  letter  of  the  Casket  group,  the 
positive  evidence  of  her  guilt  in  the  Kirk  o'  Field  affair  broke  down. 
Without  one  particular  letter,  the  positive  evidence  of  her  guilt  in  con- 
nection with  the  Babington  Conspiracy  broke  down  ;  that  is,  there  was 
no  warrant  for  charging  her  with  having  actually  given  her  sanction  to 
assassination.  In  both  cases  the  genuineness  of  the  decisive  document 
has  been  assailed.  In  neither  case  is  it  reasonably  possible  to  maintain 
that  the  document  was  forged  from  beginning  to  end ;  in  both  it  is 
possible  to  believe  that  the  damning  passages  were  forged  interpolations. 
But  in  the  one  case  the  difficulties  of  forgery  were  enormous,  in  the 
other  they  were  small.  Mary's  denials  may  have  been  worthless,  but 
they  were  explicit  and  not  incompatible  with  the  rest  of  the  evidence. 
Walsingham's  answer  to  Mary's  challenge  was  not  explicit,  "As  I  bear 
the  place  of  a  public  person  I  have  done  nothing  unworthy  my  place." 
There  the  matter  stands  and  will  stand  till  the  Day  of  Judgment.  No 
human  being  will  ever  know  whether  the  technical  evidence  on  which  Mary 
was  condemned  to  death  was  her  genuine  writing  or  a  forgery.  But  of 
two  things  there  can  be  no  manner  of  doubt.  Mary  would  have  sanc- 
tioned and  would  have  profited  by  Elizabeth's  assassination  without  a 
qualm.  Walsingham  would  have  found  some  technical  excuse  for  the 
destruction  of  the  queen  whose  life,  in  common  with  three-fourths  of 
the  country,  he  regarded  as  an  intolerable  menace  to  the  state.  Whether 
he  really  discovered  or  invented  it  is  a  minor  matter.  Whether  Mary 
was  morally  justified  by  Elizabeth's  treatment  in  accepting  any  possible 
means  for  her  own  liberation  is  beside  the  question.  No  person  in  Mary's 
position  in  Mary's  day  would  have  refused  on  moral  grounds  to  coun- 
tenance Babington's  plot ;  and  no  government  in  Europe  would  have 
hesitated  to  remove  a  person  who  was  in  Mary's  position. 

Mary  was  pronounced  guilty,  but  her  sentence  was  referred  to  parlia- 
ment and  the  queen.  Parliament  forthwith  demanded  her  execution. 
Still  Elizabeth  hesitated.  Possibly  she  had  qualms  of  conscience,  certainly 
she  shrank  from  the  idea  of  slaying  a  crowned  queen,  and  feared  the 
tongues  of  men.  She  tried  to  shift  the  responsibility.  She  hinted  to 
Mary's  custodians  that  they  should  relieve  her  of  it  by  taking  the  law  into 
their  own  hands — to  their  extreme  indignation.  But  at  last  she  was 
induced  to  sign  the  warrant  for  Mary's  death,  which  was  brought  before 
her  by  the  Secretary  Davison.  The  Council  acted  without  a  moment's 
delay,  fearing  that  the  warrant  would  be  revoked.  Royal  to  the  last,  never 
more  royal  than  in  the  hour  of  her  death,  Mary  Stuart  ended  her  long 
captivity.  Whatever  the  faults  or  follies  of  the  House  of  Stuart,  its  sons 
and  daughters,  with  rare  exceptions,  have  at  least  known  how  to  die. 


346 


THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 


III 

THE   ARMADA 

By  the  death  of  Mary  in  February  1587  the  situation  was  changed 
once  more.  The  Romanists  were  without  a  candidate  of  their  own  faith 
who  had  any  plausible  title  to  the  succession.  The  King  of  Scots  was  a 
Protestant  ;  the  family  of  the  Earl  of  Hertford,  who  had  married  Catherine 
Grey,  were  Protestants.  But  Philip  of  Spain,  like  the  Guises,  had  adopted 
the  doctrine  that  heresy  was  itself  a  bar  to  royalty.  Of  the  few  English 
Romanist  nobles  who  claimed  a  Plantagenet  ancestry,  none  would  become 

DESCENDANTS    OF    HENRY  VII. 


//enryVlU. 

I 

(1)  Mary. 

(2)  Elizabeth. 

(3)  Edward  VI. 


He7uy  VII. 

I 


Margaret, 
in. 

I 


(i)  Tames  IV. 

of  Scotland. 

I 

James  V. 

I 

Mary,  Queen  of 

Scots. 

I 

James  VI.  and  I. 


I 
{2)  Angus. 

Margaret,  m. 

Matthew  Stewart, 

ICarl  of  Lennox. 

I 


Darnley. 


Charles. 

i 

Arabella 

Stuart, 

71.  William 

Seymour. 


Mary,  m.  Charles 

Brandon, Duke 

of  Suffolk. 

I 

Frances,  m. 

Henry  Grey, 

Marquis  of 

Dorset. 


Lady 
Jane  Grey, 
n.  Guildford 
Dudley. 


I 

Catherine,  m. 

Earl  of  Hertford. 

I 
Lord  Beauchamp. 

I 
William  Seymour. 


a  candidate  for  the  crown.  But  Philip  himself,  through  both  father  and 
mother,  was  descended  from  daughters  of  John  of  Gaunt.  Moreover  Mary, 
having  very  naturally  quarrelled  with  her  son,  who  was  not  distinguished  for 
filial  piety — after  all  he  was  Darnley's  son  as  well  as  Mary's — had  chosen 
on  her  own  account  to  declare  Philip  her  heir.  On  this  decidedly 
flimsy  basis  Philip  put  forth  his  own  claim  not  only  to  succeed  Elizabeth, 
but  to  supplant  the  heretic  queen  on  the  throne  of  England;  a  claim  which 
he  transferred  from  himself  to  his  daughter  the  Infanta  Isabella.  Nothing 
could  have  been  more  admirably  calculated  to  ensure  that  wavering 
Romanists  should  choose  patriotism  in  disregard  of  their  allegiance  to  the 
papacy,  since  they  were  forced  to  make  choice  between  the  two.  A 
popular  error  attributes  to  Elizabeth  a  magnanimous  superiority  to  religious 
differences,  and  confidence  in  the  loyalty  of  her  Romanist  subjects,  because 
she  chose  the  "  Romanist "  Lord  Howard  of  Effingham  to  be  admiral  of 
the  fleet  in  the  great  contest.  Unfortunately,  it  is  perfectly  clear  that 
Howard   was  not  a   Romanist   at   all.      The    English  Catholics  acted  with  a 


THE   DAY   OF   TRIUMPH  347 

loyalty   most  honourable  to   them,  but  without  any  encouragement  from 
the  government. 

From  the  moment  of  Mary  Stuart's  death,  however,  it  was  manifest  that 
a  life  and  death  struggle  between  England  and  Spain  could  not  be  deferred. 
Philip  departed  from  his  patient  determination  to  grind  the  United  Pro- 
vinces into  complete  submission  before  extinguishing  the  power  of  England. 
His  ports  were  filled  with  preparations  for  a  mighty  armada.  The  able 
Spanish  admiral  Santa  Cruz  was  to  be  in  command — so  far  as  any  servant 
of  Philip  II.  could  regard  himself  as  in  command,  for  Philip  trusted  no 
man.  But  Drake  did 
not  wait  for  the  Armada. 
As  in  1586,  so  now,  he 
sailed  with  a  squadron 
to  take  the  offensive, 
having  slipped  out  of 
port  in  time  to  escape 
the  counter -orders 
which  he  very  accu- 
rately anticipated  from 
the  queen.  He  sailed 
to  the  great  harbour  of 
Cadiz,  where  he  de- 
stroyed a  vast  quantity 
of  shipping,  completely 
spoiling  the  Armada's 
chance  of  sailing  before 
the  winter ;  and  then, 
failing  to  entice  the 
main  Spanish  fleet  out  of  the  Tagus,  contented  himself  with  capturing  a 
great  Spanish  treasure-ship,  and  so  returned  home. 

It  was  Philip's  intention  to  despatch  an  invincible  fleet  which  would 
sail  up  the  Channel,  take  on  board  from  the  Netherlands  Parma's  veteran 
regiments,  and  proceed  to  the  conquest  of  England.  But  Drake's  opera- 
tions of  necessity  postponed  the  sailing  till  the  late  autumn,  and,  when  the 
late  autumn  came,  Santa  Cruz  pronounced  that  winter  storms  would  paralyse 
naval  operations,  even  if  they  did  not  break  up  his  fleet.  With  the  new 
year  Philip  resolved  to  ignore  his  admiral's  objections  ;  but  Santa  Cruz's 
own  death  again  necessitated  postponement,  and  by  this  time  the  English 
fleet  was  in  full  fighting  trim.  During  the  whole  year  past  Elizabeth 
had  been  pursuing  her  own  exasperating  policy  of  intriguing  with  Parma 
on  the  basis  of  proposals  for  the  betrayal  of  the  Dutch,  filling  her  own 
ministers  and  sailors  with  acute  apprehension  and  disgust.  Yet  it  may  be 
that  she  was  only  playing  for  time,  since  Vv^hen  the  crucial  point  in  the 
negotiations  was  reached,  she  declared  that  she  could  not  think  of  surrender- 
ing the  cautionary  towns  which  she  held  until  full  effect  had  been  given  to 


An  English  ship  in  the  Armada  fight. 
[From  a  contemporary  engraving  of  one  of  the  tapestries  in  the  old  House  of  Lords.] 


348  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

her  own  requirements ;  whereas  the  surrender  of  the  cautionary  towns 
was  from  the  Spanish  point  of  view  the  necessary  first  step  in  the  whole 
business.  Every  one  appears  to  have  beheved  that  Ehzabeth's  negotiations 
were  serious ;  her  ministers  could  only  hope  that  they  might  be  frustrated 
either  by  some  fortunate  accident  or  by  Elizabeth's  recovery  of  her  moral 
equilibrium  ;  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  she  extricated  herself  from  the  apparent 
impasse  precisely  as  she  had  done  half-a-dozen  times  before  in  similar  cases. 
Philip,  it  may  be  remarked,  went  on  patiently  and  laboriously  as  ever  with 
his  preparations,  as  though  no  negotiations  had  been  in  progress. 

When  the  Armada  was  all  over,  English  piety  attributed  its  defeat  to 
the  special  interposition  of  Providence  on  behalf  of  the  Protestant  faith. 
^^  Douiinus  flavit  et  dissipati  sunt,"  ''the  Lord  blew  and  they  were  scattered." 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  were  not  scattered  by  tempests  until  they  were 
thoroughly  shattered  and  beaten  by  superior  tactics,  superior  gunnery, 
superior  seamanship,  and  superior  naval  construction.  There  was  never 
a  shadow  of  a  doubt  in  the  minds  of  the  English  seamen  that,  if  they  were 
allowed  a  fair  chance,  Philip's  Armada  would  prove  his  ruin.  If  Drake  had 
been  given  his  way,  the  Armada  would  never  have  sailed  at  all,  because  it 
would  have  been  sunk  or  burnt  in  detail  in  the  Spanish  ports  or  at  least  in 
Spanish  waters.  The  alarms  of  the  landsmen  detained  the  English  fleet 
in  the  narrow  seas,  and  so  the  Armada  had  to  be  fought  in  force  when  it 
did  come  ;  and  even  then,  what  surprised  the  seamen  was  not  their  ultimate 
success  in  destroying  it,  but  the  unexpected  capacity  for  resistance  which  it 
displayed. 

The  actual  number  of  the  English  vessels  which  took  some  sort  of  part 
in  the  long  series  of  engagements  was  somewhat  greater  than  that  of  the 
Spaniards,  but  a  large  number  of  these  were  small  boats  which  did  not 
count  in  serious  work.  In  tonnage,  in  men,  and  in  guns,  the  Spaniards 
doubled  the  English.  But  the  big  ships  were  much  harder  to  manoeuvre, 
the  English  gunners  could  fire  three  shots  to  the  Spaniards'  one,  and  make 
every  shot  tell,  while  most  of  the  Spaniards'  were  harmless.  The  men  on 
board  the  English  ships  were  nearly  all  sailors,  who  were  working  the  ships 
themselves  as  fighting  machines  ;  while  half  the  men  on  the  Spanish  ships 
were  soldiers  who  were  of  no  use  at  all  until  the  ships  grappled,  whereas 
the  English  never  grappled  until  the  enemy  was  already  disabled.  In  plain 
terms,  the  end  of  the  Armada  was  practically  a  foregone  conclusion  from 
the  outset.  The  English  made  one  grave  miscalculation,  which  alone  saved 
the  Armada  from  total  annihilation  at  their  hands.  They  had  not  reckoned 
upon  the  enormous  and  wholly  unprecedented  expenditure  of  ammunition, 
of  which  the  supplies  ran  short  in  both  fleets,  with  the  result  that  the 
English  had  to  give  up  the  pursuit  when  the  Spaniards  were  already  in 
helpless  and  headlong  ilight. 

The  nucleus  of  the  English  fleet  was  the  small  but  exceedingly  efficient 
royal  navy  ;  the  majority  of  the  vessels  were  privately  owned  or  furnished 
by  the    seaports.      The  whole  was    under   the  general    command  of    Lord 


§   ^ 


THE   DAY   OF   TRIUMPH  349 

Howard  of  Effingham,  with  Drake,  Frobisher,  and  Hawkins  as  subordi- 
nates ;  while  Drake  was  the  real  head.  The  major  part  of  the  fleet  was 
collected  at  Plymouth,  while  a  squadron  commanded  by  Wynter  watched 
the  Dutch  ports  to  prevent  any  possibility  of  a  surprise  movement  from 
that  quarter.  On  July  19th  the  Armada  was  sighted  off  the  Lizard,  the 
ships  massed  in  the  form  of  a  crescent.  The  English  fleet  had  time  to 
work  out  of  Plymouth  Sound,  cross  the  front  of  the  approaching  foe,  and 
lie  to  windward  of  the  enemy's  course  so  as  to  be  able  to  attack  or  hold 
off  at  will.  The  Span- 
iards sailed  in  line 
abreast  with  a  wide- 
spread front;  the  Eng- 
lish attacked  sailing  in 
line  ahead,  that  is  to  say 
in  single  file,  ship  follow- 
ing ship,  passing  the 
Spaniards  and  pouring 
in  broadsides  as  they 
passed  ;  while  the  Span- 
iards endeavoured  to  dis- 
able them  by  ineffective 
firing  at  their  rigging. 

As  the  great  fleet 
moved  up  Channel  no 
attempt  was  at  first 
made  to  bring  on  a 
general  engagement,  but 
stragglers  were  cut  off 
and  an  occasional  Span- 
iard was  disabled.  On 
the  fourth  day  there  was 
a  sharper  engagement 
off  Portland,  and  an- 
other on  the  sixth  day  off  the  Isle  of  Wight.  So  far  the  Spaniards 
had  kept  their  formation  and  actually  lost  very  few  ships,  but  the  fight 
off  Portsmouth  prevented  their  apparent  design  of  securing  a  station  in 
the  Channel,  and  they  proceeded  to  Calais.  As  they  lay  there  on  the 
ninth  night,  the  English,  now  reinforced  by  Wynter's  squadron,  floated 
fire-ships  down  upon  them  before  a  favouring  breeze.  The  Spaniards 
were  seized  with  panic,  cut  their  cables  and  made  for  the  open  sea.  In 
the  morning  they  were  scattered  far  and  wide.  Off  Gravelines  the  English 
fell  upon  them  and  destroyed  them  in  detail.  A  fierce  squall  forced 
the  English  ships  to  draw  off,  and  by  the  time  it  was  over  the  Spaniards 
had  begun  their  headlong  flight  up  the  North  Sea.  On  the  third  day 
after  Gravelines  the  pursuit  ceased,  partly  from  lack  of  ammunition,  partly 


The  defeat  of  the  Armada. 
[From  a  broadside  issued  at  the  thanksgiving  for  the  victory.] 


350  THE   AGE    OF   TRANSITION 

from  the  supposed  necessity  of  guarding  the  Channel  in  force  in  case 
Parma  should  still  attempt  an  invasion.  Of  the  fleet  which  escaped  from 
the  English  shattered  and  crippled,  one  half  was  lost  on  the  Scottish  or 
Irish  coasts,  or  foundered  at  sea.  Only  a  battered  and  ruined  remnant 
struggled  home.  In  the  whole  series  of  engagements  the  English  had  lost 
one  ship  and  less  than  a  hundred  men. 


IV 


AFTER   THE    ARMADA 


What  would  have  happened  if  the  Spaniards  had  crippled  the  English 
fleet  without  getting  crippled  themselves  ?     They  would  have  convoyed  to 

the  English  shores  from  the  Netherlands 
an  army  of  invasion  consisting  partly  of 
Parma's  veterans,  partly  of  the  large  rein- 
forcements which  the  Armada  was  carrying 
from  Spain,  under  the  command  of  the 
ablest  soldier  living.  They  would  have 
found  awaiting  them  the  English  levies 
gathered  at  Tilbury,  commanded  nominally 
by  the  incompetent  Leicester,  but  probably 
in  actual  fact  by  the  experienced  captain, 
Sir  John  Norreys ;  an  army  enthusiastic 
but  untrained,  though  containing  a  leaven 
of  men  who  had  seen  hard  fighting  as 
volunteers  in  the  Low  Countries,  in  the 
French  Huguenot  wars,  and  in  Ireland. 
Parma's  task  would  not  have  been  an  easy 
one,  but  the  possibility  that  there  would 
have  been  a  Spanish  conquest  of  England 
cannot  be  denied.  After  the  defeat  of  the 
Armada,  however,  no  invasion  was  possible,  and  had  it  been  possible,  the 
invading  force  would  have  been  isolated  in  England,  completely  cut  off 
from  supplies  or  reinforcements.  As  matters  stood,  the  dominion  of  the 
seas,  hitherto  claimed  by  Spain,  had  passed  completely  out  of  her  hands, 
and  the  destruction  of  the  Armada  secured  the  deliverance  of  the  United 
Provinces  as  well  as  that  of  England  herself.  From  that  time  forward, 
Spaniards  and  Englishmen  met  on  the  seas  with  a  perfect  confidence  that 
if  the  Spaniards  were  only  three  to  one  they  had  no  chance  of  victory. 

The  fear  of  Spain  had  passed.  England  was  no  longer  on  the  defensive. 
The  party  of  aggression  would  have  set  themselves  to  the  annihilation  of  the 
Spanish  power,  the  complete  destruction  of  Spanish  fleets,  the  seizure  of 
the  Spanish  dominion  in  America,  the  separation  of  Spain  from   Portugal, 


Queen  Elizabeth  in  her  Armada  Thanks- 
giving robes. 
[From  a  miniature  executed  in  1616.] 


THE    DAY    OF   TRIUMPH  351 

whose  crown  Philip  had  appropriated  eight  years  before,  claiming  through  his 
mother  Isabella,  the  sister  of  the  two  last  kings,  both  of  whom  died  childless. 
To  that  party  belonged  Drake  among  the  seamen,  Walsingham  among 
statesmen,  and  Walter  Raleigh,  who  was  courtier,  statesman,  soldier,  and 
seaman  by  turns.  But  Elizabeth  and  Burleigh  were  not  of  the  party  of 
aggression.  Politically,  they  did  not  desire  the  destruction  of  Spain,  fearing 
the  aggrandisement  of  France  thereby.  Nor  were  they  moved,  like  Raleigh, 
by  great  conceptions  of  England's  expansion  in  America.  They  wanted  a 
Spain  powerless  to  hurt  England  directly,  but  able  to  serve  as  a  counterpoise 
to  France.  Burleigh  had  strong  Protestant  sympathies,  but  they  were 
subordinated  to  his  ideas  of  political  expediency.  Elizabeth  had  no 
Protestant  sympathies,  and  only  championed  Protestantism  with  reluctance 
and  for  exclusively  political  ends.  The  majority  of  the  nation  at  large  did 
not  look  beyond  making  the  maximum  of  personal  profit  out  of  the 
weakness  of  Spain.  Spain  was  to  be  smitten  hip  and  thigh,  and  the 
Egyptians  were  to  be  thoroughly  spoiled  ;  but  their  spoiling,  not  their 
destruction,  was  the  end  in  view,  though  there  was  no  desire  to  preserve 
them  from  destruction. 

Elizabeth  perceived  that  she  could  give  rein  to  this  popular  demand 
without  detriment  to  her  own  policy.  But  Drake  was  the  hero  of  the 
hour,  and  there  must  be  an  appearance  of  giving  Drake  his  way.  In  the 
process  the  now  inconvenient  admiral  should  be  discredited ;  and  she 
would  be  able  to  carry  out  her  own  plan  of  continuing  to  humble  Spain 
without  reducing  her  to  entire  impotence.  A  better  title  than  Philip's  own 
to  Portugal  was  possessed  by  his  cousins  of  the  house  of  Braganza.  A 
more  useful  pretender,  however,  was  found  in  the  person  of  an  illegitimate 
cousin  known  as  Don  Antonio.  The  aggressive  school  saw  the  chance  of 
dealing  a  heavy  blow  to  Spain  by  setting  Don  Antonio  on  the  throne  of 
Portugal.  With  this  end  in  view  Drake  was  sent  forth  on  his  ill-starred 
Lisbon  expedition.  We  need  not  accuse  Elizabeth  of  deliberately  planning 
to  ruin  that  venture  ;  but  she  did  in  fact  so  interfere  with  and  modify 
Drake's  own  scheme  of  operations  that  the  expedition  entirely  failed  of  its 
object.  It  was  indeed  demonstrated  that  Spain  was  open  to  attack  on  her 
own  soil.  Corunna  and  Vigo  were  very  severely  handled,  and  a  number 
of  store  ships  were  captured.  But  the  attack  on  Lisbon  failed,  several 
ships  w-ere  lost  in  a  storm,  and  Drake  returned  home  with  a  damaged  repu- 
tation— though  the  blame  did  not  really  rest  on  his  shoulders — which  made 
it  comparatively  easy  to  displace  his  naval  policy  by  that  of  his  only  less 
famous  cousin,  John  Hawkins.  That  great  seaman  was  content  with 
merely  applying  on  a  big  scale  the  old  principles  of  his  private  feud  with 
the  Spaniards.  English  squadrons  sallied  forth  to  lie  in  wait  on  the  trade 
routes  for  Spanish  ships  and  fleets  laden  with  treasure  or  merchandise, 
without  devoting  themselves  to  any  persistent  destruction  of  the  arsenals 
and  warships  by  the  construction  of  which  Philip  hoped  to  redress  the 
balance. 


352  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

The  policy  was  satisfactory  enough  to  English  adventurers,  who  had  a 
free  hand  to  raid  Spanish  commerce,  and  to  it  we  owe  that  famous  sea 
fight  which  stands  beside  the  battle  of  Thermopylae  and  the  charge  of 
Balaclava  in  its  glorious  futility.  Futility,  that  is,  as  concerns  tangible 
results ;  for  the  moral  effect  of  such  deeds  is  not  to  be  measured.  Sir 
Richard  Grenville  on  the  Revenge,  Drake's  ship  when  the  Armada  came, 
was  with  a  small  English  squadron  off  the  Azores,  awaiting  a  Spanish 
treasure-fleet,  when  news  came  of  the  approach  of  fifty-three  Spanish  war- 
ships— an  illustration,  by  the  way,  of  the  stolid  determination  with  which 
Philip  set  about  the  reconstruction  of  the  Spanish  navy.  Grenville  deliber- 
ately allowed  his  own  ship  to  be  cut  off  by  the  great  Spanish  fleet,  which 
he  then  fought  single-handed  for  fifteen  hours.  The  issue  of  such  a  fight 
could  of  course  never  have  been  in  question.  But  it  taught  Englishmen, 
though  they  hardly  needed  the  lesson,  that  to  consider  the  odds  against 
them  when  they  fought  the  Spaniards  was  almost  superfluous. 

The  fact  however  remained  that,  while  English  raiding  crippled  Spanish 
commerce  and  diverted  quantities  of  treasure  from  Spain  to  England,  Spain 
was  stolidly  reconstructing  and  reorganising  her  navy.  Philip's  chances 
would  have  been  better  if  he  had  devoted  himself  with  a  single  mind  to 
this  object,  and  to  the  completion  of  the  conquest  of  the  Netherlands. 
But  Parma  was  perpetually  crippled  by  want  of  supplies,  besides  being 
hampered  by  being  called  upon  at  critical  moments  to  turn  aside  and 
intervene  in  France.  There  Henry  III.  had  first  tried  to  rid  himself  of  the 
Guise  domination  by  assassinating  the  Duke  of  Guise,  and  had  then  him- 
self been  assassinated,  leaving  the  Holy  League  and  Henry  of  Navarre  to 
fight  out  their  quarrel.  Elizabeth  lent  Henry  occasional  assistance,  just 
as  in  the  past  she  had  helped  William  of  Orange.  Philip  allied  himself 
with  the  Guises  ;  and  his  daughter  Isabella,  niece  of  the  last  three  French 
kings,  was  put  forward  as  the  true,  because  the  orthodox,  heir  to  the 
throne.  Henry  IV.  was  able  to  pose  as  a  patriot,  and  to  accuse  the  Guise 
faction  of  aiming  at  the  subjection  of  France  to  Spanish  control.  But  the 
scale  was  decisively  turned  in  his  favour  when  he  formally  reconciled  him- 
self to  the  Church  of  Rome  while  still  asserting  the  principles  of  religious 
toleration. 

The  signs  of  Spanish  recovery,  however,  were  sufficiently  ominous  to  in- 
duce Elizabeth  to  give  the  more  aggressive  war  party  a  freer  rein.  Drake 
and  Hawkins  were  despatched  on  an  expedition  to  the  West  Indies,  there 
to  discover  that  the  Spaniards  had  learnt  many  lessons  since  Drake's  last 
visit  \o  those  regions.  Not  much  was  effected,  and  both  the  great  seamen 
died  before  the  expedition  returned  home.  But  in  the  following  year, 
1 596,  a  severe  blow  was  struck  when  a  force  under  command  of  Lord 
Howard,  the  Queen's  latest  favourite  the  Earl  of  Essex,  and  Walter  Raleigh, 
fell  upo!i  the  port  of  Cadiz,  sank  or  burnt  a  vast  quantity  of  shipping,  and 
extracted  a  substantial  ransom  from  Cadiz  itself.  Even  after  this,  later  in 
the  year,  Philip  was  able  to  despatch  a  new  Armada,  though  it  was  actually 


THE   DAY   OF   TRIUMPH  353 

shattered   by   winds  and   waves    and   was    never  subjected    to    the   tender 
mercies  of  the  Enghsh  seamen. 

In  1598  both  Philip  of  Spain  and  Lord  Burleigh  died,  almost  at 
the  moment  when  a  general  European  peace  was  restored  by  the  treaty 
of  Vervins.  Walsinghum  had  preceded  them  by  nine  years.  Elizabeth 
had  been  fortunate  in  her  great  antagonist  and 
doubly  fortunate  in  her  ministers.  For  forty 
years  Philip  had  dominated  Europe.  When  he 
came  to  the  throne,  Spain  and  the  Netherlands 
were  his,  much  of  Italy,  the  inheritance  of  the 
New  World,  the  lordship  of  the  seas.  The  one 
recognised  maritime  rival  was  Portugal,  and  in 
the  course  of  his  reign  he  absorbed  Portugal 
and  the  Portuguese  empire  under  his  own  sway. 
He  made  pretension  to  the  Crown  of  England ; 
for  his  daughter,  the  child  of  a  French  princess, 
he  made  pretension  to  the  Crown  of  France. 
He  was  the  avowed  champion  of  the  Church 
against  heretics,  though  he  was  by  no  means 
ready  to  recognise  the  authority  of  the  Pope  over 
himself.  For  forty  years  Philip's  shadow  lay 
upon  Europe  ;  but  during  the  last  ten  years  of 
his  life,  though  he  never  knew  it  himself,  the 
substance  of  his  dominion  had  passed  from  him. 
The  most  patient,  the  most  industrious,  the  most 
obstinate,  and  the  most  ambitious  of  men,  he 
trusted  no  man  ;  and  by  his  distrust  he  spoilt 
the  work  of  every  man  who  served  him.  He 
conceived  of  himself  as  a  sort  of  Fate,  moving 
slowly,  steadily,  irresistibly,  grinding  to  powder 
his  own  foes  and  the  foes  of  his  faith  ;  a  Fate 
which  would  smite  in  its  own  good  time.  Un- 
fortunately for  Philip,  he  always  deferred  the 
moment  for  striking  till  it  was  too  late.  He 
could  never  grasp  the  possibility  that  his  in- 
tended victim  might  strike  first  and  do  so  with 
effect.       Self-confidence    is    a    supremely    valuable 

quality  when  it  is  not  misplaced  ;  when  it  is  misplaced  it  is  apt   to   prove 
fatal. 

In  caution,  in  patience,  and  in  industry,  Philip  was  matched  by  Lord 
Burleigh,  whose  main  defect  as  a  statesman  was  a  prosaic  lack  of  idealism, 
which,  as  well  as  a  still  more  penetrating  intelligence,  was  supplied  by 
his  colleague  Walsingham.  The  conjunction  of  those  two  great  men 
was  precisely  what  was  needed  to  counteract  and  supplement  the  erratic 
ingenuity  and   selfwill  of  their  mistress,  to   show   her  the  path  she  ought 


[From 


Elizabethan  armour. 

effigv  at  Wrentbam  Church, 
'Suffolk.] 


354  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

to  tread — and  always  at  the  critical  moment  did  tread,  though  not  as 
a  rule  until  her  capriciousness  had  driven  both  of  them  to  the  verge  of 
despair.  They  were  the  pilots  who  steered  the  ship  of  state,  or  rather 
the  navigators  who  set  the  course  which  the  actual  pilot,  the  queen, 
followed  after  her  own  devious  fashion,  evading  by  the  merest  hair's  breadth 
the  rocks  and  shoals  of  which  they  warned  her.     The  passage  had  already 

been  accomplished  when  Walsingham 
passed  to  his  grave  ;  one  whose  loyal 
service  to  England  left  him  a  poor 
man  at  the  last.  Burleigh  was  already 
not  far  short  of  seventy  when  the 
Armada  came,  and  his  personal  activity 
was  less  in  the  last  years  of  his  life. 

Younger  men  were  coming  to  the 
front;  Burleigh's  second  son  Robert, 
the  heir  of  his  policy  ;  the  brilliant 
but  little  trusted  Raleigh  ;  Essex,  showy 
but  unbalanced,  the  queen's  personal 
favourite,  though  her  reliance  was  re- 
posed rather  on  the  younger  Cecil. 
Less  prominent,  but  intellectually  above 
them  all,  even  above  Raleigh,  was 
Francis  Bacon,  Burleigh's  nephew  by 
marriage,  son  of  the  Lord  Keeper 
Nicholas  Bacon  who,  through  the  first 
half  of  the  reign,  had  been  one  of  the  pillars  of  Elizabeth's  government. 
These  were  the  men  who  played  the  leading  parts  in  the  last  wintry  years  of 
the  great  queen's  life,  when  her  own  contemporaries,  the  men  who  most  had 
helped  to  make  her  great,  had  passed  before  and  left  her  in  dreary  solitude. 


Sir  Walter  Raleigh. 


SCOTLAND 


While  England  was  waging  her  great  struggle  with  Spain,  James  VI.  in 
Scotland  was  becoming  an  adept  in  the  arts  of  what  he  was  pleased  to  call 
"king-craft."  When  Morton  resigned  the  regency  in  1578  the  boy  was 
not  yet  twelve  years  old.  Morton  owed  his  power  to  the  fact  that  he  was 
very  much  the  ablest  and  one  of  the  least  scrupulous  among  the  Scottish 
nobility.  He  represented  that  school  of  statesmen  which  for  some  forty 
years  past  had  definitely  regarded  union  with  England  on  satisfactory  terms 
for  Scotland  as  the  goal  to  be  aimed  at.  In  common  with  Moray  and 
Maitland  of  Letiiington,  he  believed  that  that  goal  was  to  be  achieved  on 
the  basis  of  the  common  Protestantism  of  the  two  nations,  though  Maitland's 


THE   DAY   OF   TRIUMPH  355 

tortuous  mind  had  led  him  in  his  last  days  to  seek  the  union  through  the 
restoration  of  Queen  Mary.  But  Morton's  Protestantism  was  of  a  political 
and  Erastian  character  ;  that  is  to  say,  religion  in  his  view  was  entirely 
subordinate  to  politics,  whereas  the  Scottish  preachers,  from  John  Knox 
downwards,  treated  politics  as  subordinate  to  religion  ;  they  looked  upon 
secular  policy  as  a  means  to  establishing  their  own  conception  of  a  theo- 
cracy, which  meant  in  effect  government  by  the  clergy,  who  were  to  stand 
to  the  civil  power  as  Samuel  stood  to  Saul.  The  mantle  of  John  Knox, 
who  died  in  1572,  had  fallen  upon  the  shoulders  of  Andrew  Melville,  who 
was  as  rigidly  uncompromising  in  his 
demands  for  clerical  supremacy  as  a 
Gregory,  an  Innocent,  or  a  Boniface. 
But  Morton  was  stronger  than  the 
preachers,  and  he  forced  upon  the 
reluctant  Calvinists  the  semblance  of 
an  episcopal  organisation  of  the  Church. 
His  bishops,  however,  existed  merely 
that  their  official  revenues  might  be 
transferred  to  the  coffers  of  others, 
whereby  they  were  given  the  mocking 
nick-name  of  "Tulchan"  Bishops — the 
tulchan  being  a  dummy  calf  which  facili- 
tated the  process  of  extracting  milk 
from  reluctant  kine  ;  the  Church  in 
this  case  being  Morton's  milch  cow. 

Morton's  power  was  broken  by 
the  appearance  in  Scotland  of  Esm6 
Stuart,  who  was  made  Duke  of  Lennox, 
and  of  another  James  Stewart,  not  a 
member  of  the  royal  family  at  all,  who  acquired  an  ascendency  over  the 
mind  of  the  boy  king  and  was  raised  to  the  vacant  earldom  of  Arran. 
Arran  and  Lennox,  acting  in  conjunction,  destroyed  Morton;  who  was 
executed  on  the  charge  of  complicity  in  Darnley's  murder.  On  this  there 
followed  a  duel  between  the  Romanising  Lennox  and  Arran  on  one  side, 
and  on  the  other  the  preachers,  who  relied  upon  what  was  then  the  most 
representative  body  in  Scotland — not  the  parliament,  but  the  General 
Assembly  of  the  Church,  a  gathering  of  laymen  as  well  as  of  clergy.  The 
General  Assembly  in  1581  succeeded  in  definitely  introducing  a  Presby- 
terian organisation,  based  upon  that  of  the  French  Huguenots,  into  the 
Church  of  Scotland.  This  was  only  a  beginning  ;  for  Lennox  and  Arran 
still  retained  their  ascendency  over  the  king.  But  among  the  magnates, 
though  in  general  they  had  no  love  for  the  preachers,  there  was  a  party 
which  had  still  less  love  for  Lennox.  A  "band"  between  them  brought 
about  what  was  called  the  Raid  of  Ruthven,  the  conspirators  capturing 
the   person  of   the   young   king.     The   capture   checkmated   Lennox,  who 


James  Douglas,  Earl  of  Morton,  Regent 

of  Scotland,  1572-1578. 


356  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

was  obliged  to  leave  the  country  and  died  soon  after  ;  but  Arran  still 
remained  ;  and  in  1583  James  escaped  from  his  captors  and  Arran  once 
more  ruled  the  country,  from  which  the  nobles  who  had  shared  in  the 
Ruthven  raid  were  expelled. 

A  Scottish  parliament  at  this  time  was  not  unlike  an  English  parliament 
when  the  War  of  the  Roses  was  going  on  ;  that  is,  it  was  usually  attended 
only  by  the  supporters  of  the  existing  government,  who  carried  out  the 
behests  of  their  leaders.  So  the  Scottish  parliament  of  1584  repressed  the 
preachers.  It  declared  General  AssembHes  to  be  illegal  except  when  they 
met  under  the  royal  authority,  and  it  reconstituted  an  episcopate  appointed 
by  the  Crown,  through  whom  the  Crown  would  be  able  to  control  the 
Church.  Just  after  this,  however,  Elizabeth  was  forced  to  commit  herself 
to  the  war  with  Spain  and  to  a  more  aggressive  championship  of  Pro- 
testantism. As  matters  stood  she  regarded  the  banished  lords  with  more 
favour  than  Arran.  Pressure  from  her  brought  about  the  restoration  of 
the  exiles  and  the  fall  of  Arran  from  power. 

The  result  was  a  government  passable  though  not  too  efficient,  suffi- 
ciently subservient  to  Elizabeth  to  content  itself  with  feeble  protests  when 
the  captive  Queen  of  Scots  was  put  to  death.  The  most  prominent  events 
were  still  those  which  marked  a  victory  either  for  the  preachers  or  for  the 
king  in  the  contest  for  effective  supremacy.  The  parliament  of  1592 
reversed  the  proceedings  of  that  of  1584,  and  promulgated  the  Presbyterian 
constitution  of  the  Scottish  Church.  The  contest  between  Presbyterianism 
and  Episcopacy  was  not  on  the  face  of  it  a  question  of  theology  but  of 
Church  government,  although  the  one  system  attracted  Calvinists,  and  the 
other  Anglicans  whose  doctrines  were  less  antagonistic  to  those  of  Rome. 
The  Presbytery  was  Democratic  in  its  structure  and  was  a  complete  de- 
parture from  the  old  organisation.  Episcopacy  preserved  the  old  organisa- 
tion in  a  slightly  modified  form,  but  when  separated  from  allegiance  to  the 
papacy  became  inevitably  allied  with  the  monarchy.  Hence  both  in 
England  and  in  Scotland  the  Crown  was  antagonistic  to  Presbyterianism. 
Episcopacy,  the  effective  control  of  the  Church  through  bishops  nominated 
by  the  Crown,  requires  no  explanation  for  English  readers  ;  but  in  England 
Presbyterianism,  after  the  Stuart  restoration  in  1660,  fell  into  such  a 
subordinate  position  that  the  system  which  triumphed  north  of  the  Tweed 
is  not  commonly  understood  in  the  southern  country,  although  there  was  a 
time  when  there  also  it  came  near  to  capturing  the  establishment. 

The  Presbyterian  system  is  pyramidal.  The  constitution  obtained 
in  Scotland  in  1592  made  the  base  of  the  pyramid  the  Kirk  Session,  the 
governing  body  of  each  parish  or  congregation,  consisting  of  the  minister 
and  presbyters  or  "ciders"  appointed  by  the  congregation.  Next  came 
the  Presbytery  or  assembly  of  the  ministers  and  elders  of  a  group  of 
congregations.  Then  came  the  Synod,  or  assembly  of  a  group  of  Presby- 
teries ;  and  finally,  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Church,  the  ultimate 
controlling   authority.      But   in  the  General   Assembly  the  Crown  was  also 


THE    DAY   OF   TRIUMPH  357 

to  be  represented  either  by  the  king  in  person  or  by  a  commissioner.  The 
fundamental  fact  however  remained,  that  the  General  Assembly  was  very 
thoroughly  representative  of  popular  feeling,  while  it  considered  itself 
warranted  in  dealing  with  all  which  could  conceivably  be  regarded  as 
entering  the  sphere  of  religion.  Moreover  within  each  congregation  and 
each  larger  or  smaller  group  of  congregations  the  different  bodies  from 
the  Kirk  Sessions  upwards  possessed,  in  the  name  of  ecclesiastical  discipline, 
very  extensive  powers  of  interference  with  and  control  over  the  private 
life  and  conduct  of  every  individual. 

To  the  king  himself  such  a  system  was  intolerable.  It  made  every 
minister  the  most  powerful  man  in  his  own  parish.  It  did  not,  like  the 
Church  as  conceived  by  Hildebrand,  claim  from  National  Churches  allegiance 
to  a  foreign  potentate  of  higher  authority  than  their  own  temporal  rulers  ; 
but  in  effect  it  claimed  that  higher  authority  for  the  ministers  of  the 
National  Church  itself,  collectively  and  individually.  The  position  was 
expressed  by  Andrew  Melville  when  he  told  King  James  that  the  King 
of  Scotland  was  God's  ''silly"  (that  is,  weak)  "vassal,"  to  be  obeyed  only 
as  an  official  of  his  Divine  Sovereign  of  Whose  will  the  ministers  were 
the  interpreters. 

But  the  lay  magnates  of  the  country  were  as  little  disposed  as  the 
king  to  be  held  in  bondage  under  the  preachers.  The  General  Assembly, 
representative  though  it  was,  had  not  the  secular  authority  of  parliament, 
in  which  the  Church  was  not  represented.  An  arrangement  was  now 
made  by  which  fifty-one  representatives  of  the  Church,  nominated  partly 
by  the  Crown  and  partly  by  the  Church,  should  sit  and  vote  in  parliament; 
and  the  Estates  also  pronounced  that  if  the  king  should  nominate  bishops, 
they  should  sit  of  right  in  parliament  as  in  the  past.  The  next  step  was 
the  transfer  to  the  king  of  the  exclusive  right  of  nominating  the  Church 
representatives,  although  he  could  only  select  them  from  lists  submitted 
to  him.  And  finally,  in  virtue  of  the  powers  granted  by  the  Estates,  James 
in  1600  actually  appointed  three  bishops,  of  Ross,  Aberdeen,  and  Caithness. 
The  wedge  was  fairly  inserted  for  the  complete  restoration  of  the 
Episcopate. 

VI 

WINTER 

The  last  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign  are  occupied  largely  by  the  an- 
tagonisms and  intrigues  of  rival  politicians  and  parties  and  possible  candi- 
dates for  the  throne.  Most  prominent  is  the  tragedy  of  the  Earl  of  Essex, 
and  the  story  of  Essex  is  inextricably  bound  up  with  that  of  Ireland.  The 
scene  yields  no  great  actors  ;  for  even  the  men  who  had  in  them  real 
elements  of  greatness,  Raleigh  and  Bacon,  played  parts  which  were  far  from 
being  great.      In  Europe  two  men  stand  out  far  above  their  contemporaries, 


358  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

Henry  IV.  of  France  and  Maurice  of  Nassau,  the  son  of  William  of  Orange, 
a  worthy  successor  of  his  father  in  the  leadership  of  the  United  Provinces. 
But  these  two  enter  little  into  specifically  English  history. 

Elizabeth  until  her  last  hour  would  never  definitely  acknowledge  any 
particular  person  as  her  successor.  So  far  as  legitimacy  was  concerned, 
there  was  no  possibility  of  questioning  the  title  of  James  VI.  of  Scotland; 
but  political  reasons  were  likely  to  weigh  more  than  mere  legitimacy.     The 

Greys  were  represented 
by  Lord  Beauchamp, 
son  of  Catherine  Grey 
and  the  Earl  of  Hert- 
ford, and  by  his  son 
William  Seymour. 
Margaret  Tudor  was  re- 
presented not  only  by 
James  VI.  but  by  her 
great-granddaughter, 
Arabella  Stuart  of  the 
house  of  Lennox.  The 
line  of  the  Poles,  de- 
scending from  George 
Duke  of  Clarence,  was 
represented  by  the  Earl 
of  Huntingdon.  And 
the  ultra-Romanists  at 
least  fixed  their  hopes 
on  Isabella  of  Spain, 
the  sister  of  the  reign- 
ing King  Philip  III. 
Nor  was  Isabella  now  an 
entirely  impossible  can- 
didate,because  Philip  II. 
had  conferred  upon  her  the  sovereignty  of  the  Netherlands,  parting  it 
from  the  Spanish  monarchy.  Isabella  of  Burgundy,  with  an  Austrian 
archduke  for  a  husband,  might  mean,  not  the  subjection  of  England  to 
Spanish  control,  but  the  union  of  England  with  an  independent  Burgundy, 
in  which  quite  conceivably  the  United  Provinces  might  be  included. 
Isabella's  claim  rested  on  the  fact  that  she  was  the  only  pronounced 
Catholic  with  Plantagenet  blood  in  her  veins  who  was  a  candidate  at  all. 

There  were  many  of  the  English,  especially  among  the  nobility,  with 
leanings  to  the  old  religion,  and  in  common  with  many  of  the  professed 
Romanists  they  might  be  expected  to  accept  with  equal  readiness  a  Roman 
Catholic  ruler  pledged  to  tolerate  Anglicanism  or  a  Protestant  ruler  pledged 
to  tolerate  Romanism.  Hence  there  was  a  very  wide  field  for  plotting  and 
counter-plotting,  especially  in  view  of  the  possibility  of  a  marriage  between 


Robeil  Cecil. 
[iTom  the  engraving  by  Elstr.ik.] 


THE   DAY   OF   TRIUMPH  359 

Arabella  Stuart  and  either  Lord  Beaiichamp  or  his  son.  Of  the  English 
plotters,  by  far  the  most  subtle  was  Robert  Cecil,  who  intrigued  with  all 
parties,  but  with  the  ultimate  intention  of  securing  the  throne  for  James  VI. 
and  recognition  for  himself  as  the  man  to  whom  the  Scots  king  owed  the 
success  of  his  candidature.  Incidentally  it  was  of  primary  importance  to 
Cecil  to  ruin  his  leading  rival,  the  Earl  of  Essex,  who  was  identified  with 
the  anti-Spanish  war-party  and  the  more  aggressive  Protestants,  and  was 
bound  to  champion  the  cause  of  James  VI.,  although  the  Romanists  cherished 
vain  hopes  that  either  James  or  Arabella  Stuart  might  be  won  over  to  their 
own  cause.  We  must  be  content  with  this  indication  of  the  nature  of  the 
plotting  and  counter-plotting  that  went  on,  without  attempting  the  long  task 
of  unravelling  the  intricate  details. 

The  ruin  of  Essex  was  accomplished  through  Ireland.  Power  of 
resistance  in  that  unhappy  country  had  been  broken  by  the  Smerwick 
campaign  and  the  subsequent  merciless  treatment  of  the  Irish.  The  north 
had  not  taken  part,  however,  in  Desmond's  rebellion  ;  the  O'Neills  in  Ulster 
and  the  O'Donnells  of  Tyrconnel,  in  the  north-west,  had  remained  loyal; 
Hugh  O'Neill,  the  young  Earl  of  Tyrone,  had  enjoyed  an  English  training 
and  was  a  professed  supporter  of  English  rule.  In  the  south  Ormond  was 
at  least  convinced  that  English  tyranny  was  preferable  to  the  wild  anarchy 
which  seemed  the  only  alternative.  But  Tyrone  was  not  content  ;  and  he 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  problem  a  subtlety  of  brain  and  a  power  of 
organisation  unprecedented  among  the  Irish  leaders. 

The  Armada  came  and  passed  without  stirring  up  any  movement  in 
Ireland  ;  but  not  long  afterwards  the  north-west  was  again  in  a  state  of 
ferment.  The  government,  always  kept  with  insufficient  funds,  except  at 
the  m.oment  of  some  supreme  crisis,  could  only  deal  with  the  insurgents 
after  the  usual  ineffective  fashion.  Tyrone  posed  as  the  pacificator,  exerting 
his  influence  to  quiet  the  disturbances ;  his  attitude  and  all  his  overt 
actions  were  irreproachably  loyal  ;  yet  the  English  officials  were  convinced 
that  he  was  merely  masking  disloyal  intrigues.  In  fact,  five  years  after 
the  Armada,  he  was  in  communication  with  Philip  of  Spain,  and  Ireland 
was  at  least  in  part  the  objective  of  that  second  Armada  of  Philip's  which 
collapsed  so  ignominiously  in  1596.  Yet,  whatever  Tyrone  had  been  doing, 
nothing  could  be  brought  home  to  him  ;  and  after  this  demonstration  of 
the  futility  of  trusting  to  Spain,  he  succeeded  in  making  his  peace  with  the 
English  government,  while  he  continued  to  weave  his  intrigues  and  to 
organise  his  own  effective  ascendency.  In  1598  the  English  government 
resolved  to  deal  with  him  with  a  strong  hand,  but  only  to  meet  with  a 
disastrous  defeat  on  the  Blackwater  near  Armagh.  Still  Tyrone  did  not 
follow  up  his  victory,  though  if  he  had  done  so  half  Ireland  would  probably 
have  risen.  He  still  chose  to  maintain  his  professions  of  loyalty,  and  to 
declare  that  the  misguided  government  was  attacking  an  innocent  man. 

This  was  the  situation  which  brought  about  the  downfall  of  Essex.  He 
clamoured    at    the    council-board    against    the    inefficiency    of     the    Irish 


360  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

administration  ;  his  tirades  were  answered  by  the  offer  of  the  deputyship 
for  himself.  He  declared  himself  ready  to  undertake  the  task  of  bringing 
Ireland  to  order  upon  conditions — conditions  which  would  place  under  his 
control  a  force  dangerously  large  for  a  man  of  overweening  ambition.  The 
conditions  were  granted,  and  he  departed  to  Ireland,  But  Essex  in  Ireland 
could  not  exercise  his  personal  fascination  upon  the  queen.  His  absence 
left  the  field  clear  to  his  antagonists,  and  his  own  proceedings  in  Ireland 
did  not  improve  his  position.  He  exceeded  even  the  exceptionally  full 
powers  which  had  been  conferred  on  him,  acting  in  direct  defiance  of 
instructions,  and  wrote  violent  letters  of  complaint  at  the  treatment  which 
he  was  receiving.  He  paraded  through  Ireland  instead  of  marching  in 
force  against  Tyrone  ;  and  when  at  last  peremptory  orders  did  compel  him 
to  march,  he  negotiated  and  made  terms  instead  of  striking,  and,  to  the 
consternation  of  his  supporters  in  England,  retired  without  a  blow.  What 
actually  passed  is  unknown  ;  but,  on  the  whole,  the  presumption  is  that  he 
made  a  private  bargain  with  Tyrone,  which  was  to  secure  the  succession  of 
James  VI.  in  England  and  the  ascendency  of  the  two  earls  in  England  and 
Ireland  respectively. 

The  outraged  queen  expressed  her  resentment  against  her  favourite  in 
unmeasured  terms  ;  whereupon  in  a  moment  of  madness  he  threw  up  his 
post,  hurried  to  England,  rode  post-haste  to  Greenwich,  and  flung  himself 
in  most  unseemly  guise  into  the  presence  of  his  royal  mistress,  trusting  to 
recover  his  ascendency  with  her.  But  the  outrage  was  too  gross.  The 
queen  banished  him  from  her  presence,  and  the  same  day  he  was  arrested 
and  placed  in  prison. 

For  nearly  a  year  Essex  was  kept  in  ward,  while  Tyrone  in  Ireland 
opened  fresh  communications  with  Philip  III.,  and  the  game  of  intrigue  went 
merrily  forward  in  England,  always  to  the  advantage  of  Cecil.  Essex  on  his 
release  found  himself  powerless,  and  made  frantic  efforts  to  recover  ground 
as  a  popular  champion  and  a  patriot,  to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  his  rival. 
When  he  had  been  given  sufficient  rope,  Cecil  struck.  Essex  was  summoned 
to  appear  before  the  Council.  The  earl  made  a  desperate  attempt  to  appeal 
to  the  London  mob,  which  failed  completely.  He  was  arrested,  tried  for 
treason  before  his  peers,  and  executed.  Passionately  as  Elizabeth  was 
attached  to  him,  pardon  was  impossible  ;  but,  with  his  death,  all  happiness 
went  out  of  the  old  queen's  life. 

Montjoy,  an  able  commander,  was  sent  to  take  the  place  of  Essex 
in  Ireland ;  but  even  the  exceptionally  large  forces  placed  at  his  disposal 
did  not  suffice  him  to  make  an  immediate  end  of  Tyrone.  Philip  II  I.  of  Spain 
made  a  last  effort,  and  the  insurgents  in  the  south  were  reinforced  by  troops 
from  Spain.  Here,  however,  Montjoy  succeeded  in  crushing  the  enemy 
before  Tyrone  could  come  to  their  assistance.  Of  the  insurgent  chiefs, 
some  were  captured  and  others  fled  the  country.  Tyrone  displayed  his 
own  diplomatic  abilities  by  making  satisfactory  terms  for  himself,  and  the 
rebellion  was  at  an  end. 


THE   DAY   OF   TRIUMPH  361 

With  the  fall  of  Essex,  Cecil's  most  dangerous  rival  had  vanished. 
Raleigh,  with  all  his  abilities,  was  better  skilled  in  making  enemies  than 
friends,  in  politics  at  least.  Elizabeth  never  trusted  him,  and  he  lacked  both 
the  craft  and  the  self-control  which  distinguished  the  son  of  Lord  Burleigh. 
That  astute  politician  knew  exactly  what  every  one  was  doing  or  trying  to 
do,  and  half  the  plotters  looked  to  him  for  a  lead  while  he  manipulated  the 
game  to  suit  his  own  ends.  When  Elizabeth  was  stricken  down  with  mortal 
illness,  all  his  plans  were  in  perfect  order  for  securing  the  succession  of  James 
the  moment  the  throne  should  be  vacant.  Troops  and  fleets  were  under  the 
command  of  his  partisans  ;  virtually  none  but  adherents  of  his  own  had 
access  to  the  dying  queen.  Only  at  the  very  last,  when  speech  had  actually 
left  her,  the  spectators  averred  that  she  signed  her  acquiescence,  when  asked 
if  she  recognised  James  as  her  heir.      No  one  was  ready  to  come  forward 


fk  CU'<cf^  2«u/„,«y    4%.^0    -OfP^ 


The  funeral  hearse  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 
[Taken  from  a  contemporary  drawing  of  the  funeral  ceremonies  by  William  Camden,  Clarencieux  King-at-Arms.] 

on  the  spot  as  champion  of  any  of  the  rival  candidates  ;  and  no  hand  or 
voice  was  raised  in  opposition  when  James  VI.  of  Scotland  was  proclaimed 
James  I.  of  England.  Cecil  had  won,  and  there  was  no  question  at  all  that 
he  would  be  all-powerful  with  the  new  monarch. 

Mournful  was  the  deathbed  of  the  great  queen,  the  most  triumphant  of 
all  English  rulers  ;  mournful,  because  her  own  delight  in  life  had  departed 
from  her,  and  of  all  those  who  still  flattered  her  and  bowed  to  her  imperious 
will  there  was  none  who  loved  her,  none  whom  she  loved.  In  the  heart  of 
the  nation  she  has  been  enshrined  as  "Good  Queen  Bess,"  the  princess  who 
flung  defiance  at  the  might  of  Spain  and  raised  England  to  the  highest 
pinnacle  of  power,  the  queen  in  whose  reign  English  seamen  won  for 
England  her  proud  position  as  mistress  of  the  seas,  and  English  poets 
matched  the  triumphs  of  the  Athenian  stage.  What  England  owes  to  the 
Elizabethan  age.  Englishmen  feel  that  they  owe  to  Elizabeth  herself.  All 
other  personalities  are  dominated  by  hers.     And  yet  it  is  one  of  the  most 


362  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

amazing  of  paradoxes  that  such  a  woman  as  Elizabeth  should  stand  out 
emphatically  as  one  of  the  greatest,  if  not  the  greatest,  of  all  English 
monarchs.  Trickery  was  the  breath  of  her  nostrils  ;  an  insatiable  vanity, 
for  which  no  flattery  was  too  grotesque,  was,  superficially,  her  most 
prominent  characteristic.  She  deliberately  assumed  her  right  to  display,  in 
an  exaggerated  degree,  every  foible  which  the  misogynist  attributes  to  her  sex. 
She  was  as  ready  to  make  a  scapegoat  of  the  innocent  as  her  father  before 
her  ;  her  treatment  of  Davison  the  Secretary,  who  obtained  her  signature  to 
Mary  Stuart's  death  warrant,  was  not  less  base  than  Henry's  treatment  of 
Wolsey  and  Cromwell.  And  yet  her  greatness  remains.  Beneath  the 
trickery  and  meanness  and  vanity  lay  a  deep-rooted  love  of  her  country  ; 
a  mighty  resolve  to  make  that  country  great.  Perhaps  she  never  loved  any 
man  save  Essex,  the  darling  of  her  old  age  ;  but  she  loved  her  people.  And 
behind  the  mask  of  feminine  caprice  there  worked  a  brain,  cold,  calculating, 
unemotional,  which  gauged  chances  to  a  hair's  breadth,  knew  exactly  how 
far  it  was  safe  to  go  on  any  particular  course,  never  failed  to  provide  a 
means  of  escape  from  every  apparent  impasse.  "  Dux  femina  facti "  was  the 
legend  on  the  medals  to  commemorate  the  Armada.  "  Under  a  woman's 
captaincy,"  England  won  for  ever  her  place  among  the  nations. 


CHAPTER    XIV 

UNDER   THE   TUDORS 

I 

THE   STATE 

Broadly  speaking,  the  Tudor  period  falls  into  two  parts,  the  pre-Elizabethan 
and  the  Elizabethan.  The  first  is  a  time  of  transition,  partly  constructive 
but  mainly  destructive.  The  second  is  a  time  of  reconstruction.  On  the 
ruin  of  the  baronage,  completed  by  the  earlier  Tudors,  the  monarchy  took 
a  new  shape  perfected  under  Elizabeth.  On  the  ruin  of  the  old  ecclesiasti- 
cal system  accomplished  under  her  predecessors,  Elizabeth  constructed  a 
new  ecclesiastical  system.  Out  of  the  rural  and  commercial  revolution 
which  had  been  in  progress  for  seventy  years,  the  Elizabethans  built  up  a 
new  industrial  social  order.  Out  of  the  maritime  activity  of  the  first  period 
arose  the  maritime  supremacy  which  was  established  and  the  oceanic  com- 
merce which  was  inaugurated  in  the  second  ;  and  from  the  revival  of 
intellectual  activity  which  practically  began  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VI  I.  burst 
the  blaze  of  literary  splendour  which  glorified  the  closing  years  of  the 
period.  The  narrative  has  enabled  us  only  in  part  to  watch  these  move- 
ments, which  will  now  demand  our  closer  attention. 

Through  the  medieval  period  the  power  of  the  Crown  was  limited  in 
various  degrees  by  three  forces :  the  fear  of  excommunication  by  the 
Church,  the  danger  of  armed  coercion  by  the  baronage,  and,  as  the  expenses 
of  government  grew,  the  power  of  the  Commons  to  withhold  supplies. 
Arbitrary  action  by  the  Crown — action,  that  is,  which  did  not  clearly  rest 
upon  precedent — was  invariably  challenged  by  the  application  of  one  or 
other  of  these  forces,  unless  the  approval  of  the  three  estates  had  first  been 
secured  ;  and  these  three  estates  or  parliament  obtained  an  eft'ective 
control  over  legislation  and  a  degree  of  control  over  administration. 

Of  the  three  forces,  the  fear  of  ecclesiastical  censure  was  habitually  of 
least  account  ;  but  it  could  not  be  altogether  ignored,  as  King  John  in 
particular  found  to  his  cost.  It  remained,  however,  for  Henry  VIII.  to  bid 
successful  defiance  to  the  thunders  of  the  Church  and  to  destroy  its 
capacity  for  hampering  the  action  of  the  Crown. 

The  War  of  the  Roses  broke  up  the  second  limiting  force.  When 
Henry  VII.  took  possession  of  the  Crown  the  remnant  of  the  old  baronage,  to- 
gether with  the  new  baronage,  were  no  longer  able  to  make  head  against  the 

363 


364  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

monarchy.  The  complete  subversion  of  the  baronial  power  was  decisively 
demonstrated  when  the  peers  unanimously  condemned  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham,  the  greatest  noble  in  the  realm,  at  the  implied  behest  of 
King  Henry  VI II.,  in  spite  of  the  absence  of  any  evidence  that  he  was 
cherishing  treasonable  designs.  The  demonstration  was  repeated  at 
intervals  throughout  the  reign  ;  the  nobility  at  all  times  showed  an  entire 

subservience  to  the 
Crown,  as  they  also 
did  in  the  reign  of 
Queen  Mary.  Apart 
from  Northumber- 
land's abortive  con- 
spiracy, which  was 
formulated  with  the 
sanction  of  the  reign- 
ing king,  and  from 
the  rising  in  the  north 
in  1569,  every  revolt 
during  the  sixteenth 
century  was  a  rising 
not  of  the  barons  but 
of  the  commons.  In 
that  year  the  revolt  of 
the  northern  earls  was 
the  last  futile  attempt 
at  coercing  govern- 
ment by  a  baronial 
insurrection.  The  de- 
pression of  the  nobility 
was  effected  partly  by 
the  enforcement  of 
the  laws  against  main- 
tenance and  livery 
throusjh  courts  which 


Armour  presented  to  Henry  VIII.  by  the  Emperor  Maximilian. 
[In  the  Tower  of  Louden.  ] 


were  not  amenable  to  coercion,  partly  by  systematic  fines  and  confiscations, 
partly  by  the  merciless  application  of  the  laws  against  treason,  reinforced 
by  the  Treasons  Act  of  Thomas  Cromwell. 

There  remained  the  third  force,  the  power  of  the  Commons  to  cut 
off  the  supplies.  The  time  had  gone  by  when  a  king  could  attempt  to 
act  except  under  colour  of  law.  The  Crown  could  not  emancipate  itself 
from  such  control  as  the  Commons  possessed,  so  long  as  it  was  dependent 
on  the  goodwill  of  the  Commons  for  the  supplies  necessary  for  carrying 
out  its  policy.  The  ingenuity  of  Henry  VII.  almost  attained  the  desired 
end  by  the  accumulation  of  a  hoard  which  made  appeals  to  the  Commons 
for    financial    assistance    superfluous.       But   the    extravagance    of   his   son 


UNDER   THE   TUDORS  365 

dissipated  the  hoard  ;  and  in  the  course  of  the  French  war  he  and  his 
minister  Wolsey  were  quite  emphatically  taught  that  a  policy  opposed 
by  the  popular  will  was  impracticable  if  it  involved  heavy  expenditure. 
There  was  no  battle  for  the  principle  that  the  Commons  had  a  right  to 
direct  policy  ;  there  was  merely  a  demonstration  that  in  practice  an 
expensive  policy  required  the  acquiescence  of  parliament.  Cromwell  tried 
to  effect  an  emancipation  by  sweeping  the  vast  wealth  of  the  Church 
into  the  Treasury;  but  the  intention  was  frustrated  again  by  the  reckless 
dissipation  of  the  wealth  acquired  by  the  spoliation.  In  Henry's  last 
years,  the  Crown,  to 
avoid  appeals  for  in- 
tolerable taxation,  was 
driven  to  the  miser- 
able expedient  of  de- 
basing the  currency 
and  repudiating  debts. 
By  the  time  of  Eliza- 
beth's accession  the 
Crown  was  as  depen- 
dent as  it  had  ever 
been  on  the  goodwill 
of  the  Commons. 
There  was  no  new 
mine  of  wealth  to  re- 
place the  hoards  of 
Henry  VII.  or  the 
spoils  of  the  monas- 
teries, nor  had  the 
Crown  succeeded  in 
asserting  any  fresh 
claim  to  impose  taxa- 
tion on  its  own  authority,  except  for  some  slight  alterations  in  the  customs 
duties  which  were  made  in  Mary's  reign  without  exciting  protest. 

Subserviency,  it  may  be  said,  would  have  served  the  purposes  of  the 
monarchy  as  well  as  goodwill;  and  we  are  told  that  the  Tudor  parliaments 
were  subservient.  That  is  a  view  hardly  warranted  by  the  facts.  Within 
certain  limits  the  Commons  could  be  relied  upon  to  carry  out  the  wishes 
of  the  Crown.  The  nobility  were  beyond  question  subservient,  and  great 
nobles  controlled  the  return  of  a  good  many  members  of  the  Commons' 
House.  Mary  too  erected  into  boroughs  sundry  towns  where  local  senti- 
ment supported  her  views,  just  as  afterwards  Elizabeth  created  boroughs 
in  the  south-west  country  where  her  own  nominees  were  secure.  Much 
energy  was  occasionally  expended  on  the  packing  of  parliament,  but 
not  always  with  success.  Constituencies  occasionally  refused  point-blank 
to  accept  the  nominees  sent  down  by  the  agents  of  the  Crown.     Mary's 


'^\??§S 


The  Harry  Grace  d,  Dieu,  built  by  Henry  VIII.  in  15 13. 
[From  a  drawing  in  the  Pepysian  Library,  Cambridge.] 


366  THE   AGE    OF   TRANSITION 

parliament  in  the  spring  of  1554  stopped  very  far  short  of  endorsing 
the  programme  laid  before  it.  When  Henry  VIII.  intended  to  proceed 
against  Thomas  More  by  bill  of  attainder,  he  was  wise  in  time  and  with- 
drew More's  name  from  the  bill  in  the  face  of  unmistakable  indications 
that  otherwise  if  it  were  pressed  forward  it  would  be  thrown  out.  The 
Reformation  parliament  itself  rejected  the  Bill  of  Wards  in  spite  of 
blustering  threats  on  Henry's  part.  The  House  of  Commons  refused  to 
discuss  a  money  bill  at  all  until  Cardinal  Wolsey  withdrew  from  the 
precincts.  The  right  to  the  utmost  freedom  of  debate  was  cherished  and 
exercised.  When  their  pockets  were  touched  at  least,  Tudor  parliaments 
quite  refused  to  be  browbeaten.  Even  when  money  was  not  in  question, 
Tudor  governments  did  not  impose  legislation  to  which  they  compelled 
assent  ;  they  could  only  do  their  best  or  worst  by  packing  or  otherwise 
to  secure  a  house  which   was  likely  to  support  the  measures  they  intended 


An  Elizaljethan  family. 
[From  a  brass  of  1584.  ] 

to  introduce.      And  they  could  not  secure  such  parliaments  unless  there 
was  a  very  substantial  body  of  popular  feeling  in  their  favour. 

The  Tudors,  then,  did  not  tyrannise  over  their  parliaments,  but  on  the 
other  hand  the  parliaments  did  not  assert  new  claims  to  control.  They 
asserted  successfully  the  right  to  discuss  with  entire  freedom  questions  of 
policy,  questions  of  administration,  questions  of  religion,  personal  questions 
such  as  royal  marriages,  the  right  to  petition  the  Crown,  to  exhibit  grievances, 
to  recommend  measures,  to  refuse  measures  submitted  to  them,  to  control 
supply  absolutely.  But  they  did  not  claim  the  right  to  dictate  policy. 
They  claimed  only  the  veto  in  the  last  resort  through  the  refusal  of  supply; 
but  this  was  an  extreme  measure,  to  be  called  into  play  only  when  there 
was  a  point-blank  collision  between  the  will  of  the  Crown  and  the  wnsh  of 
parliament.  Such  a  collision  the  Tudors  were  always  wise  enough  to 
avoid  ;  being  happily  endowed  with  a  singular  skill  in  retiring  gracefully 
from  an  untenable  position,  and  w^ith  an  unfailing  capacity  for  recognising 
the  moment  when  a  position  had  become  untenable.  Elizabeth  frequently 
resented  the  freedom  claimed  by  her  parliaments,  and  rated  them  furiously 


UNDER   THE   TUDORS  367 

for  discussing  matters  which  were  no  concern  of  theirs  ;  but  they  went  on 
with  their  discussions  ;  and  if,  as  seldom  happened  until  the  very  end  of 
her  Hfe,  she  found  herself  arousing  a  real  resentment,  she  was  a  consum- 
mate mistress  of  the  art  of  beating  a  retreat.  As  a  rule,  however,  the 
Commons  were  content  to  express  their  opinion  and  leave  her  to  go  her 
own  w^ay,  which  she  was  always  careful  in  the  long  run  to  keep  sufficiently 
in  harmony  with  their  wishes. 

So  long  as  harmony  prevailed  this  was  a  sound  working  system.  The 
brief  triumph  of  legalised  absolutism,  when  an  Act  of  parliament  practically 
bestowed  on  Henry  VIII.  unlimited  powers,  would  at  once  have  become 
intolerable  if  the  Crown  had  employed  those  powers  so  as  to  arouse  popular 
resentment.  The  Royal  Proclamations  Act  was  cancelled  in  the  next  reign. 
The  system  under  Elizabeth  was  essentially  one  of  partnership,  in  which 
the  queen  was  the  senior  partner  and  manager,  and  parliament  was  the 
junior  partner  and  critic.  But  a  partnership  must  mean  a  divided  authority, 
a  possible  clashing  of  authorities.  So  long  as  both  partners  are  of  one 
mind,  or  so  long  as  one  cheerfully  accepts  the  subordinate  position,  all 
may  go  well.  English  institutions  have  existed  and  flourished  very  largely 
because  rival  authorities  prefer  compromise  over  points  of  difference  to 
battles  for  supremacy.  When  differences  become  too  acute  for  compromise 
and  one  side  or  the  other  must  give  way,  the  situation  may  be  saved  by 
the  timely  surrender  of  one  or  the  other  ;  but,  if  it  is  not  so  saved,  no 
alternative  remains  but  a  fight.  And  this  is  precisely  what  happened  in 
the  time  of  the  Stuarts.  The  differences  between  Crown  and  parliament 
became  too  acute  for  compromise,  neither  would  give  way,  and  the  stakes 
of  the  fight  ceased  to  be  the  particular  questions  at  issue  and  became  the 
larger  question  of  the  permanent  supremacy  of  the  one  or  the  other  of  the 
partners.  Even  in  Elizabeth's  last  years  there  were  indications  of  very 
acute  friction,  though  a  direct  contest  was  averted  partly  by  Elizabeth's 
diplomatic  withdrawal  and  partly  by  the  inclination  of  parliament  to  defer 
a  serious  struggle  till  after  the  old  queen's  death.  The  Crown  and  the 
people  had  been  loyal  to  each  other  so  long,  and  through  a  crisis  so 
tremendous,  that  neither  could  willingly  contemplate  an  open  rupture. 


II 

THE   CHURCH 

The  Reformation  in  England  was  primarily  the  handiwork  of  Henry  VIII. ; 
its  completion  was  the  logical  outcome  of  Henry  VIII.'s  policy,  though  it 
was  by  no  means  what  that  king  himself  contemplated.  What  Henry  him- 
self carried  out  was  a  revolution,  not  doctrinal  nor  moral  but  political. 
When  he  came  to  the  throne.  Western  Christendom  formed  one  single 
spiritual  organisation.     The  Church  was  co-extensive   not  with   the    State 


368  THE    AGE    OF   TRANSITION 

but  with  Christendom  ;  since  Eastern  Christianity,  the  "  orthodoxy"  of  the 
Greek,  not  the  Roman  Church,  was  in  the  Western  view  outside  the  pale, 
not  pagan  but  heretical.  Within  the  Western  area  all  Christians  belonged 
to  that  one  organisation,  and  the  only  non-Christians  tolerated  were  the 
Jews.  Within  the  Church,  so  far  as  doctrine  and  practice  were  defined,  no 
diversities  were  permitted  ;  nor  did  the  State  sanction  the  existence  of 
Christian  sects  external  to  the  Church.  It  followed  that  all  individuals 
owed  a  double  allegiance,  to  the  Universal  Church  and  to  the  particular 
State.  The  essential  feature  of  Henry's  Reformation  was  the  repudiation 
by  the  State  of  the  existence  of  any  such  double  allegiance.  The  citizen 
owed  allegiance  to  the  State  alone,  or  to  the  Church  only  subject  to  the 

State's  sanction.      It  did  not 
1 


follow  of  necessity  that  the 
State  would  sanction  one 
Church  only.  It  might  sanc- 
tion one  or  many  or  none  at 
all.  The  authority  of  the 
State  might  be  repudiated, 
but  it  could  and  would  en- 
force its  de /ado  supremacy. 
It  was  not  a  matter  of 
necessity,  but  it  was  practi- 
cally a  matter  of  course,  that 
the  State  should  sanction 
in  these  circumstances  one 
Church  coterminous  with  itself.  In  effect  it  treated  the  Church  in  England 
as  the  Church  of  England,  the  ecclesiastical  expression  of  the  State,  though 
it  did  not  quarrel  with  the  liberty  of  churchmen  to  regard  themselves  still 
as  members  of  the  Universal  Church,  provided  that  they  remained  in 
practice  obedient  to  the  State  control  ;  and  explicitly  from  Henry's  point  of 
view  the  State  in  this  connection  meant  the  Crown.  In  the  theory  of  the 
State,  there  was  no  real  change  ;  the  State  merely  asserted  the  authority 
which  it  had  always  possessed.  Such  changes  as  were  made  were  not 
organic,  but  were  simply  administrative  modifications.  And  this  view  that 
the  Church  retained  its  identity  was  made  possible  of  acceptance  by  the 
Church  itself,  by  the  retention  of  the  Ordination  which  gave  continuity  to 
the  priesthood.  Thus  spiritually  in  the  eyes  of  the  Church,  and  legally  in 
the  eyes  of  the  State,  the  contmuity  of  the  Church  was  preserved. 

But  diversity  was  contemplated  no  more  than  in  the  past.  No  one  was 
to  be  permitted  to  separate  himself  from  the  Church ;  there  were  to  be  no 
external  sects.  Yet  in  the  general  intellectual  ferment  of  Europe,  immense 
uncertainties  had  arisen  as  to  what  doctrines  and  practices  were  positively 
enjoined,  what  were  permitted,  what  were  sanctioned  as  mere  matter  of 
convenience,  what  were  immutable  by  the  sanction  of  Divine  law.  Defini- 
tion  was  necessary  or  there  would  be  chaos  within  the  Church.      Rome 


A  cut  from  the  Great  Bible  of  1539. 


UNDER   THE   TUDORS  369 

established  her  own  definitions  by  the  Council  of  Trent.  England  estab- 
Hshed  hers  by  formularies  prepared  mainly  by  clerical  commissions  and 
sanctioned  by  the  Crown  and  parliament.  Of  these  formularies,  the  first 
was  the  Ten  Articles  of  Henry  VI II.  and  the  last  the  Thirty-nine  Articles 
incorporated  in  the  Prayer  Book  during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth.  Between 
these  two  stages  there  were  violent  fluctuations.  But  throughout  the  root 
principle  remained  the  same  ;  the  definitions  laid  down  with  the  sanction 
of  the  State  must  be  accepted  by  all  ;  departure  from  them  subjected  the 
recalcitrant  to  penalties  which  ranged  from  burning  down  to  fines  or  dis- 
ability to  discharge  public  functions.  Definitions  might  be  rigid  or  loose, 
penalties  might  be  mild  or  severe,  but  within  the  scope  of  the  definitions 
uniformity  was  to  be  enforced.      Toleration  in  the  sense  that   men  were 


The  two  Shepherds. 

[From  a  drawing  by  Hans  Sachs,  about  1525.] 

at  liberty  to  follow  the  dictates  of  their  own  conscience  was  hardly 
dreamed  of.  But  the  characteristic  of  the  formularies  of  Elizabeth,  to 
whom  it  fell  to  make  a  finally  acceptable  settlement,  was  a  wide  latitude 
which  admitted  within  the  pale  on  the  one  hand  followers  of  John  Knox, 
and  on  the  other  men  whom  many  Calvinists  regarded  as  no  better 
than  Papists. 

Tiie  State  demanded  from  the  laity  only  outward  conformity,  a  decent 
observance  of  practices  enjoined,  abstention  from  practices  forbidden. 
Privately  a  man  might  hold  what  opinions  he  liked,  so  long  as  those 
opinions  did  not  materialise  into  actions  or  language  subversive  of  the 
authorised  institutions  and  doctrines.  For  some  time  even  disobedience,  un- 
less thrust  upon  the  notice  of  the  authorities,  was  to  a  great  extent  winked 
at.  Neither  Romanist  nor  Protestant  sectarians  were  much  interfered  with, 
unless  they  chose  to  be  aggressive,  until  first  the  papal  bull  of  deposition 

2  A 


370  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

and  then  the  Jesuit  propaganda  of  Parsons  and  Campian  brought  Romanism 
under  suspicion  of  treason,  stiffened  the  enforcement  of  conformity,  and 
brought  all  kinds  of  overt  nonconformity  under  the  ban. 

Now  EUzabeth  herself  was  not  a  woman  of  strong  rehgious  feeling 
like  her  sister  Mary.  Her  religion  was  in  the  main  dictated  by  politics. 
Probably  if  she  had  been  circumstanced  like  Henry  IV.  of  France,  she, 
like  him,  would  have  considered  that  the  Crown  was  "  worth  a  Mass," 
although,  not  being  similarly  circumstanced,  she  expressed  much  righteous 
indignation  when  he  acted  upon  that  view.  But  her  intellectual  sympathies 
were  on  the  side  of  the  conservative  element  in  the  Church,  the  element 
which  desired  the  least  possible  departure  from  the  old  practices  and 
doctrines.  A  substantial  proportion  of  the  nobility,  especially  of  what 
remained  of  the  old  nobility,  was  on  the  same  side,  and  also  perhaps 
of  the  old  gentry.  The  north,  too,  was  conservative,  as  it  had  been 
in  her  father's  time,  though  in  this  respect  the  south-west  had  under- 
gone a  transformation.  Hence  enthusiastic  Romanists  perpetually  suffered 
from  a  conviction  that  the  country  would  welcome  the  restoration  of 
Romanism. 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  the  parliaments  were  very  emphatically 
Protestant,  more  Protestant  than  Elizabeth's  government  ;  and  every  one 
of  Elizabeth's  ministers,  though  in  somewhat  varying  degrees,  leaned  in 
the  same  direction.  It  is  hardly  to  be  imagined  that  this  would  have  been 
the  case  if  popular  sentiment  had  been  with  the  reactionaries.  At  all  times 
parliament  was  ready,  even  eager,  to  go  further  than  the  queen  in  favouring 
the  puritan  element  in  the  Church,  repressing  Romanism,  attacking  Mary 
Stuart,  and  adopting  an  aggressively  Protestant  attitude  towards  the 
European  Powers.  The  English  people  have  never,  like  the  Scots,  taken 
a  keen  delight  in  metaphysical  and  logical  arguments  or  troubled  themselves 
greatly  with  dogmatic  subtleties.  But  a  great  many  of  them  connected 
Romanism  with  the  fires  of  Smithfield,  the  brutalities  of  Alva  in  the 
Netherlands,  and  the  tortures  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  or  still  more 
luridly  after  1572  with  the  Paris  massacre.  Romanists  might  indeed  retort 
upon  Protestants  a  few  years  later  by  pointing  to  Jesuit  martyrs  and 
to  the  sufferings  of  the  Irish  ;  but  the  English  had  then  already  learnt 
to  look  upon  the  Jesuits  as  traitors  and  upon  the  Irish  as  wild  beasts, 
so  that  the  retort  fell  flat.  Nowhere  outside  of  the  northern  counties  was 
there  ever  the  slightest  sign  that  the  mass  of  the  people  was  Romanist 
in  its  sympathies. 

In  fact,  the  question  of  the  future  was  not  whether  England  would 
revert  to  Rome,  but  whether  Calvinism  would  dominate  the  Church  in 
England  as  it  very  emphatically  did  in  Scotland.  In  both  countries,  the 
secular  government  was  antagonistic  to  Calvinism,  and  to  the  conceptions 
of  Church  government  and  of  the  relations  of  Church  and  State  associated 
with  the  Calvinistic  creed.  On  the  other  hand,  intense  hostility  to  Rome 
and    to    the    active    champions    of    Rome    tended    of     itself     to     generate 


UNDER   THE   TUDORS  371 

Calvinism,  simply  because  Calvinism  was  the  form  of  Protestantism  which 
was  most  palpably  irreconcilable  to  Romanism, 

After  the  Bull  of  Deposition  and  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew, 
active  hostility  to  Rome  increased  and  Calvinism  in  England  became  more 
aggressive.  In  part  it  merely  took  the  shape  of  what  was  called  Noncon- 
formity, the  demand  for  the  abolition  of  ceremonial  observances  which 
weie  looked  upon  as  papistical,  or  at  least  for  permission  to  dispense  with 
them.  But  then  there  arose  the  demand  for  a  change  in  the  form  of 
Church  government  on  Presbyterian  lines.  This  called  for  active  repres- 
sion, for  the  Crown  held  the  doctrine,  summarised  in  a  favourite  phrase  of 
James  VI.,  after  he  became  King  of  England,  "No  bishop,  no  king."  Even 
within  the  Church  organisation,  certain  of  the  advanced  clergy  constructed 
a  Presbyterian  organisation.  Presbyterianism  was  to  the  full  as  rigid  in 
its  demand  for  uniformity  as  was  the  State  itself,  and  sought  to  impose  its 
own  particular  views  on  the  whole  body.  It  had  no  sympathy  with  the 
audacious  individualism  of  the  group  who  at  this  time  began  to  be  known 
as  Brownists,  and  subsequently  became  exceedingly  formidable  under  the 
name  of  Independents  ;  a  group  which  claimed  freedom  of  conscience  for 
each  separate  congregation,  the  right  of  each  congregation  to  worship 
unmolested  after  its  own  fashion.  In  the  sixteenth  century,  at  least,  such 
an  idea  appeared  to  be  hopelessly  anarchical,  subversive  alike  of  State  and 
Church. 

Now  Elizabeth's  first  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  was  the  typical 
moderate  Matthew  Parker  ;  and  Parker  was  succeeded  by  Grindal,  whose 
sympathies  were  entirely  with  that  party  which  in  modern  phraseology 
would  be  termed  Evangelical.  Thus  at  the  time  when  he  was  succeeded  in 
1583  by  Archbishop  Whitgift,  the  Evangelicals  were  exceedingly  active  in 
the  Church,  while  the  tide  of  severe  repression  against  the  Romanists  had 
just  set  in,  in  consequence  of  the  great  Jesuit  mission.  It  appeared  that 
credit  for  impartial  justice  would  be  the  more  readily  obtained  if  Protestant 
indiscipline  were  sternly  dealt  with  at  the  same  time  with  Romanism. 
Whitgift  was  not  so  much  a  High  Churchman  as  a  rigorous  disciplinarian, 
and  his  primacy  was  signalised  by  the  establishment  of  the  Court  of  High 
Commission  for  dealing  with  ecclesiastical  causes,  which  had  been 
sanctioned  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity  a  score  of  years  earlier,  though  it  had 
never  been  actually  constituted.  The  Court's  methods  were  inquisitorial 
and  arbitrary,  and  were  clearly  disapproved  by  Lord  Burleigh.  It  enforced 
uniformity  very  much  more  rigidly  than  had  been  done  in  the  past,  with  the 
effect  of  intensifying  the  hostility  of  the  advanced  school  to  the  episcopal 
system  as  an  instrument  of  tyranny.  Thence  there  issued  a  violent  and 
unseemly  onslaught  on  that  system  by  the  publication  of  a  series  of  tracts 
signed  Martin  Mar-Prelate,  in  the  year  following  the  Armada. 

The  violence  of  the  pamphleteers  created  a  certain  reaction,  and  this, 
coupled  with  the  actual  and  fancied  existence  of  all  manner  of  Romanist 
plots,  led  in  turn  to  increasingly  severe  legislation  in  1593,  directed  against 


372  THE   AGE    OF   TRANSITION 

the  Romanists  on  one  side  and  the  Nonconformists  on  the  other.  It 
should,  however,  be  remarked  in  passing,  that  the  Nonconformists  did  not 
seek  to  separate  themselves  from  the  Church,  but  remained  professedly 
within  it,  while  protesting  against  certain  doctrines  and  practices  ;  even  as 
Cranmer  had  remained  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  while  avowing  to  the 
king,  at  serious  risk  to  himself,  his  personal  adherence  to  views  condemned 
by  the  Six  Articles.  These  measures  now  resulted  in  the  expulsion  or  emigra- 
tion, chiefly  to  Holland,  of  the  determined  Brownists.  The  bulk  of  the 
Nonconformists,  however,  preferred  obedience  under  protest  to  exile,  and  the 
Church  parties  became  more  and  more  differentiated  as  High  Churchmen 
and  Puritans,  the  names  which  afterwards  came  to  be  generally  adopted  to 
distinguish  them.  At  the  same  time  what  may  be  called  Liberal  church- 
manship  was  finding  admirable  expression  in  what  is  perhaps  the  first 
monumental  work  of  English  prose,  the  Ecclesiastical  Polity  of  Richard 
Hooker,  which  exemplifies  the  attitude  of  all  the  greater  minds  of  the  day 
in  England. 


Ill 
ECONOMIC   PROGRESS 

TheTudors  inaugurated  the  great  period  of  English  commercial  expansion. 
Henry  VII.  made  the  development  of  the  national  wealth  an  explicit  object 
of  policy,  the  State  operating  by  means  of  commercial  treaties,  although  he 
did  not  hesitate  to  employ  commercial  wars  as  a  means  to  securing  quite 
other  political  ends.  The  root  principle  of  the  politico-economic  theory 
known  as  Mercantilism  was  already  being  formulated,  namely,  that  wealth 
is  to  be  sought  as  a  means  to  national  power.  It  was  not  assumed 
that  wealth  is  convertible  into  power  as  a  matter  of  course  ;  on  the 
contrary,  it  was  frequently  assumed  that  wealth  might  be  accumulated  at 
the  expense  of  power ;  it  did  not  follow  that  the  course  which  was 
economically  the  best  was  politically  the  best. 

On  this  theory,  then,  trades  and  employments  should  be  encouraged 
which  tended  to  develop  national  strength  ;  trade  which  enriched  another 
nation  was  to  be  discouraged;  the  prosperity  of  a  neighbour  probably,  of  a 
rival  certainly,  was  looked  upon  as  injurious.  The  importance  to  the  State 
of  possessing  a  large  amount  of  gold  and  silver  gave  rise  to  the  doctrine 
that  a  trade  which  exchanged  treasure  for  goods  was  bad  for  the  country, 
but  that  one  which  exchanged  goods  for  treasure  was  beneficial.  It 
became,  therefore,  the  duty  of  the  State  to  control  commerce,  to  encourage 
or  discourage  it  actively,  with  a  view  to  maintaining  the  "  balance  of  trade  " 
— that  is,  of  securing  an  inflow  of  treasure  greater  than  the  outflow — the 
artificial  development  of  indu-^trics  regarded  as  beneficial,  as,  for  instance, 
the  manufacture  of  gunpowder  and   ordnance,   and   in   particular  the  in- 


UNDER   THE   TUDORS  373 

crease  of  shipping,  which  the  England  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  learning 
to  look  upon  as  of  quite  vital  importance. 

The  principal  means  to  the  encouragement  of  shipping  was  found  in 
the  Navigation  Acts,  favouring  goods  exported  or  imported  in  English 
bottoms  ;  and  to  these  must  be  added  the  post-Reformation  ordinances  in- 
sisting on  the  Lenten  fast — issued  by  Protestant  governments  even  while  they 
repudiated  fasting  on  religious  grounds  as  a  papistical  superstition — because 
employment       v/as 


given  thereby  to  the 
deep-sea  fishermen 
and  sailors,  and  so 
shipbuilding  and  tlie 
mariner's  art  were 
fostered.  But  the 
State  left  it  to  private 
enterprise  to  turn 
maritime  energy  to 
commercial  account. 
After  the  first  start, 
sailors  and  explorers 
owed  nothing  to  the 
State,  although  Eliza- 
beth personally  specu- 
lated in  some  of  their 
ventures  on  terms  ex- 
ceedingly profitable  to 
herself. 

Perhaps,  how- 
ever, we  should  qualify 
the  statement  that 
private  enterprise 
was  unaided.  The 
government  con- 
tinued on  an  extended  scale  to  employ  the  old  method  of  granting 
monopolies  in  order  to  extend  trade.  Of  these  monopolies  there  were 
two  types,  those  which  were  granted  to  mercantile  companies,  and 
those  which  were  granted  to  individuals.  In  the  past  the  great  examples 
of  monopolist  Companies  had  been  the  Merchants  of  the  Staple  and  the 
Merchant  Adventurers,  who  had  exclusive  rights  of  trading  in  certain 
classes  of  goods  in  Western  Europe.  Such  monopolies  were  in  fact 
a  condition  of  the  progress  of  trade,  or  at  least  appeared  to  be  so. 
Other  states  practically  excluded  the  foreign  private  trader,  as  did  the 
English  themselves.  The  trader  was  admitted  only  if  he  was  an  enrolled 
member  of  a  Company  which  was  responsible  for  his  good  behaviour  and 
could  be  penalised  if  its  members  set  rules  and  regulations  at  nought.     To 


At  the  market,  1603. 
[From  a  broadside.] 


374  THE   AGE    OF   TRANSITION 

a  Company  which  was  under  control  privileges  might  be  conceded.  A 
Company  to  which  authority  had  been  granted  could  control  its  members, 
but  unless  the  grant  conveyed  also  a  monopoly,  it  would  have  no  control 
over  traders  who  were  not  members.  It  could  not  protect  itself  against 
the  misconduct  of  such  persons,  while  they,  on  the  other  hand,  would  have 
the  utmost  difficulty,  acting  as  private  individuals,  in  enforcing  for  them- 
selves such  rights  as  the  law  might  concede  to  them.  Provided  that  the 
monopolist  Company  was  open  to  all  would-be  traders  on  reasonable  terms, 
it  was  ordinarily  to  the  advantage  of  the  private  individual  to  trade  under 
its  ^gis ;  while  the  Company  itself  was  liable  to  suffer  damage  from  illegiti- 
mate practices,  if  non-members  were  per- 
mitted to  trade  within  its  area.  Commercial 
treaties  were  effective  under  the  Company 
system,  but  would  have  been  a  dead  letter 
without  it. 

That  was  a  state  of  things  which  passed 
away  in  Western  Europe  as  the  ordinary 
machinery  of  the  law  became  sufficient  to 
protect  the  community  against  the  un- 
principled "  free  trader,"  the  trader  who 
was  not  a  member  of  a  Company,  and  to 
secure  the  individual  in  his  rights  even  when 
there  was  no  organised  Company  at  his 
back  to  help  him.  But  the  maritime  ex- 
pansion of  the  sixteenth  century  opened  up 
new  markets  or  new  fields  of  enterprise,  where 
the  economic  arguments  which  had  warranted 
the  old  monopolies  were  more  effective  than  ever.  The  great  bar  to  enter- 
prise was  insecurity,  and  a  chartered  Company  could  give  a  comparative 
security  to  its  members.  But  the  chances  of  profit  were  too  precarious, 
unless  the  Company  itself  could  protect  itself  from  the  reckless  competition 
of  the  free-trading  adventurer  ;  in  other  words,  unless  it  had  a  legal  mono- 
poly.  So  in  Elizabeth's  reign  there  began  a  multiplication  of  chartered 
Companies  for  trading  in  the  more  remote  and  less  civilised  portions  of  the 
globe.  Thus  the  Eastern  or  Prussian  Company  was  established  for  trading 
with  the  Bnltic,  the  Muscovy  Company  for  the  Russian  trade,  the  Levant 
Company,  and,  finally,  on  the  last  day  of  the  year  1600,  the  East  India 
Company. 

Analogous  to  these  were  the  patents  granted  for  colonisation  to  Sir 
Humphrey  Gilbert  and  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  in  America.  These  w^ere  the 
men  who  first  conceived  the  mighty  vision  of  a  new  England  beyond  the 
ocean,  where  Englishmen  should  find  a  new  home.  The  Spaniard  had 
secured  the  treasure-regions  of  the  south,  and  Englishmen  were  eager 
enough  to  break  through  the  Spanish  monopoly,  to  join  on  their  own 
account   in  the  hunt  for  Eldorado  ;  but  Gilbert  and  Raleigh  dreamed  of 


Weaving  in  the  1 6th  century. 
[Irom  Erasmus,  "  In  Praise  of  Folly."] 


UNDER   THE   TUDORS  375 

something  far  different,  something  which  was  reaHsed  in  those  colonies 
which  have  developed  into  the  United  States  of  America.  To  neither  of 
them  was  it  given  to  realise  the  dream.  Gilbert  tried  vainly  to  plant  a 
colony  in  the  vague  northern  region  known  as  Norumbega,  but  his  ship 
foundered  at  sea  when  he  was  returning  to  England.  After  him  his  half- 
brother  Raleigh  spent  wealth  and  brains  and  energy  in  the  attempt  to  plant 
his  colony  of  Virginia,  whither  he  sent  expeditions  year  after  year,  only  to 
find  each  time  that  the  last  group  of  settlers  had  been  wiped  out.  Only 
in  the  next  reign,  when  Raleigh  was  eating  his  heart  out  in  the  Tower,  was 
the  colony  of  Virginia  really  created  ;  the  child  of  a  commercial  chartered 
Company. 

Somewhat  different  was  the  basis  on  which  trading  monopolies  were 
granted  to  private  individuals.  In  theory,  at  least,  the  monopoly  was 
granted  in  such  cases  with  the  direct  object  of  creating  industries  which 
could  only  be  nursed  into  life,  industries  in  which  the  financial  risks  were 
too  serious  unless  they  were  protected  from  competition,  or  which  required 
the  granting  of  special  powders  such  as  those  which,  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  it  was  necessary  to  confer  upon  railway  companies.  In  practice, 
the  system  became  liable  to  serious  abuse,  and  occasionally,  at  least,  the 
Crown  conferred  monopolies  for  the  enrichment  of  private  individuals 
where  there  was  no  adequate  excuse  for  prohibiting  competition.  At  the 
end  of  Elizabeth's  reign  the  grievance  had  become  sufficiently  serious 
to  threaten  a  rupture  between  the  Crown  and  parliament  ;  a  rupture 
which  was  averted  by  the  tactful  skill  with  which  Elizabeth  promised  to 
withdraw  and  prohibit  obnoxious  monopolies,  although  the  promise  was 
not  in  fact  observed. 

The  State  sought  to  encourage  new  industries,  as  it  sought  to  encourage 
commercial  enterprise,  by  granting  monopolies  to  the  pioneers,  but  also 
by  the  introduction  of  foreign  craftsmen.  In  particular,  privileges  were 
granted  to  refugees  from  Alva's  persecution  in  the  Low  Countries,  where 
textile  arts  in  especial  were  practised  which  had  not  yet  been  taken  up  in 
England,  in  spite  of  the  great  development  of  the  cloth  manufacture.  It  is 
probable  that  refugees  from  Antwerp  introduced  the  cotton  industry,  although 
its  great  development  was  deferred  for  a  couple  of  centuries. 

We  have  already  described  the  depression  of  the  rural  population, 
which  reached  its  climax  in  the  middle  years  of  the  century.  The  process 
of  enclosure  appears  to  have  come  to  an  end  quite  early  in  Elizabeth's  reign 
with  the  disappearance  of  the  immense  disparity  between  the  profits  of 
wool-growing  and  of  tillage.  The  constant  displacement  of  labour  ceased, 
and  the  problem  was  reduced  to  that  of  finding  employment  for  those  already 
displaced,  of  whom  a  large  proportion  w^ere  w^illing  enough  to  work  if  they 
could  get  work  to  do  upon  reasonable  terms.  The  system  of  apprenticeship 
controlled  by  the  gilds  had  in  the  past  shut  this  displaced  labour  out  of 
employment  in  the  trading  and  manufacturing  industries  ;  but  the  expansion 
of  trade,  and  the  multiplication  of  minor  industries  which  were  not  subject 


376  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

to    gild   regulations,  now  began  to  provide  employment   for   this   surplus 
working  population. 

The  Statute  of  Apprentices,  an  Act  passed  quite  early  in  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth,  did  much  towards  the  settling  of  industrial  conditions.  In  spite 
of  the  fact  that  there  was  manifestly  a  good  deal  of  wealth  in  the  country, 
though  Henry  VIII.'s  depredations  and  the  financial  chaos  of  the  two  next 
reif^ns  were  extremely  unsettling,  the  chartered  towns  throughout  the  Tudor 
period,  until  the  accession  of  Elizabeth,  were  losing  their  old  prosperity, 
which  was  already  to  some  extent  falling  off  in  the  fifteenth  century.  They 
were  responsible  for  their  own  misfortunes,  which  were  largely  the  outcome 

of  the  self-protective 
policy  of  the  gilds, 
which  tried  to  make 
a  close  preserve  of 
their  trades.  They 
forbade  the  practice 
of  a  trade  by  any  one 
who  had  not  qualified 
by  a  stated  term  of 
apprenticeship,  the 
numbers  of  appren- 
tices were  limited, 
and  apprenticeship 
itself  was  open  only 
to  the  children  of 
the  comparatively  prosperous.  Theoretically,  these  rules  were  enforced 
in  order  to  maintain  a  high  standard  of  efficiency,  though  it  is  safe  to 
suppose  that  the  desire  to  restrict  competition  was  really  a  more  active 
motive  with  the  gild  councils.  But  the  actual  effect  was  to  drive 
would-be  competitors  out  of  the  chartered  towns  into  the  unchartered 
market-towns,  where  there  was  no  authority  to  enforce  gild  regulations. 
The  high  standards  were,  perhaps,  not  maintained,  but  production  was 
cheaper,  and  the  market  towns  attracted  the  custom  which  before  had  been 
concentrated  in  the  chartered  towns.  By  the  Statute  of  Apprentices 
uniformity  was  introduced.  It  ceased  to  be  the  business  of  the  local 
authority  to  make  the  regulations,  which  were  laid  down  by  law;  the  local 
authority  becoming  the  machinery  through  which  the  law  was  enforced. 
Seven  years'  apprenticeship  was  required  before  any  one  could  set  up  in 
trade  on  his  own  account  in  the  then  recognised  trades,  and  the  whole 
country  was  covered  by  the  regulations,  instead  of  only  the  chartered 
towns,  while  the  conditions  of  admission  to  apprenticeship  were  made  less 
rigorous  in  the  latter.  In  what  were  regarded  as  superior  trades,  a  property 
qualification  for  the  parents  of  apprentices  was  preserved,  so  that  their 
social  status  was  maintained.  These  trades  presented  no  opening  for  the 
unemployed  rural  population,  but  in  minor  trades  the  property  qualification 


Eastcheap  market  about  i; 
[From  a  drawing  in  the  British  Museum.] 


UNDER   THE   TUDORS  377 

was  reduced  or  abolished.  Moreover,  the  statute  only  applied  to  the 
existing  trades  which  were  scheduled  in  the  Act,  so  that  the  new  trades 
which  sprang  up  during  the  reign  were  outside  its  operation.  From  this 
period  dates  the  development  of  spinning  and  weaving  in  particular,  as 
occupations  engaging  the  rural  population,  in  addition  to  agricultural  labour. 
No  apprenticeship  was  required,  and  the  industry  could  be  made  supple- 
mentary to  field  work,  besides  giving  employment  to  women  and  children. 

The  enclosures  had  been  responsible  for  bringing  into  prominence  a 
problem  which  had  not  been  aggres- 
sively noticeable  in  the  Middle 
Ages ;  the  double  problem,  it  may 
be  called,  of  helpless  poverty  and 
wilful  vagrancy.  Both  were  further 
intensified  by  the  dissolution  of 
the  monasteries,  which,  on  the  one 
hand,  was  followed  by  an  increase 
of  enclosure,  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  abolished  the  one  institu- 
tion which  admitted  a  sort  of  pro- 
fessional responsibility  for  the  care 
of  the  indigent.  Whatever  the  sins 
of  the  monks  may  have  been,  the 
monasteries,  in  fact,  did  a  good 
deal  towards  clothing  the  naked  and 
feeding  the  hungry,  though  their 
methods  probably  encouraged  those 
who  preferred  idle  beggary  to  labori- 
ous poverty.  But  when  the  mon- 
asteries were  dissolved,  no  one 
admitted  responsibility  for  main- 
taining the  indigent,  and  the  number  of  sturdy  vagabonds  was  multiplied. 

Then  some  town  corporations  experimented  on  their  own  account,  and 
Elizabeth's  exceedingly  practical  ministers  extended  the  experiments.  The 
object  was  to  differentiate  between  the  wilfully  idle  and  the  poor  who  were 
either  incapable  of  work  or  were  idle  only  because  they  could  find  no  work 
to  do.  The  failure  of  appeals  for  voluntary  contributions  led  to  the 
levying  of  compulsory  contributions  for  the  maintenance  of  the  impotent 
poor,  and  the  results  of  forty  years  of  experimentation  were  formulated 
in  the  Elizabethan  Poor  Lav/  of  1601,  which  continued  in  force  with  httle 
modification  for  nearly  two  centuries.  The  law  established  a  poor-rate  in 
every  parish,  and  workhouses  ;  where  relief  was  given  to  those  who  were 
unable  to  work,  and  work  was  given  to  those  who  applied  for  relief  because 
they  were  unable  to  find  employment,  while  those  who  declined  to  work 
and  preferred  to  beg  were  severely  penalised.  As  a  general  rule,  there  was 
now  a  sufficiency  of  employment  for  those  who    were  willing    to    work  ; 


l6th  century  mendicants. 
[From  Barclay's  "  Ship  of  Fools."] 


378  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

the  parish  provided  reHef  for  those  who  were  actually  incapable  ;  the  wilful 
vagrant  was  marked  off  from  the  man  who  was  willing  to  work  ;  and 
throughout  a  very  long  period  the  problems  of  pauperism  and  unem- 
ployment again  dropped  into  the  background. 


IV 

LITERATURE 

Until  the  age  of  Chaucer,  at  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  century,  England 
had  produced  nothing  which  could  enable  her  to  rank  among  the  Hterary 
peoples.  Before  the  accession  of  Henry  VII.  Wiclif's  Bible,  Langland's 
Piers  Plowman,  the  works  of  Chaucer  himself,  and  the  Morte  d Arthur  of 
Mallory,  were  the  only  works  in  the  English  tongue  which  could  in  any 
sense  be  held  to  rank  as  classics.  In  the  reigns  of  Edward  IV.  and  of 
Henry  VII,  the  intellectual  movement  was  at  last  beginning  to  take  hold 
of  the  English.  Education  and  liberal  studies  received  a  strong  stimulus, 
but  still  an  English  literature  was  unborn.  Sir  Thomas  More's  native 
humour  combined  with  his  Platonism  to  produce  the  Utopia  before  Martin 
Luther  had  flung  down  his  challenge  to  the  papacy ;  but  the  Utopia  was 
written  in  Latin,  not  in  English.  Literary  energy  was  almost  entirely 
absorbed  in  pamphleteering  and  theological  controversy,  and  of  poetry  there 
was  none  in  England  until  the  latter  years  of  Henry  VIII.;  unless  we 
dignify  by  the  name  of  poetry  the  satires  of  John  Skelton,  whose  doggerel 
rhymes  have  at  least  immortalised  his  name.  Scotland,  on  the  other  hand, 
produced  William  Dunbar,  who  may  in  some  sort  be  regarded  as  the 
remote  progenitor  of  Robert  Burns  ;  and  in  Bishop  Gavin  Douglas  and 
Sir  David  Lindsay,  the  northern  poets  maintained  their  claim  to  have 
carried  on  the  Chaucerian  tradition  much  more  successfully  than  their 
southern  neighbours.  The  capacities  of  English  prose  found  their  best 
expression  in  the  great  translations  of  the  Bible  by  William  Tyndale  and 
others,  of  which  our  own  "authorised  version"  is  a  modification,  in  the 
music  of  the  new  English  Church  Services,  and  in  the  racy  rhetoric  of 
Hugh  Latimer's  Sermons.  Still,  before  Henry  VIII.  was  dead,  Surrey 
and  Wyatt,  harbingers  of  the  coming  dawn,  were  weaving  dainty  fancies 
into  dainty  verse,  learnt  mainly  from  Italian  models,  piping  a  delicate 
prelude  to  the  glorious  outburst  of  Elizabethan  song. 

Yet  fully  twenty  years  of  Elizabeth's  own  reign  were  past  before  any 
sign  appeared  that  the  poets  were  to  share  with  the  sailors  the  glories  of 
her  reign.  Only  in  translation  had  it  been  shown  that  English  prose  could 
be  made  an  instrument  of  artistic  expression,  though  Foxe  in  the  work 
commonly  called  the  Book  of  Martyrs,  and  John  Knox  in  his  History  of  the 
Reformation  in  Scotland,  had  proved  its  capacity  for  vigorous  narrative.     The 


UNDER   THE   TUDORS  379 

year  which  signalises  the  birth  of  a  new  era  is  1579,  the  year  in  which 
appeared  the  Shepherd's  Calendar  of  Edmund  Spenser,  and  that  very  amazing 
work  the  Euphiics  of  John  Lyly. 

The  one  great  original  work  of  the  early  Tudor  period  was  More's 
Utopia.  Himself  no  mean  scholar,  and  the  intimate  friend  of  all  the  best 
scholars  of  his  time,  the  son  of  a  judge,  and  bred  up  in  part  in  the  house- 
hold of  Cardinal  Morton,  More  as  a  young  man  was  strongly  drawn  towards 
entering  the  religious  life.  But  something  withheld  him.  He  became  an 
active  man  of  affairs,  and  a  somewhat  unwilling  favourite  of  Henry  VIII. 
He    was  Speaker  in  c  /  • 

the  House  of  Com-  tevrMnt^. 

mons  which  declined 
to  be  brow-beaten  by 
Cardinal  Wolsey, 
whom  he  succeeded 
as  Chancellor.  He 
resigned  the  Chan- 
cellorship on  a  point 
of  conscience,  be- 
cause he  would  not 
admit  that  a  secular 
authority  could  be 
supreme  in  matters 
spiritual  ;  and  he 
cheerfully  chose  to 
be  beheaded  as  a  traitor  when  he  was  offered  his  choice  between  acknow- 
ledging the  royal  supremacy  over  the  Church  and  losing  his  head.  Such 
was  the  man  who,  in  his  imaginary  Commonwealth,  depicted  by  contrast 
the  social  and  political  conditions  of  his  time  as  he  saw  them,  with  a 
satire  none  the  less  penetrating  for  its  kindliness.  His  ideal  Common- 
wealth is  an  anticipation  of  modern  socialistic  dreams  ;  dreams,  that  is,  of  a 
Christian  socialism,  resting  not  upon  economic  but  upon  moral  foundations, 
and  reaching  back  to  the  communistic  doctrines  of  Plato's  Republic. 

Euphuism  has  been  held  up  to  our  ridicule,  but  Euphnes  is  very  far 
from  being  altogether  ridiculous.  It  is  full  of  an  extravagant  pedantry,  an 
exaggerated  foppery  of  phraseology,  a  fantastic  playing  upon  words,  which 
at  first  invite  burlesque  emulation  but  very  soon  become  inexpressibly 
tedious.  But  Euphues  meant  something  seriou?.  Admirable  moral  aims, 
indeed,  are  not  a  passport  to  Helicon  ;  the  significance  of  the  work  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  was  a  deliberate  attempt  to  create  a  style,  a  conscious  effort 
to  give  prose  composition  a  decorative  value,  to  apply  to  prose  the  idea  of 
artistic  selection  in  the  use  of  words.  The  actual  result  was  fantastic 
enough,  and  fantastical  conversation  modelled  upon  it  became  the  fashion 
in  polite  society  ;  the  wits  played  with  Euphuism,  and  if  Shakespeare 
burlesqued  it,  its  influence  is  also  nevertheless  apparent  in  many  passages 


A  cut  from  the  rare  first  edition  of  Spenser's  "  SJiepherd's  Calendar 


380  THE   AGE   OF   TRANSITION 

which  have  no  savour  of  parody,  English  style  we  may  say  for  the  first 
time  became  self-conscious  in  John  Lyly's  work,  which  is  thereby  rendered 
significant ;  it  became  absurd  chiefly  because  it  had  not  learnt  to  conceal 
its  self-consciousness  and  to  produce  the  impression  of  spontaneity. 

At  the  same  time  Spenser,  in  the  Shepherd's  Calendar,  achieved,  in  what 
we  call  minor  poetry,  a  standard  which  decisively  proved  the  effectiveness 
of  the  English  tongue  in  that  field.  It  was  not  till  ten  years  later,  when 
the  Armada  had  come  and  gone,  that  the  first  book  of  the  Faerie  Qiiecne 
definitely  enriched  the  literature  of  the  world.  Had  the  age  of  Elizabeth 
produced  no  other  poet  than  Spenser  it  would  still  have  been  glorious  in 
the  annals  of  poetry. 

But  it  was  in  another  field  that  the  mightiest  triumph  was  to  come. 
The  poetic  glory  of  ancient  Athens  had  lain  in  her  drama,  and  the  drama 
had  retained  its  place  in  the  front  rank  as  a  form  of  literary  expression 
until  Christianity  dominated  the  Roman  Empire.  The  Church  prohibited 
it,  but  could  not  prohibit  the  instinct  for  dramatic  representation.  There- 
fore it  turned  that  instinct  to  its  own  uses,  sanctioning  only  the  Miracle 
plays,  Mysteries,  and  Moralities,  which  were  intended  allegorically  to 
impress  on  the  vulgar  mind  the  superiority  of  virtue  over  vice.  But  in 
this  medieval  substituted  for  drama,  the  essential  matter  was  the  pantomime, 
the  dialogue  was  merely  an  accompaniment.  In  the  early  sixteenth  century, 
when  the  ecclesiastical  conventions  were  losing  their  authority,  the  Moralities 
were  supplemented  on  the  one  hand  by  masques  and  pageants,  which 
gratified  the  popular  taste  for  gorgeous  display,  and  on  the  other  hand  by 
a  development  of  buffoonery,  which  the  Church,  in  its  consideration  for 
the  weakness  of  the  flesh,  had  allowed  as  an  accompaniment  of  its  Sermons 
in  Pantomime. 

But  at  the  same  time,  the  revived  study  of  the  ancient  literatures  and 
of  the  new  literature  to  which  it  had  given  birth  in  Italy  began  to  awaken 
an  imitative  tendency.  The  first  English  play  was  a  comedy  constructed 
by  the  schoolmaster  Nicholas  Udall  for  his  boys  to  perform,  adapted  from 
a  classic  model,  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Mary ;  the  first  blank-verse  tragedy, 
Gorboducy  was  acted  some  three  years  after  Elizabeth's  accession.  Com- 
panies of  strolling  players  began  to  perambulate  the  country,  though  of  the 
nature  and  quality  of  the  plays  they  performed  we  have  practically  no 
knowledge.  The  performances  generally  took  place  in  a  nobleman's  hall 
or  the  yard  of  an  inn,  and  some  twenty  years  after  Elizabeth's  accession 
they  had  already  become  so  popular  as  to  seduce  the  errant  youth  of  the 
metropolis  from  the  due  observance  of  their  religious  duties.  The  per- 
formers were  expelled  from  the  city,  and,  perhaps  for  this  reason,  began  to 
localise  themselves  in  permanent  centres,  and  to  construct  playhouses. 
Peele,  Greene,  and  others,  for  the  most  part  undisciplined  young  men  who 
had  enjoyed  a  university  education,  began  to  write  for  the  players  dramas 
of  a  higher  literary  standard;  and  in  1587  young  Christopher  Marlowe's 
te;  rific  melodrama,  Tanibiirlainc,  was  presented  on  the  boards. 


UNDER   THE   TUDORS  381 

Tamburlaine  does  not  itself  rank  as  a  great  tragedy.  Marlowe  was  but 
three-and-twenty,  the  same  age  as  William  Shakespeare.  The  only  known 
canons  of  the  tragic  art  were  those  laid  down  nearly  two  thousand  years 
before  by  Aristotle.  The  English  tragedians  had  still  to  arrive  at  canons  of 
their  own.  But  Tamburlaine  was  the  work  of  one  who,  though  he  died 
before  he  was  thirty,  killed  it  is  said  in  a  tavern  brawl,  lived  long  enough 
to  prove  that  his  tragic  genius  was  unsurpassed,  though  not  long  enough  to 
consummate  his  artistic  method.  In  the  year  of  Marlowe's  death  Shake- 
speare himself  was  certainly 
writing  for  the  stage,  and 
from  that  date,  1593,  on- 
wards, .through  the  last  ten 
years  of  Elizabeth's  reign 
and  through  many  years  of 
that  of  her  successor,  there 
was  no  year  which  did  not 
witness  the  production  of  a 
masterpiece,  either  of  comedy 
or  of  tragedy. 

We  speak  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan literature  ;  but  we  do 
not  generally  realise  that  not 
one  line  of  the  great  litera- 
ture associated  with  her  reign 
was  published  until  after  the 
Armada.  Until  then  Spenser 
and  Marlowe  had  done  only 
apprentice  work.  It  would 
seem  as  if,  down  to  that 
tremendous  crisis,  men's 
hearts  and  brains  were  ab- 
sorbed in  action.  The  fame 
of  nearly  all  the  great  men  of  action  of  the  reign  had  reached  or  was 
reaching  its  zenith  in  1588  ;  but  if  none  of  the  English  poets  whom  wc 
call  Elizabethans  had  survived  that  year,  Spenser  alone  would  be  re- 
membered to-day,  and  he  only  as  an  attractive  minor  poet.  Even  so  in 
Athens  of  old,  after  the  tremendous  crisis  of  the  Persian  War,  the  triumphs 
of  Marathon  and  Salamis  were  matched  by  the  triumphs  of  -^schylus  and 
Sophocles ;  they  were  the'  triumphs  of  the  generation  which  was  only 
maturing  at  the  moment  of  the  great  crisis  of  national  liberty.  Of  the 
great  group  of  dramatists  among  whom  Shakespeare  stands  supreme,  some 
were  altogether  unknown  until  after  Elizabeth's  death  ;  excepting  Marlowe, 
none  was  heard  of  before  1593,  and  all  lived  far  into  the  reign  of  James. 
Yet  they  are  rightly  termed  Elizabethans,  since  they  were  all  the  offspring 
of  the  great  outburst  of  national  vitality  in  Elizabeth's  reign. 


Shakespeare. 
[The  Droeihoiit  portrait.] 


382  THE   AGE    OF   TRANSITION 

Amongst  Elizabethans  must  also  be  ranked  Richard  Hooker,  whose 
Ecclesiastical  Polity  was  mentioned  in  connection  with  the  religious  move- 
ments. An  Elizabethan  too  was  Francis  Bacon,  in  genius  second  only 
to  Shakespeare,  to  whom  he  was  slightly  senior.  But  the  product  of 
Bacon's  powers  belongs  almost  entirely  to  the  following  reign  ;  before  then 
he  had  only  given  the  world  a  taste  of  his  quality  by  the  publication 
of  his  essays  ;  and  although  he  himself  was  a  product  of  the  Elizabethan 
spirit,  he  was  in  many  respects  rather  the  forerunner  of  the  scientific 
age  which  was  dawning  than  the  glory  of  the  poetic  age  in  which  he 
was  bred. 


BOOK    IV 

THE   SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY 

CHAPTER    XV 

RIGHT   DIVINE 

I 

THE  SPRING   OF  TROUBLES 

The  accession  of  James  VI.  of  Scotland  to  the  throne  of  England  as  the 
legitimate  heir  of  Henry  VII.  and  his  wife  united  at  last  the  Crowns  of  the 
two  kingdoms,  which  for  centuries  had  looked  upon  each  other  as  foes 
even  w^hen  their  relations  were  formally  friendly.  Technically  under  the 
will  of  Henry  VIII.,  which  had  never  been  formally  set  aside,  Lord 
Beauchamp,  the  son  of  Catherine  Grey  and  of  the  Earl  of  Hertford,  was 
the  heir,  because  Henry  had  postponed  claims  through  his  elder  sister 
Margaret  to  claims  through  his  younger  sister  Mary.  James  I.,  like 
Henry  VIII.  and  Edward  VI.,  could  definitely  claim  to  represent  by  seniority 
of  descent  the  house  of  Plantagenet,  That  was  a  claim  which  neither 
Henry  VII.  not  Richard  III.,  nor  any  member  of  the  house  of  Lancaster 
had  been  able  or  assert.  Nor  could  the  title  be  challenged  on  the 
ground  that  descent  through  females  was  invalid,  because  there  was  no 
one  living  who  could  profess  descent  in  unbroken  male  line  from  the 
royal  house. 

The  English  people  could  no  doubt  assert  that  they  had  never  re- 
cognised an  indefeasible  title  to  the  throne  on  the  part  of  a  monarch,  and 
had  always  claimed  the  right  to  divert  the  line  of  succession  ;  but  it  re- 
mained open  to  James  to  assert  that  all  such  diversions  had  been  de  jure 
invalid.  He  had  become  king  de  facto  by  consent  of  the  nation  ;  no  one 
else  could  claim  to  be  king  de  jure  on  any  principles  whatever  ;  but  he 
could  also  claim  to  be  king  de  jure,  irrespective  of  national  consent,  by  the 
immutable  law  of  succession  by  Divine  right,  as  the  lineal  descendant  of 
William  the  Conqueror  and  the  lineal  representative  of  the  house  of  Cerdic. 
Hitherto  the  royal  authority  had  been  content  to  rest  itself  upon  human 
law  and  precedent  ;  it  remained  for  the  Stuarts  to  find  for  it  a  sanction  in 

383 


384      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

a  Divine  law  higher  than  human  law  and  precedent,  the  recognition  of 
which  would  set  the  king  himself  above  all  human  law  and  precedent.  The 
assumption  was  harmless,  so  long  as  the  king  in  practice  consented  to  be 
bound  by  law  and  precedent  ;  the  trouble  arose  when  kings  refused  to  be 
so  bound.  The  theory  of  Divine  Right  was  for  the  first  time  asserted  by 
James,  but  he  did  not  carry  his  insistence  upon  it  to  the  extreme  point  in 
practice.      Hence  the  great  collision  between  Crown  and  parliament  was 

deferred  to  the  reign  of  his  successor.  Never- 
theless, it  was  James  who  set  the  ball  rolling. 
The  claim  that  the  Crown  was  bound  by  pre- 
cedent not  of  right,  but  only  of  grace,  entailed 
not  only  the  stubborn  assertion  by  parlia- 
ment of  the  contrary  principle  but  also  its 
interpretation  of  precedents  in  a  sense  which 
would  have  been  emphatically  repudiated 
by  the  Tudors  ;  with  the  result  that  royal 
prerogatives  hitherto  unquestioned  were  chal- 
lenged and  abolished,  and  finally  the  succes- 
sion was  diverted  into  a  new  line  which  could 
not  pretend  to  rule  by  any  higher  title  than 
the  national  consent. 

The  British  people  is  not  given  to  con- 
cerning itself  greatly  with  abstract  theories 
until  they  are  applied  to  practical  questions 
in  a  tangible  manner.  On  the  basis  of  the 
new  theory  the  Crown  sought  to  assert  rights 
of  arbitrary  taxation,  arbitrary  control  of  re- 
ligion, and  arbitrary  imposition  of  penalties. 
By  exceeding  its  prerogative,  or  powers  estab- 
lished by  precedent,  it  caused  those  preroga- 
tives to  be  challenged.  Hence  it  became 
clear  that  they  must  either  be  extended  so  as 
to  make  the  Crown  decisively  predominant  over  parliament,  or  curtailed 
so  as  to  make  parliament  decisively  predominant  over  the  Crown.  The 
battle  cost  Charles  I.  his  head  ;  but  the  republic  which  replaced  the 
monarchy  took  the  form  of  a  Military  Dictatorship  as  arbitrary  as  any 
monarchy.  The  monarchy  was  restored  with  the  royal  prerogatives  curtailed  ; 
but  the  renewed  attempt  to  establish  absolutism  brought  about  the  expulsion 
of  the  Stuarts  and  the  retention  of  a  monarchy  under  conditions  which 
precluded  the  possibility  of  a  revival  of  the  claims  of  the  Crown. 

The  history  of  the  Stuarts  down  to  what  the  Whigs  called  the  "  Glorious 
Revolution"  of  1688  is  not  concerned  exclusively  with  this  great  constitu- 
tional struggle  ;  but  that  struggle  entirely  occupies  the  foreground.  The 
first  great  phase  of  it  extends  over  the  whole  period  from  1603  to  1640, 
and  accordingly  it  will   be  here  treated  continuously  in  a  single  chapter 


A  musketeer  of  1603. 
[l>om  Skelton's  "Armour."] 


RIGHT   DIVINE  385 

instead  of  being  arbitrarily  divided  at  the  moment  of  the  accession  of 
Charles  I.  As  a  preliminary  we  shall  review  the  conditions  out  of  which 
the  contest  arose,  and  by  which  it  was  affected. 

We  shall  find  that  the  antagonism  between  Crown  and  parliament  arose 
primarily  out  of  two  questions,  taxation  and  religion.  The  religious 
question  was  the  outcome  of  the  growth  of  what  is  called  Puritanism  in 
England,  and  the  question  of  taxation  was  made  acute  by  the  foreign  policy 
of  the  Crown.  We  shall  therefore  in  the  first  place  outline  the  European 
conditions  which  indirectly  helped  to  force  on  the  constitutional  struggle. 

When  Elizabeth  died  the  ruler  of  Spain  was  Philip  III,,  the  son  of 
Elizabeth's  great  antagonist.  In  France  Henry  IV.  had  established  a 
substantial  degree  of  religious  toleration  by  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  which  con- 
ceded freedom  of  worship  to  the  Huguenots,  although  the  Government  was 
officially  Catholic.  In  Germany  for  half  a  century  the  principle  had  been 
broadly  recognised  that  in  each  principality  the  prince  recognised  that  form 
of  religion  which  was  acceptable  to  himself.  None  of  the  emperors  had 
professed  Protestantism,  but  they  had  not  pressed  forward  the  papal  cause 
against  the  reformed  religion.  On  the  other  hand,  the  reformed  states  were 
divided  between  Calvinists  and  Lutherans,  who  were  hardly  less  hostile  to 
each  other  than  to  the  papacy.  In  the  Netherlands  the  contest  with 
Spain  had  reached  the  stage  at  which  it  was  all  but  certain  that  the 
Northern  Protestant  United  Provinces  would  secure  their  independence, 
while  the  Southern  Catholic  Provinces  would  remain  attached  to  the 
Spanish  dominion.  Spain  was  still  looked  upon  as  the  aggressive  champion 
of  Catholicism,  and  neither  she  nor  the  world  had  yet  realised  her  funda- 
mental weakness  or  awakened  to  the  fact  that  the  Austrian,  not  the  Spanish, 
Hapsburgs  constituted  the  real  menace  to  Protestantism.  The  keen  political 
instinct  of  Henry  IV.  did  indeed  recognise  the  growing  danger  to  Europe 
of  a  coalition  between  the  two  branches  of  the  house  of  Haph.burg ;  but 
his  schemes  for  an  opposition  League  were  destroyed  by  his  assassination 
in  1 6 10,  the  year  following  the  formal  suspension  of  hostilities  between 
Spain  and  Holland.  The  recognition  of  Ferdinand  of  Styria  as  heir  to  the 
Emperor  marked  the  approach  of  an  aggressive  Catholic  policy.  The 
kingdom  of  Bohemia,  which  for  some  time  past  had  been  attached  to  the 
house  of  Austria,  claimed  that  its  monarchy  was  elective  and  chose  for  its 
king  the  Protestant  Elector  Palatine  Frederick,  instead  of  Ferdinand. 
Ferdinand  asserted  his  own  claim,  and  so  in  161 8  began  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  a  struggle  mainly  between  the  Protestant  and  Catholic  states  of  the 
Empire,  in  which  the  Scandinavian  Powers  also  became  involved,  Spain, 
too,  intervening  on  behalf  of  the  Hapsburgs.  In  France  the  accession  of 
a  child,  Louis  XIII.,  had  put  the  government  into  the  hands  of  a  regency, 
and  that  country  became  entirely  absorbed  in  party  factions  and  intrigues 
among  the  nobles,  until  the  young  king  assumed  the  reins  of  government, 
and  called  to  his  aid  the  great  minister  Cardinal  Richelieu,  whose  ascendency 
dates  from  162  i.      It  became  Richelieu's  business  to  carry  on  the  suspended 

2  B 


386  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

work  of  Henry  IV.  by  establishing  the  supremacy  of  the  Crown  over  the 
nobles  in  France,  and  directing  an  anti-Hapsburg  foreign  policy.  As  matters 
stood,  the  most  troublesome  of  the  nobles  were  also  Huguenots  ;  and  thus 
the  civil  broils  in  France  assumed  superficially  the  appearance  of  a  religious 
struggle,  although  in  essence  it  was  political.  The  relations  of  England 
with  Spain,  France,  and  the  Palatinate,  between  1618  and  1630,  were  the 
main  cause  of  the  financial  difficulties  which,  along  with  the  religious  diffi- 
culty, brought  Crown  and  parliament  in  England  into  direct  hostility. 
After  that  date  the  domestic  discords  practically  prevented  England  from 
taking  any  part  in  Continental  affairs  until  after  the  Commonwealth  was 
established. 


II 

PURITANS,    ROMANISTS,    AND   THE   IMPOSITIONS 

The  accession  in  England  of  the  King  of  Scotland  was  marked  by  the 
discovery  of  two  conspiracies  known  respectively  as  the  Main  and  Bye 
plots.  The  object  of  the  Bye  plot  was  to  capture  the  person  of  the  new 
king  and  compel  him  to  make  concessions  to  the  Romanists.  The  object 
of  the  Main  plot  was  apparently  to  substitute  Arabella  Stuart  for  her 
cousin.  Neither  could  ever  have  had  the  remotest  chance  of  success,  and 
the  real  interest  of  the  Main  plot  lies  in  the  fact  that  Cecil  succeeded  in 
procuring  Walter  Raleigh's  condemnation  as  a  participator  in  it.  That 
crafty  politician  had  not  openly  been  on  hostile  terms  with  Raleigh,  but 
feared  his  rivalry,  and  therefore  compassed  his  removal  from  the  political 
world.  Raleigh  was  reprieved  at  the  last  moment,  and  was  shut  up  for  a 
dozen  years  in  the  Tower ;  where  he  passed  his  time  writing  a  History  of 
the  World,  making  chemical  experiments,  and  dreaming  of  Eldorado.  Cecil 
was  comfortably  secured  as  the  king's  right-hand  man. 

James  was  the  more  readily  accepted  in  England,  because  each  of  the 
religious  sections  hoped  for  alliance  with  him.  As  King  of  Scotland  he 
had  indubitably  intrigued  with  the  Catholics  abroad,  and  the  Romanists 
hoped  that  when  he  was  secure  upon  the  throne  the  penal  laws  would  at 
least  be  relaxed,  even  if  the  king  remained  professedly  a  Protestant.  On 
the  other  hand,  James  had  been  brought  up  by  teachers  of  the  school  of 
John  Knox  ;  and  English  Nonconformists  dreamed  that  he  would 
sympathise  with  their  grievances.  They  had  not  realised  his  conviction 
that  "  Presbyterianism  consorteth  with  monarchy  as  well  as  God  with  the 
Devil." 

Both  Nonconformists  and  Romanists  were  promptly  disillusioned. 
During  his  progress  from  the  North  James  was  presented  with  what  was 
called  the  Millenary  Petition,  signed  by  a  thousand  of  the  clergy,  praying 
for  a  relaxation  of  the  ecclesiastical  rules  as  to  vestments  and  ceremonies, 


RIGHT   DIVINE  387 

in  favour  of  the  Nonconformist  views.  The  petition  was  answered  by  the 
calling  of  the  Hampton  Court  Conference.  In  effect  the  king  presided 
over  an  assembly  of  bishops  to  whom  four  of  the  Nonconformist  clergy 
were  permitted  to  present  their  case.  In  all  but  minor  points  the 
Conference,  and  the  king  personally,  flatly  rejected  the  Nonconformist 
petition.  New  canons  were  promulgated  which  enforced  the  regulations 
upon  the  clergy  more 
strictly  than  before,  and 
some  hundreds  were 
driven  to  resign  their 
livings;  although  the 
great  majority  were 
able  to  reconcile  their 
consciences  to  the 
practices  enjoined,  such 
as  the  use  of  the  Sign 
of  the  Cross  in  Baptism 
and  of  the  ring  in  the 
Marriage  Service.  The 
vehemence  of  the  lan- 
guage of  the  king,  who 
had  not  forgotten  how 
Andrew  Melville  had 
addressed  him  as  "God's 
silly  vassal,"  was  a 
warning  to  the  Puritans 
that  they  had  nothing  to 
hope  for  from  the  new 
regime  even  more  em- 
phatic than  the  formal 
results  of  the  Confer- 
ence. Nevertheless, 
when  Parliament  met, 
it  was  obvious  that   the 


James  I. 
[From  a  contemporary 


graving.  ] 


s^mipathies  of  the  representative  chamber  w^ere  with  the  Puritans. 

On  the  other  hand,  James  had  many  reasons  for  wishing  to  conciliate 
the  Romanists.  He  was  not  only  sensibly  anxious  to  terminate  the  per- 
petually hostile  relations  with  Spain,  but  was  possessed  with  a  fear  of  that 
Power  very  much  greater  than  the  circumstances  at  all  warranted.  More- 
over, the  penal  legislation  of  Elizabeth's  later  years  was  of  an  extremely 
oppressive  character,  excusable  only  on  the  plea  that  Romanism  was  an 
insidious  political  danger.  Unfortunately,  colour  was  perpetually  given 
to  the  popular  suspicion  of  the  Romanists  by  reports  of  plots,  sometimes 
fictitious  but  sometimes  real,  for  which  not  the  body  of  Roman  Catholics 
but  a  few  zealots  were  responsible.     The  Main  and   Bye  plots  upset  the 


388  THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

king's  pacific  intentions  ;  and  before  he  had  been  a  year  on  the  throne 
all  Romanist  priests  were  banished  from  the  kingdom.  The  relaxation 
of  the  fines  imposed  on  the  laity  for  absenting  themselves  from  the  English 
church  service  led  to  a  great  increase  in  this  practice,  which  was  known 
as  Recusancy  ;  whereby  so  much  uneasiness  was  caused  that  after  another 
twelve  months  the  laws  were  again  enforced  with  their  old  rigour.  Again 
the  zealots  plunged  into  a  crazy  scheme  for  blowing  up  the  king  and  the 
Houses  of  Parliament  and  raising  the  country.  At  the  moment  when  the 
execution  of  the  plot  was  at  hand,  one  of  the  conspirators  gave  a  hint  to  a 
kinsman  of  his  who  was  a  peer  ;  and  he  also  conveyed  to  his  fellow-con- 
spirators  a   warning  to   escape  while  there  was  yet  time.     The  hint  was 


Christopher 
RoUrl  Wright 


John 


The  Gunpowder  Plot:  the  Conspirators. 

[From  a  contemporary  print  now  in  tiie  National  rortrait  Galle 


taken,  but  the  warning  was  not  acted  upon.  The  authorities  caught  Guy 
Fawkes  in  the  cellars  under  the  Houses  of  Parliament  surrounded  by 
barrels  of  gunpowder.  The  rest  of  the  plotters  were  also  captured  and 
killed.  Nothing  could  have  happened  more  fatal  to  the  cause  of  the 
Romanists.  Popular  terror  and  hatred  were  roused  to  the  utmost  pitch  by 
the  unparalleled  nature  of  the  crime  which  had  been  contemplated  ;  and 
for  a  century  to  come,  even  for  two  centuries,  a  rumour  of  a  "popish  plot  " 
was  all  that  was  required  to  create  a  popular  frenzy.  And  every  government 
which  displayed  a  disposition  to  relax  the  attitude  of  suspicious  severity 
towards  Romanist  practices  itself  became  the  object  of  acute  popular 
suspicion  if  not  of  angry  hostility. 

King  Henry  of  France  is  credited  with  having  summarised  the  character 
of  King  James  of  England  by  describing  him  as  "  the  wisest  fool  in 
Christendom."      He  was  well  versed  in  political  theory,  and  was  particularly 


RIGHT    DIVINE  389 

well  informed  as  to  European  affairs,  besides  being  endowed  with  a  very 
subtle  intellect.  Unfortunately,  he  was  in  love  with  his  own  subtlety,  and 
his  passion  for  craftiness  habitually  prevented  him  from  thinking  or  acting 
straightforwardly  ;  while  he  was  wholly  deficient  in  that  supreme  quality 
of  the  Tudors,  the  capacity  for  gauging  other  men's  brains  and  characters, 
and  for  reading  the  temper  of  the  people  over  whom  he  ruled.  The 
aims  that  James  set  before  himself  were  often  wise,  but  in  his  methods  he 
neglected  to  take  count  of  popular  feeling.  With  an  unbounded  belief  in 
his  own  intellectual  capacity,  he  w^as  extremely  opinionated  and  at  the 
same  time  very  easily  led  ;  while  those  by  whom  he  was  led  were,  at  least 
after  Robert  Cecil's  death,  the  very  worst  type  of  advisers — not  statesmen 
but  personal  favourites.  Hence  everything  he  attempted  to  do  was  spoilt 
in  the  execution. 

If  Romanists  and  Puritans  were  both  grievously  disappointed  in  King 
James,  he  himself  had  just  reason  for  disappointment  in  the  reception  of  his 
own  ideas  for  the  union  of  his  two  kingdoms.  In  both  England  and 
Scotland  there  had  in  the  past  been  statesmen  who  realised  that  the  incor- 
poration of  the  two  in  a  single  State  would  be  an  achievement  from 
which  both  would  benefit.  The  Union  of  the  Crowns  was  merely  a  step 
to  that  achievement,  making  it  impossible  for  the  two  nations  to  pursue 
hostile  foreign  policies.  The  foreign  policy  of  the  State  could  only  be  the 
foreign  policy  of  its  king.  Scotland  and  England  could  not  fight  each 
other,  except  on  the  hypothesis  that  one  or  other  was  in  a  state  of  rebellion 
against  the  king.  This  in  itself  was  a  great  gain,  but  was  very  far  from 
uniting  the  two  States  into  one  political  community  with  common  interests. 
That  was  the  consummation  desired  by  the  king,  but  the  nations  were  not 
yet  ready  for  it.  The  Scots  were  afraid  of  being  subordinated  to  the 
English,  and  the  English  were  in  no  hurry  to  admit  the  Scots  to  full 
English  citizenship.  The  countries  remained  separate  and  under  separate 
governments.  Scotsmen  indeed  planted  themselves  in  England  and  pros- 
pered greatly,  to  the  disgust  of  Englishmen  ;  but  practically  the  only  step 
towards  a  closer  union  was  the  dictum  of  the  judges,  that  persons  born  after 
the  Union  were  naturalised  subjects  on  the  soil  of  that  country  in  which 
they  had  not  been  born  ;  that  a  Scot  who  transferred  himself  to  England 
had  all  the  rights  of  an  English  citizen,  and  an  Englishman  transferring 
himself  to  Scotland  had  the  same  rights  as  if  he  had  been  born  a  Scot.  In 
practice  Englishmen  did  not  migrate  to  Scotland,  whereas  Scots  did  migrate 
to  England  in  considerable  numbers,  but  the  Union  hardly  tended  to  in- 
crease mutual  goodwill.  The  visitors  from  the  North  came  to  exploit 
England  for  their  own  benefit,  and  their  success  in  so  doing  was  not  popular. 

In  Ireland  it  may  be  claimed  that  matters  went  better  than  under  the 
Tudors.  Although  Tyrone  had  come  to  terms  with  the  English  government, 
his  character  and  ambitions  made  it  impossible  to  depend  on  his  loyalty. 
With  a  man  of  his  type  there  were  two  alternatives  ;  either  he  must  be 
treated  as  Henry  VII.  had  treated  the  old  Earl  of  Kildare,  and  be  practically 


390  THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

constituted  viceroy  of  Ireland,  or  he  must  be  completely  suppressed.  The 
Government  was  saved  from  the  dilemma  by  the  great  Earl's  flight  from 
the  country,  which  left  no  chief  powerful  enough  to  threaten  rebellion, 
especially  as  Tyrconnell  also  fled.  Both  were  held  guilty  of  treason,  and 
there  were  extensive  forfeitures  of  territories  in  the  North.  This  was  the 
origin  of  that  great  plantation  of  Scots  in  Ulster  which  did  so  much  to  give 
the  greater  part  of  that  province  its  distinctive  character,  intensified  by  the 
Cromwellian  settlement  half  a  century  later. 

From  the  very  outset  of  his  reign  James  showed  his  inability  to  grasp 
the  ideas  of  government  which  had  become  ingrained  in  the  English  people — 
ideas  which  were  thoroughly  understood  by  the  Tudors  and  which  none  of 
them  would  ever  have  been  tactless  enough  to  ignore.  The  axioms  of 
English  constitutionalism  had  never  so  much  as  presented  themselves  to 
the  mind  of  the  Scottish  king,  because  they  had  no  counterpart  in  the 
country  where  he  had  been  bred.  In  England  the  supremacy  of  law  was 
fundamental,  whereas  in  Scotland  arbitrary  jurisdictions  were  the  rule. 
Even  on  his  first  passage  through  the  northern  counties  James  had  horrified 
his  new  subjects  by  proposing  to  hang  a  pickpocket,  taken  in  the  act,  out 
of  hand,  without  trial.  In  somewhat  similar  fashion  he  came  into  collision 
with  his  first  parliament.  A  constituency  returned  as  one  of  its  members 
one  Goodwin,  who  had  been  outlawed.  The  election  would  have  been 
annulled  by  parliament  ;  but  parliament  protested  against  the  infringe- 
ment of  its  privileges  when  the  king  took  upon  himself  to  declare  the 
election  void — all  election  disputes  lay  in  their  right  to  settle.  When  the 
king  aired  his  theory  of  Divine  Right  and  pronounced  that  they  had  no 
rights  at  all  except  by  the  king's  grace,  they  replied  that  if  he  thought  that 
was  the  case  in  England,  he  had  been  "  misinformed."  This  privilege  of  the 
Commons  was  not  in  fact  again  brought  in  question  ;  but  the  incident 
illustrated  the  character  of  the  approaching  contest  between  the  Crown  and 
parliament.  The  two  parties  had  respectively  assumed  two  different 
theories  of  the  relation  between  Crown  and  parliament  which  could  by 
no  means  be  reconciled,  although  so  long  as  compromises  were  possible 
between  the  will  of  the  king  and  the  will  of  the  parliament  a  violent 
collision  might  be  deferred. 

Now  a  situation  had  been  reached  in  which  the  normal  expenditure  of 
the  Crown  largely  exceeded  the  normal  revenue.  The  Crown  had  to  face 
the  painful  truth  that  it  could  not  afford  to  set  parliament  at  defiance  unless 
it  could  obtain  additional  revenue  without  appealing  to  the  Commons  for 
supplies.  James  resorted  to  a  precedent  which  had  actually  been  set  in  the 
reign  of  Queen  Mary^  A  new  <'book  of  rates"  was  issued,  adding  to  the 
duties  at  the  ports  so  as  to  increase  the  revenue.  A  merchant  named  Bate 
refused  to  pay  the  new  rates  on  the  ground  that  they  were  illegal,  but  the 
judges  pronounced  that  the  "  Impositions"  as  they  were  called  were  within 
the  royal  prerogative.  The  Commons  passed  a  resolution  traversing  the 
decision  of  the  judges,  but  a  resolution  of  the  House  of  Commons  is  merely 


RIGHT   DIVINE  391 

an  expression  of  opinion  having  no  legal  force  ;  an  Act  of  parliament,  not 
a  resolution  of  one  House,  is  required  to  invalidate  the  judgment  of  the 
courts ;  and  until  such  an  Act  were  passed,  or  the  courts  reversed  their  own 
judgment,  the  decision  in  Bate's  case  established  the  legal  right  of  the 
Crown  to  vary  the  customs  duties  without  sanction  of  parliament.  Thus  a 
serious  constitutional  danger  was  revealed.  The  judges  held  office  by 
grace  of  the  Crown  ;  they  were  appointed  and  might  be  removed  at  the 
will  of  the  Crown  ;  and  so  long  as  this  should  be  the  case  there  was  obvi- 
ously a  strong  presumption,  without  imputing  wilful  dishonesty  to  the 
judges,  that  their  decisions  would  be  biassed  in  favour  of  the  Crown.  As 
concerned  the  particular  question,  the  extent  to  which  the  king  might  add 
to  the  Impositions  was  limited  only  by  the  endurance  of  the  House  and  of 
popular  feeling  ;  he  had  the  law  on  his  side,  but  if  he  strained  the  law  the 
consequences  might  be  disastrous. 

Cecil,  who  was  now  Earl  of  Salisbury,  sought  to  devise  a  remedy  by  a 
settlement  which  was  called  the  Great  Contract.  A  number  of  the  king's 
technically  valid  claims,  which  were  perpetual  sources  of  irritation  and 
friction,  were  to  be  commuted  for  a  fixed  annual  revenue,  these  claims 
including  the  Impositions  and  a  variety  of  feudal  dues.  The  scheme  seemed 
likely  to  go  through,  but  unfortunately,  while  it  was  under  consideration, 
both  sides  stiffened  in  their  demands,  and  the  Great  Contract  was  dropped, 
since  neither  would  give  way. 

The  result  was  that  for  many  years  James  made  shift  to  carry  on  the 
government  without  additional  supplies  from  parliament.  During  these 
years  the  Houses  were  only  once  summoned,  to  meet  in  what  was  called 
the  ''Addled  Parliament,"  because  it  was  dissolved  again  without  accom- 
plishing anything  whatever.  James  had  to  content  himself  with  employing 
every  colourable  legal  device  for  raising  money,  including  a  large  extension 
of  the  practice  of  granting  monopolies  or  exclusive  rights  of  production  and 
sale  of  particular  articles.  One  ingenious  scheme  deserves  special  notice. 
In  connection  with  the  colonisation  of  Ulster,  and  with  a  scheme  for  plant- 
ing Scottish  colonists  in  the  district  of  North  America,  to  which  the  name 
of  Nova  Scotia  or  New  Scotland  was  given,  the  king  created  a  new  order 
of  "baronets,"  bearers  of  a  hereditary  dignity  which  did  not  entitle  them 
to  rank  with  the  peers  of  the  realm,  while  it  carried  precedence  over 
knights.  But  the  new  dignity  was  conferred  not  as  a  reward  for  services, 
but  in  exchange  for  hard  cash. 

Ill 

THE   FOREIGN   POLICY   OF  JAMES   I. 

The  king's  foreign  policy  was  dominated  by  a  fear  of  Spain  which  was 
not  shared  by  the  English  people.  The  strife  which  had  continued  through 
the   last   years  of    Elizabeth  was  terminated    sensibly  enough   by  a  peace 


392  THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

almost  immediately  after  James's  accession.  But  James  was  possessed  by 
an  extravagant  obsequiousness  to  Spain,  which  led  to  one  of  the  most 
shameful  incidents  of  the  reign.  To  gratify  Spain  he  deliberately  sacrificed 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  Raleigh  was  liberated  from  the  Tower  with  a  per- 
mission to  seek  and  take  possession  of  a  hidden  land  of  gold  mines,  of 
whose  existence  he  had  heard  on  the  famous  expedition  to  the  Orinoco 
which  he  had  undertaken  in  Elizabeth's  reign.  But  he  had  strict  orders 
to  avoid  a  collision  with  the  Spaniards.  Every  one  concerned  was  perfectly 
well    aware     that    a    collision     with    the    Spaniards    would    be    absolutely 

inevitable.  Raleigh's  expedition  was  a 
failure,  and  the  inevitable  collision  took 
place.  On  his  return  he  was  arrested, 
and,  to  gratify  the  Spaniards,  was  ex- 
ecuted on  the  strength  of  his  ancient 
condemnation  for  complicity  in  the 
Main  plot.  At  the  time  of  Elizabeth's 
death  Raleigh  had  perhaps  been  the 
best  hated  man  in  the  kingdom  ;  but 
the  circumstances  of  his  trial  had 
caused  a  revulsion  of  sentiment  in  his 
favour ;  he  remained  the  incarnation  of 
the  old  popular  feehng  of  undying 
.hostility  to  Spain  ;  and,  by  sacrificing 
him  to  Spain,  James  turned  him  into  a 
popular  hero. 

James  in  fact  wished  to  keep  on 
good  terms  with  both  Catholics  and 
Protestants  on  the  Continent.  He 
could  not  realise  how  completely  the 
Spanish  Government  regarded  itself  as 
the  agent  of  Heaven  for  the  sup- 
pression of  heresy,  nor  the  intensity  of  religious  antagonisms,  and  he 
wanted  himself  to  be  regarded  as  a  Solomon  whom  every  one  would 
willingly  invite  to  arbitrate  upon  their  differences.  So  he  married  his 
daughter,  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  to  Frederick  the  elector  palatine,  the  head 
of  the  Calvinistic  princes  of  Germany.  He  would  have  tried  to  marry  his 
own  heir-apparent,  Prince  Henry,  to  a  Spanish  princess,  but  Henry  had 
made  to  himself  a  hero  of  Raleigh,  who  was  then  in  the  Tower,  and  would 
have  nothing  to  say  to  a  marriage  with  any  Romanist,  least  of  all  a 
Spaniard.  The  prince's  premature  death  in  1612  made  the  king's  second 
son,  Charles,  heir  to  tiie  throne,  and  presently  James  revived  the  idea  of 
a  Spanish  match,  which  was  one  of  his  motives  for  the  destruction  of 
Raleigh.  He  left  out  of  consideration  that,  on  the  one  hand,  Spain  cared 
nothing  for  the  match,  except  as  a  means  to  restoring  Romanist  pre- 
dominance in  England,  and,  on  the  other,  that  the  English  people  detested 


Henry  Frederick,  Prince  of  Wales,  died  161: 
[From  Drayton's  "  Polyolbion."] 


RIGHT    DIVINE  393 

the  idea  even  more  fervently  than  in  the  days  of  Queen  Mary.  These, 
he  held,  were  high  matters  of  State  on  which  the  people  had  no  right 
to  an  opinion.  As  f  r  Spain,  he  deluded  himself  with  the  belief  that 
she    would   be   quite    satisfied    with    liberty   of    conscience   for    Spaniards 


in  England,  and  some 
upon  English  Catholics. 
Now  matters  be- 
came alarmingly  com- 
plicated when  James's 
son-in-law,  the  elector 
palatine,  accepted  the 
crown  of  Bohemia, 
which  v;as  claimed  by 
Ferdinand,  the  emperor- 
elect.  The  action  of  the 
Bohemian  nobles  and  of 
Frederick  was  exceed- 
ingly questionable,  since 
the  Bohemians  had 
actually  pledged  them- 
selves to  accept  Ferdi- 
nand, and  had  broken 
that  pledge,  though  not 
without  some  excuse,  in 
offering  their  allegiance 
to  Frederick.  But  there 
was  the  plain  fact  that 
the  son-in-law  of  the 
King  of  England  was 
plunged  into  a  war  with 
the  head  of  the  Austrian 
Hapsburgs,  that  the 
Spanish  Hapsburgs  were 
in    alliance   with   their    cousins 


elaxation    of    the    pressure    of    the    penal    laws 


Dominions  of  Spanish  Hapsburgs 
Dominions  of  Austrian  Hapsburgs 
French  and  Imperii!  Boundaries 


European  Powers  in  1610. 


and  that  there  was  every  prospect  that 
Frederick,  instead  of  winning  the  Bohemian  crown,  would  be  deprived 
of  the  Palatinate.  There  was  also  a  further  probability  that  this  would  be 
only  a  step  to  an  onslaught  on  the  Protestant  princes  of  Germany,  who 
had  not  the  wisdom  to  suppress  their  own  quarrels  and  present  a  united 
front  to  the  impending  danger.  James  hated  war,  and  flattered  him- 
self that  he  could  detach  Spain  from  the  alliance  by  pressing  forward  a 
Spanish  marriage.  A  vigorous  interposition  might  have  effected  something, 
but  nothing  whatever  was  to  be  hoped  from  a  diplomacy  which  did  not 
rely  upon  armed  intervention  as  its  ultimate  argument.  Frederick's  forces 
met  with  a  severe  defeat  at  the  White  Mountain,  in  Bohemia,  and  Spanish 
troops  from  the  Netherlands  marched  into  the  Palatinate. 


394      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

If  James  was  to  save  his  son-in-law  from  complete  ruin,  it  was  quite 
clear  that  he  must  arm  ;  and  he  could  not  possibly  arm  without  assembling 
a  parliament  and  obtaining  supplies.  So  in  1621  parliament  was  sum- 
moned ;  its  last  predecessor  had  been  the  Addled  Parliament  of  1614.  As 
matters  stood  there  were  two  possible  war-policies  ;  one  was  to  take  an 
energetic  part  in  the  war  in  Germany,  the  other  was  to  attack  Spain.  The 
country  was  quite  willing  to  attack  Spain.  It  knew  little  and  cared  not 
much  more  about  Germany  ;  it  took  no  interest  in  the  king's  German  con- 
nections. But  if  there  was  going  to  be  a  stand-up  fight  between  Rome  and 
Protestantism,  the  traditional  course  for  England  was  to  fasten  itself  upon 
Rome's  traditional  champion,  Spain  ;  and  war  with  Spain  brought  com- 
pensation to  adventurers,  apart  from  the  comfortable  sense  that  it  was  a 
smiting  of  the  Amalekites  by  the  chosen  people. 

Parliament,  however,  had  not  yet  reached  the  stage  of  claiming  to  dictate 
the  particular  course  to  be  followed.  The  programme  set  before  it  was 
negotiation,  and  war  if  negotiation  failed.  It  professed  enthusiastic  accept- 
ance of  the  programme,  especially  the  second  part  of  it,  but  voted  by  no 
means  as  much  money  as  the  king  wanted,  being  very  far  from  confident 
that  the  subsidies  would  be  expended  to  its  satisfaction.  Having  voted  the 
money,  it  turned  to  accumulated  grievances — it  had  been  practically  silenced 
for  ten  years,  and  since  the  death  of  Salisbury  in  161  2  the  conduct  of  the 
administration  had  not  commended  itself  to  public  favour. 

Fortune  had  set  beside  the  king  a  counsellor  who  understood  the 
Tudor  principles  of  statesmanship.  But  King  James  was  far  too  sure 
of  his  own  supreme  wisdom  to  allow  himself  to  be  guided  by  the  wisdom 
of  Francis  Bacon,  while  he  allowed  himself  to  be  tricked  and  cajoled 
by  favourites,  to  whom  statesmanship  meant  nothing  but  personal  intriguing 
for  wealth  and  power.  Youthful  good  looks  provided  a  ready  passport 
to  the  royal  favour.  Cecil  had  known  how  to  keep  such  proteges  from 
becoming  too  influential  ;  the  man  who  had  destroyed  Essex  and  ruined 
Raleigh  knew  how  to  secure  his  own  ascendency.  But  after  Cecil's  death, 
he  who  desired  the  king's  favour  required  first  the  favour  of  the  king's 
favourites.  The  first  of  these  was  Robert  Kerr,  created  Earl  of  Somerset, 
who  was  fortunately  ruined  by  the  discovery  that  his  wife,  with  his  own 
connivance,  had  procured  the  murder  of  Sir  Thomas  Overbury,  who  had 
stood  in  the  way  of  her  divorce  from  the  Earl  of  Essex,  which  had  been 
a  necessary  preliminary  to  her  marriage  with  Kerr.  Somerset's  successor, 
with  all  his  faults,  remains  a  figure  with  a  certain  splendid  fascination 
if  only  by  reason  of  his  magnificent  arrogance.  George  Villiers,  famous 
as  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  won  the  affection  first  of  the  king  and  then 
of  his  son  Charles  by  his  personal  beauty  and  charm.  Fearless,  confident, 
and  entirely  self-centred,  he  never  dreamed  of  doubting  his  own  supreme 
capacity  as  a  statesman  and  as  a  soldier ;  though  politics  in  his  eyes  meant 
the  punishment  of  people  who  had  offended  him,  and  he  realised  no 
dilference  between  the  art  of  the  strategist  and  that  of  the  dueUist. 


I 


RIGHT   DIVINE  395 

But  the  country  had  not  yet  reahsed  that  Buckingham  was  the  king's 
evil  genius.  It  did  reahse  that  corruption  was  rampant.  It  fastened 
upon  monopolies  as  the  great  means  of  corruption,  and  the  Commons 
attacked  them  so  fiercely  that  Buckingham  made  a  virtue  of  resigning  those 
which  he  held  himself,  and  inducing  the  king  to  bow  to  the  storm  and 
abolish  them.  But  the  attack  went  further.  If  corruption  was  to  be 
effectively  dealt  with,  the  highest  game  should  be  aimed  at.  Francis 
Bacon,  Lord  St.  Alban,  was  the  Lord  Chancellor,  the  head  of  the  judicial 
administration,  and  the  Commons  were  angrily  confident  that  the  whole 
judicial  administration  was  corrupt.  Accord- 
ing to  the  exceedingly  pernicious  practice 
of  the  time,  every  judge  was  in  the  habit 
of  accepting  gifts  from  the  suitors  on  both 
sides.  The  obvious  inference  was  that  their 
decisions  were  likely  to  be  influenced  by  the 
relative  value  of  the  gifts.  In  the  same  way, 
it  may  be  remarked,  all  through  the  Tudor 
period,  English  statesmen  and  persons  of 
influence,  from  Wolsey  down,  were  in  the 
habit  of  receiving  gifts  and  honours  from 
European  potentates  ;  and  although  the 
thing  was  done  openly,  and  implied  nothing 
in  the  nature  of  a  bargain,  there  was  an 
obvious  danger  that  the  system  would  be 
utilised  for  purposes  of  corruption.  Bacon 
then  was  made  the  scapegoat  of  the  system 
by  the  House  of  Commons.  The  Lord 
Chancellor  was  impeached  and  condemned, 
although  there  was  no  evidence  that  he  had  ever  allowed  his  decisions 
to  be  affected  by  the  presents  which  he  received.  There  is  no  ground 
whatever  for  supposing  that  he  was  a  corrupt  judge  ;  but  he  lent  him- 
self to  a  system  which  tended  to  corruption  and  maladministration  of 
justice,  although  he  recognised  himself  that  a  high  standard  of  duty 
would  have  required  him  to  set  his  face  against  it.  He  admitted  the 
justice  of  his  own  punishment,  while  claiming  that  he  had  himself  been 
the  most  just  of  judges  since  his  father's  time.  His  fall  has  brought 
unmerited  obloquy  upon  his  name,  but  it  greatly  served  the  cause  of  justice 
generally.  Its  effect  may  be  measured  by  the  fact  that  since  his  day 
no  judge  has  ever  laid  himself  open  to  the  charge  of  receiving  bribes. 

Bacon's  impeachment  revived  a  practice  which  had  fallen  into  complete 
abeyance  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  War  of  the  Roses.  From  the 
impeachment  of  Lord  Latimer,  in  1376,  to  the  impeachment  of  Suffolk,  in 
1450,  the  Commons  had  employed  this  method  of  attacking  ministers, 
because  the  Commons  were  pressing  their  own  right  to  control  administra- 
tion.    The  revival  of  impeachment  meant  that  the  Commons  were  once 


Sir  Francis  Bacon,  Viscount  St.  Alban. 

[From  the  engraving  by  William  Marshall.] 


396      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

more  imbued  with  a  determination  to  enforce  that  right  ;  and  the  practice 
was  actively  continued  until  the  right  itself  had  become  thoroughly 
established  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

When  parliament  was  prorogued  in  the  summer,  it  w^as  still  hoped  that 
the  negotiations  would  be  sufficiently  fortified  by  the  proceedings  in  the 
House  to  make  actual  war  unnecessary.  But  matters  went  so  badly  for 
Frederick  that  the  prospect  of  persuading  his  enemies  to  come  to  terms 
vanished ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  year  parliament  was  again  summoned  in  a 
hurry  to  vote  supplies.  But  James  was  still  devoted  to  his  scheme  of 
detaching  Spain  and  inducing  her  to  join  England  in  bringing  pressure  to 
bear  on  the  Emperor  and  his  supporters.  The  Commons  detested  the  idea 
of  the  Spanish  marriage,  had  no  belief  in  the  possibility  of  detaching  Spain, 
and  were  extremely  averse  from  flinging  themselves  into  the  war  on  German 
soil  instead  of  devoting  the  country's  energies  to  a  maritime  attack  on  the 
traditional  enemy.  In  their  view  it  was  England's  business  to  stand  forth 
uncompromisingly  as  the  leader  of  the  Protestant  Powers  in  resistance  to 
the  Catholic  attack.  The  Commons  told  the  king  their  mind,  and  James 
wrathfully  told  them  in  return  to  attend  to  the  business  for  which  they  had 
been  summoned,  instead  of  expressing  opinions  upon  matters  which  were 
too  high  for  them.  They  replied  that  they  were  entitled  to  discuss  what- 
soever matters  they  thought  fit.  James  with  his  own  hands  tore  the  record 
of  their  resolution  out  of  the  journals  of  the  House,  and  dissolved  the 
parliament. 

Again  James  had  to  fall  back  on  such  shifts  for  raising  money  as  had 
been  declared  legal  by  the  Crown  lawyers.  He  reverted  to  a  demand  for 
benevolences,  concerning  which  they  had  pronounced  that  the  request 
might  legally  be  made  although  it  could  not  be  legally  enforced.  But  he 
could  not  in  this  fashion  furnish  forth  an  army  which  could  save  his  son- 
in-law.  He  devised  instead  the  farcical  scheme  of  despatching  the  Prince 
of  Wales  incognito,  accompanied  by  Buckingham,  with  false  beards  and 
other  simple  devices  for  concealing  their  identity,  to  Spain,  that  the  Prince 
might  woo  the  Infanta  in  person.  Thus  would  the  King  of  Spain  and  the 
Infanta  be  so  charmed  that  they  would  willingly  concede  every  request  of 
the  gallant  wooer.  Success  did  not  attend  this  ingenious  introduction  of 
comic  opera  into  high  politics.  The  prince  and  the  duke  got  themselves 
to  Spain  and  were  politely  welcomed.  The  Infanta  was  terrified  at  the  idea 
of  marrying  a  heretic ;  Charles  was  totally  unfitted  for  playing  the  part  of  a 
romantic  adorer,  and  Buckingham's  arrogance  enraged  the  entire  Spanish 
court.  The  conditions  of  the  marriage  proposed  from  England  were 
ridiculous  from  the  Spanish  point  of  view,  and  the  Spanish  conditions  were 
intolerable  from  the  English  point  of  view.  Prince  and  duke  returned  from 
Spain  full  of  fury  and  burning  for  war.  For  the  only  time  in  his  life 
Buckingham  became  popular. 

Now,  although  James  had  gone  hopelessly  astray  in  imagining  that  Spain 
could  be  detached  from  the  Catholic  combination,  he  understood  the  situa- 


RIGHT   DIVINE  397 

tion  better  than  his  subjects.  Either  the  Hapsbur^  CathoUc  combination 
must  be  split  up  or  a  powerful  anti-Hapsburg  league  must  be  formed, 
strong  enough  to  beat  it.  The  English  parliament  did  not  realise  the 
necessity  ;  it  thought  only  of  applying  the  old  Elizabethan  method  of  send- 
ing supports  to  the  United  Provinces,  which  were  now  fighting  the  Spaniards 
again,  and  of  renewing  the  maritime  war  upon  Spain.  James  then  turned 
to  the  policy  of  a  French  alliance  and  a  French  marriage,  since  the  Spanish 
alliance  and  the  Spanish  marriage  had  been  put  out  of  court.  But  the 
French  marriage  also  involved  that  toleration  for  Romanists  in  England 
which  was  an  abomination  in  the  sight  of  English  Puritanism.  Parliament, 
summoned  again,  though  ready  for  a  Spanish  war,  viewed  the  proposals 
for  a  P'rench  marriage  with  extreme  suspicion  ;  and  was  not  at  all  inclined 
to  vote  the  huge  supplies  necessary  for  a  great  German  campaign,  and  for 
providing  the  subsidies  which  were  needed  to  induce  the  Lutheran  princes 
of  Germany  to  take  the  part  of  the  Calvinist  elector  palatine.  The  supplies 
voted  were  insufficient  ;  and  when  parliament  had  been  prorogued,  the 
proposed  marriage  was  negotiated  between  Charles  and  the  French  King's 
sister  Henrietta  Maria.  But  to  carry  through  the  negotiations,  Buckingham 
made  concessions  on  the  Catholic  question  which  rendered  it  impossible 
for  him  to  face  parliament  again  with  demands  for  m.ore  money.  Parlia- 
ment was  not  again  summoned,  and,  although  there  was  no  money, 
Buckingham  promised  it  right  and  left  and  plunged  into  war  without  the 
means  to  carry  it  on.  There  was  just  enough  in  the  treasury  to  pay  for 
raising  and  despatching  to  Holland  a  force  of  a  few  thousand  men  ;  but 
when  they  got  there  they  were  left  to  starve.  In  a  few  weeks  three-fourths 
of  them  were  dead  or  dying  from  starvation,  cold,  or  pestilence.  Just  at 
this  point  the  old  king  died.  For  some  time  past,  however,  he  had  been 
entirely  in  Buckingham's  hands,  and  Buckingham  was  no  less  omnipotent 
with  the  ill-fated  Prince  of  Wales,  who  now  ascended  the  throne  as 
Charles  I. 

IV 

BUCKINGHAM 

The  situation  was  an  awkward  one  for  the  new  king.  He  was  on  the 
point  of  marrying  his  French  bride,  and  his  subjects  had  still  to  learn  how 
pledges  made  to  them  had  been  traversed  by  the  promises  made  to  the  French 
king.  He  was  in  desperate  need  of  money  to  carry  on  the  war  in  which 
Buckingham  had  involved  the  country,  and  the  last  incident  of  the  war  had 
been  an  ugly  disaster  brought  about  by  the  grossest  mismanagement.  An 
appeal  to  parliament  could  not  be  long  deferred,  and  parliament  was  abso- 
lutely certain,  when  called,  to  make  itself  unpleasant  about  the  duke.  The 
duke  might  despise  it,  but  it  held  the  purse-strings. 

The  king  did  not  summon  parliament  till  his  marriage  was  an  accom- 


398  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

plished  fact.  He  would  have  to  break  some  promises,  whether  those  made 
to  England  or  those  made  to  France ;  but  Henrietta  Maria  was  irrevocably 
his  wife,  though  it  was  an  ill  day  for  England  that  had  made  her  queen  to 
succeed  Buckingham  as  the  king's  evil  genius.  Parliament  met,  angry  and 
suspicious.  It  had  separated  a  twelvemonth  before,  expecting  to  be 
summoned  in  the  winter  to  provide  for  a  campaign  in  the  direction  of 
which  it  would  have  a  considerable  voice.  It  had  not  been  summoned, 
and  Buckingham  wrought  irremediable  mischief,  with  no  one  to  criticise  or 

denounce.  Criticism  and  denuncia- 
tion were  forthcoming  now.  The 
war  was  there,  and  the  war  must 
go  on,  but  not  under  Buckingham's 
direction  ;  it  would  be  preposterous 
to  vote  huge  sums  of  money  and 
see  them  recklessly  squandered  with 
no  results.  Until  the  Commons 
saw  their  way  and  knew  what  was 
to  be  done, until  Buckingham  ceased 
to  dominate  the  stage,  they  would 
only  vote  just  enough  money  for 
safety.  They  would  grant  two  sub- 
sidies, that  is  to  say,  ^140,000. 
When  Buckingham  was  removed, 
they  would  consider  further  sup- 
plies, but  not  till  then.  The  king 
was  indignant.  What  right  had  the 
Commons  to  dictate  to  him  the 
ministers  in  whom  he  was  to  trust  ? 
He  trusted  Buckingham,  and  would 
not  dismiss  him.  Instead  he  dis- 
solved parliament ;  at  worst  he 
had  the  two  subsidies  to  go  on 
with,  besides  tonnage  and  poundage  which  had  been  granted  for  a  year. 

With  the  money  in  hand,  Buckingham  organised  an  expedition,  not  to 
Holland,  but  against  Spain.  At  Cadiz,  Drake  had  ''  singed  the  king  of 
Spain's  beard";  at  Cadiz,  Raleigh  and  Essex  had  again  dealt  Spain  a 
crushing  blow  ;  Cadiz  was  to  be  the  scene  of  another  glorious  triumph. 
But  Buckingham  had  no  Raleighs  or  Drakes  to  do  his  work.  While  he 
went  off  to  Holland  to  negotiate  with  German  princes,  his  expedition  went 
to  Cadiz  with  crews  collected  by  pressgangs,  and  captains  who  knew 
nothing  of  their  business.  Having  gone  to  Cadiz,  they  came  home  again 
ignominiously,  having  escaped  worse  disaster  chiefly  because  they  had  not 
attempted  to  do  any  fighting.  It  seemed  more  evident  than  ever  that 
nothing  could  be  done  until  parliament  could  be  cajoled  out  of  supplies. 
A  second  parliament  was  summoned  ;  Charles  hoped  to  make  it  amenable 


George  Villiers,  Duke  of  Biickinghnm  (1592-162S). 
[After  the  painting  by  Mierevelt.] 


CHARLES    I 
From  the  original  painting  by  Van  Dyck  at  Windsor. 


RIGHT   DIVINE  39^ 

by  making  sheriffs  of  the  most  prominent  leaders  of  the  opposition  to 
Buckingham,  and  thereby  disquaUfying  them  for  election.  Their  absence 
only  gave  a  greater  prominence  and  a  wider  influence  for  a  more  pure- 
souled  patriot  than  any  of  them,  Sir  John  Eliot.  The  new  parliament  refused 
to  discuss  supplies  until  grievances  had  been  redressed.  Charles  had  no 
talent  for  cajolery  or  conciliation  ;  he  replied  by  threats.  The  Commons 
retorted  by  resolving  to  impeach  Buckingham.  The  peers  were  no  friends 
to  the  duke,  and  Charles  was  driven  to  quash  the  proceedings  by  dissolving 
parliament. 

But  how  was  Charles  to  raise  money  ?  Buckingham  was  now  athirst 
for  military  glory,  and  war  is  an  expensive  pastime  ;  not  the  less  expensive 
when  the  policy  of  its  managers  varies  from  month  to  month.  However, 
the  resources,  as  it  seemed,  had  not  been  exhausted.  The  king  had  a  right 
to  levy  tonnage  and  poundage;  at  least  it  had  been  granted  for  life  to  every 
other  king  for  two  hundred  years  past,  although  Charles's  own  first  parlia- 
ment had  granted  it  only  for  a  year  and  the  second  parliament  had  been 
dissolved  without  granting  anything  at  all.  Benevolences  were  illegal  ;  at 
least  in  their  legal  non-compulsory  form  they  were  non-productive.  Still, 
compulsory  loans  might  be  demanded,  and  the  demand  would  be  difficult 
to  resist.  So  it  proved  ;  but  when  the  demand  came  before  the  Chief 
justice  he  pronounced  it  illegal  ;  whereupon  he  was  removed  from  office. 

Meanwhile  Buckingham  had  been  demonstrating  afresh  his  lack  of  the 
elements  of  statesmanship.  England  had  no  conceivable  justification  for 
going  to  war  at  all  with  anybody,  except  in  defence  of  the  king's  brother- 
in-law,  which  was  excusable  for  family  reasons,  or  in  the  championship  of 
Protestantism  against  aggressive  Romanism,  the  deliverance  of  Europe  from 
a  threatened  Hapsburg  domination.  There  was  one  Power,  France,  which 
could  not  indeed  be  naturally  drawn  into  a  Protestant  league  as  such,  but 
whose  interests  were  entirely  opposed  to  Hapsburg  aggression.  There 
was  every  possible  reason  for  preserving  at  the  very  least  friendly  relations 
with  France.  But  Buckingham  chose  to  quarrel  with  France,  where 
Richelieu's  government  was  embarrassed  by  the  semi-religious  civil  war 
brought  on  by  the  antagonism  between  the  Crown  and  the  Huguenot 
nobility.  The  seaport  of  La  Rochelle  had  always  been  a  Huguenot  strong- 
hold of  the  first  importance.  It  was  now  undergoing  a  siege.  Buckingham, 
neglectful  alike  of  Spain  and  the  Palatinate,  resolved  to  intervene  in  France 
with  a  personally  conducted  expedition,  which  was  to  relieve  La  Rochelle 
by  capturing  the  Isle  of  Rhe.  The  duke  was  no  better  fitted  to  command 
than  to  organise  a  great  military  expedition.  The  Isle  of  Rh6  venture 
was  merely  a  variation  on  the  two  previous  ventures  which  had  collapsed 
so  ignominiously.  Half  the  expeditionary  force  died,  and  the  rest  came 
home  again  defeated  and  savage. 

But  the  whole  business  was  something  more  than  another  military  failure 
to  be  added  to  Buckingham's  account.  It  had  been  made  possible  only  by 
the  forced  loans   for  pronouncing  which   illegal   Chief  Justice  Crewe  had 


400  THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

been  removed  from  his  office.  Men  of  position  who  refused  to  pay  had 
been  arbitrarily  imprisoned  by  the  Council  ;  poor  men  who  refused  to  pay 
had  been  forced  to  serve  in  the  expedition.  Grumblers  had  been  penalised 
by  having  troops  billeted  upon  them,  and,  wherever  troops  were  concerned, 
martial  law  was  allowed  to  supersede  civil  law.  Among  the  men  who  had 
been  thrown  into  prison,  five  knights  had  demanded  a  writ  of  Habeas 
Corpus,  requiring  that  they  should  be  brought  up  for  trial  ;  but  the  writ 
had  been  refused,  the  judges  declaring  that  the 
king  had  power  to  refuse  a  trial. 

The  circumstances  were  not  favourable  for  the 
summoning  of  a  parliament,  yet  the  king  dared 
no  longer  to  struggle  on  without  the  substantial 
supplies  which  it  was  impossible  to  obtain  without 
a  parliamentary  grant.  Charles  summoned  his 
third  parliament,  and  it  met  in  angry  mood.  The 
solid  ranks  of  the  opposition  were  led  by  the  dark 
figure  of  Thomas  Wentworth,  by  Sir  John  Eliot, 
the  fiery  and  single-minded  champion  of  liberty, 
and  by  John  Pym,  clear-headed,  unimpassioned, 
but  immovable  as  Wentworth  himself.  For  the 
moment  the  attack  was  not  directed  against  Bucking- 
ham. Personal  questions  were  to  be  subordinated 
to  a  direct  and  decisive  assertion  of  fundamental 
principles. 

According  to  the  now  accepted  practice,  the 
presentation  of  grievances  preceded  the  discussion 
of  supply.  The  Commons  formulated  their  demand 
in  the  Petition  of  Right.  There  was  to  be  no 
martial  law  in  time  of  peace.  Soldiers  were  not 
to  be  miscellaneously  billeted,  and  wherever  they 
were  quartered  they  must  pay  their  way.  No  man 
was  to  be  compelled  to  make  or  yield  any  "gift, 
loan,  benevolence,  tax,  or  suchlike  charge  "  without 
common  consent  by  Act  of  parliament.  No  freeman  was  to  be  im- 
prisoned  except  on  cause  shown,  or  was  to  be  detained  in  prison  without 
trial.  If  these  principles  were  established  by  Statute,  it  seemed  to  the 
leaders  of  the  Commons  that  the  endangered  liberties  of  the  nation  would 
be  safeguarded.  With  that  security  they  were  prepared  to  vote  as  much 
as  five  subsidies,  or  ;{^3 50,000. 

The  questions  of  billeting  and  martial  law  presented  no  serious  dif^- 
culties  to  the  mind  of  the  king.  There  were  loopholes  in  the  clause 
concerning  taxation,  which  it  was  rather  his  business  to  avoid  pointing 
out,  so  that  it  would  be  wise  to  accept  that  clause  without  too  much 
demur  ;  but  he  was  exceedingly  reluctant  to  give  way  on  the  point  of 
arbitrary  imprisonment.     The  Lcttrc  de  Cachet  was  being  used  by  Richelieu 


A  Cavalier  of  1620. 
[From  Skelton's  "Armour."] 


RIGHT    DIVINE  401 

in  France  as  a  very  powerful  instrument  for  the  repression  of  the  nobility, 
and  the  concentration  of  power  in  the  hands  of  the  Crown.  In  England 
the  judges  had  just  affirmed  that  it  was  within  the  royal  prerogative  to 
order  the  imprisonment  of  the  J^ing's  subjects  without  stating  any  charge 
against  them.  If  a  charge  were  stated  they  could  demand  to  be  tried  on 
that  charge ;  if  no  charge  were  stated  they  could  claim  neither  trial 
nor  release.  The  principle  at  stake  was  absolutely  vital.  The  Lords 
supported  the  Commons,  and  the  king  found  himself  obliged  to  give 
way.  The  Petition  of  Right  took  its  place  in  the  Statute  Book,  the 
subsidies  were  voted,  bonfires  blazed,  and  joybells  pealed.  England 
imagined  that  the  victory  of  the  Commons  was  won. 

England  was  mistaken.  The  battle  was  but  just  joined.  Charles  had 
given  way  for  the  moment  in  order  to  get  his  subsidies  ;  means  would 
be  found  for  making  the  Petition  of  Right  a  dead  letter  or  something 
very  near  it.  At  the  moment,  however,  the  Commons  proceeded  to  the 
serious  business  of  attacking  Buckingham,  which  had  only  been  postponed 
because  the  assertion  of  principles  demanded  the  leading  place.  A 
Remonstrance  was  drawn  up  which  was  in  fact  a  detailed  indictment  of 
the  duke  and  a  demand  for  his  removal.  But  Charles  was  amenable  only 
so  long  as  his  treasury  was  empty.  He  met  the  Remonstrance  by  pro- 
roguing parliament,  and  ostentatiously  displaying  his  confidence  in  the 
duke.  A  new  expedition  was  already  in  preparation  for  the  relief  of 
La  Rochelle,  and  Buckingham  was  sent  down  to  Portsmouth  to  take 
command  of  the  fleet.  The  Petition  of  Right  received  the  royal  assent 
on  June  7th,  the  subsidies  were  voted  on  the  12th,  and  on  the  26th 
parliament  was  prorogued. 

In  the  interval  between  these  two  latter  dates  the  fact  that  peace  had 
not  been  achieved  became  manifest.  Parliament  proceeded  with  the 
deferred  attack  upon  Buckingham  by  drawing  up  its  Remonstrance,  and  it 
also  proceeded  with  a  bill  to  grant  the  king  tonnage  and  poundage  for  one 
year.  Now  in  this  lay  the  crux  of  the  financial  question.  Was  it  or  was 
it  not  within  the  king's  right  to  levy  that  impost  ?  Parliament  assumed 
that  it  was  not.  The  king  assumed  that  it  was.  Hitherto  he  had  acted  on 
that  assumption  throughout  his  reign.  The  claim  of  the  Commons  was  an 
exceedingly  doubtful  one.  In  the  first  place,  for  two  hundred  years  the 
grant  had  been  made  as  a  matter  of  form  at  the  beginning  of  every  reign 
for  the  whole  period  of  the  reign.  Even  if  it  were  assumed  that  the 
Commons  had  never  technically  surrendered  their  right  to  withhold  that 
grant,  the  attempt  to  exercise  a  technical  right  which  had  been  in  abeyance 
for  two  hundred  years  was  doubtfully  constitutional.  Further,  the  Law 
Courts  were  the  appointed  authority  for  interpreting  the  law  ;  in  Bate's 
case  the  judges'  decision  for  the  Crown  covered  tonnage  and  poundage. 
The  Commons  had  indeed  passed  a  traversing  resolution,  but  the  resolution 
of  one  chamber  could  not  override  the  authority  of  the  Courts.  Thirdly, 
when  the  Commons  in  1625  had  departed  from  precedent  and  made  the 

2  C 


402 


THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 


grant  for  one  year  only,  the  Lords  had  rejected  the  bill  because  of  the 
unconstitutional  limitation.  Obviously  then  the  king  had  an  exceedingly 
strong  case  for  his  view.  Further,  if  tonnage  and  poundage  fell  within 
the  prerogative  before  the  Petition  of  Right,  no  difference  was  made  by  the 
Statute ;  because  according  to  the  king's  argument,  and  according  to  the 
claim  of  the  Commons  in  presenting  the  petition,  it  deprived  the  king  of 
no  existing  prerogatives,  but  was  an  Act  declaratory  of  the  existing  law. 

No  mention  had  been  made  in  the  petition 
itself  of  indirect  taxes,  but  only  of  specified 
forms  of  taxation  against  which  the  Com- 
mons had  an  adequate  case  as  being 
opposed  to  constitutional  practice.  The 
only  possible  retort  for  the  Commons  was 
that  the  phrase  "or  other  such  charge" 
was  intended  to  cover  indirect  taxation  ; 
that  the  king  was  perfectly  well  aware 
that  this  was  the  meaning  of  the  Commons  ; 
and  that  in  assenting  to  the  petition  he 
was  accepting  the  doctrine  of  the  Com- 
mons that  the  legal  decision  in  Bate's  case 
had  been  wrong  and  that  the  practice  of 
two  hundred  years  had  not  deprived  the 
House  of  a  right  which  it  had  always  held 
in  reserve.  To  the  plain  man  the  plain 
fact  would  appear  to  be  that  both  the 
Crown  and  the  Commons  shirked  the 
issue  in  the  Petition  of  Right,  and  left  the 
taxation  clauses  intentionally  indefinite, 
because  each  party  intended  to  insist  on 
its  own  interpretation  of  the  indefinite 
phrase  as  part  and  parcel  of  the  terms 
on  which  the  subsidies  had  been  granted. 
Each  hoped  indirectly  to  score  the  victory  on  the  vital  point  which  both 
thoroughly  recognised.  The  king  would  be  completely  under  the  financial 
control  of  the  Commons  if  he  had  annually  to  obtain  their  authority  for 
levying  indirect  taxes ;  which  was  precisely  what  the  Commons  were  bent 
on  securing  and  the  king  was  bent  on  avoiding. 

Such,  then,  was  the  position  of  affairs  when  the  House  of  Commons 
sent  up  its  Tonnage  and  Poundage  Bill  accompanied  by  a  declaration 
that  the  levying  of  the  impost  without  parliamentary  authority  had 
been  illegal.  The  king  met  the  Commons  with  a  flat  refusal  to 
accept  the  bill,  or  to  surrender  his  constitutional  right  to  levy  tonnage 
and  poundage  without  parliament's  consent.  He  was  able  to  do  so, 
because  the  subsidies  were  already  secured.  The  weight  of  opinion 
undoubtedly  favours   the    view  that   Charles  was  technically  in  tlie   right, 


An  Infantryman  of  1 62 5. 
[  Kiom  Skelton's  "  Armour."] 


RIGHT   DIVINE  403 

and   that   on    this   question   the   Commons   were   the   innovators,   not    the 
Crown. 

Nor  was  this  the  only  blow  suffered  by  parliament  in  the  month  of 
June  1628.  Both  in  the  first  and  in  this,  the  third,  parliament  of  the  reign, 
the  foremost  champion  of  the  Commons  and  the  foremost  enemy  of 
Buckingham  had  been  Thomas  Wentworth.  A  week  after  the  Petition  of 
Right  became  law,  Wentworth's  colleagues,  comrades,  and  followers  learnt 
with  dismay  and  alarm  that  he  had  been  created  a  baron,  which  could  only 
mean  that  he  had  left  the  leadership  of  the  Commons  to  enter  the  service 
of  the  Crown.  The  moment  when  he  resolved  on  the  momentous  change, 
and  his  motives  for  making  it,  are  so  obscure  that  they  present  an  almost 
insoluble  riddle.  The  leading  champion  of  popular  liberties,  the  most 
implacable  foe  of  the  Buckingham  regime,  the  man  most  feared  by  the 
court,  was  suddenly  transformed  into  the  most  relentless  champion  of  the 
royal  power  since  Thomas  Cromwell,  and  the  most  contemptuous  of  parlia- 
mentary rights.  And  the  change  took  place,  not  after  Buckingham's  fall, 
but  at  the  moment  when  he  was  in  the  zenith  of  his  power.  No  explana- 
tion at  all  is  even  plausible,  unless  we  assume  that  Wentworth  had  con- 
vinced himself  that  Buckingham's  fall  was  imminent ;  for  it  was  equally 
impossible  that  he  should  have  hoped  to  supplant  Buckingham  in  the 
king's  favour  by  his  own  influence,  or  that  he  should  have  been  prepared 
to  act  either  as  the  subordinate  or  the  colleague  of  the  duke  ;  nor  is  it  less 
impossible  that  a  man  of  his  character  could  have  been  bribed  by  a  title 
to  change  sides.  He  must  have  reckoned  that  th3  combination  of  arro- 
gance and  incompetence  in  the  duke  were  making  his  fall  daily  more  in- 
evitable. He  must  have  been  confident  that  he  himself  would  secure  the 
position  of  the  supreme  minister.  We  may,  then,  adopt  the  view  of  his 
old  comrades  and  colleagues,  that  if  he  had  any  principles  he  sank  them  to 
gratify  personal  ambition,  seeing  himself  a  mightier  man  as  the  king's 
minister,  without  a  rival  among  the  minions  of  the  Court,  than  as  sharing 
the  leadership  of  the  people  with  Eliot  and  Pym.  We  may,  as  an  alternative, 
believe  that  Wentworth  was  a  patriot  who,  coming  to  man's  estate  in  the 
year  of  the  Addled  Parliament,  became  firmly  convinced  that  the  increasing 
claims  of  the  Crown  must  be  curbed  ;  that  he  held  to  that  conviction,  and 
strove  his  hardest  for  the  legitimate  authority  of  parliament  until  the  full 
claims  for  liberty  were  formulated  in  the  Petition  of  Right.  Just  at  this 
stage  he  realised  that  a  balance  of  parliamentary  and  royal  powers  was  un- 
attainable ;  that  the  hot-headed  Eliot  and  the  cold-hearted  Pym  would  end  by 
creating  a  parliamentary  tyranny ;  that  the  one  chance  for  the  country  was 
for  a  strong  man  to  come  to  the  support  of  the  Crown,  to  render  it  absolute, 
and  to  provide  the  brain  and  hand  which,  when  the  Crown  was  once 
made  absolute,  should  render  despotism  beneficent.  There  is,  in  fact, 
nothing  incredible  about  the  development,  in  a  statesman  of  the  first  rank, 
of  a  change  from  a  democratic  to  an  absolutist  attitude,  of  a  gradual 
passage  from  one  political  pole  to  the  other.     The  amazing  thing  about 


404      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

Wentworth  is  that  the  change  of  attitude  was  made  in  a  week,  and  the 
change  was  to  all  appearance  a  total  reversal.  But  finally,  it  is  conceivable 
that  Wentworth  took  the  same  view  of  the  Petition  of  Right  itself  as  the 
king,  that  he  never  intended  a  further  limitation  of  the  prerogative,  and 
that  the  attitude  of  his  colleagues  on  the  Tonnage  and  Poundage  Bill  not 
only  failed  to  command  his  adherence,  but  drove  him  into  the  opposite 
camp.  Whatever  explanation  we  may  adopt  of  Wentworth's  conduct,  the 
fact  remained  that  he  aroused  in  his  old  colleagues  an  overwhelming  inten- 
sity of  hatred  as  the  supreme  traitor  and  apostate.  **  You  have  left  us," 
said  Pym  to  him — so  runs  the  story — some  four  months  later  ;  "  we  will 
never  leave  you  while  your  head  is  on  your  shoulders." 

Not  perhaps  in  the  fashion  that  Wentworth  had  anticipated  the  blow 
fell  which  hurled  Buckingham  out  of  his  path.  A  certain  John  Felton  had 
served  as  a  lieutenant  in  the  Cadiz  Expedition.  When  Buckingham's  force 
went  to  the  Isle  of  Rhe,  he  had  asked  for  a  captaincy,  which  the  duke 
scornfully  refused  him.  Thence  he  had  returned  to  England  brooding 
over  his  personal  wrongs,  sick  at  heart,  and  savage,  like  all  his  comrades, 
over  the  sufferings  and  the  disgrace  in  which  the  whole  force  had  been 
involved.  Touched  with  religious  mania,  he  became  possessed  with  the 
idea  that  he  was  the  appointed  destroyer  of  the  detested  enemy  of  the 
people.  At  Portsmouth  he  succeeded  in  making  his  way  into  Buckingham's 
apartments  and,  as  the  duke  stepped  out  of  his  room,  stabbed  him  to  the 
heart.  The  assassin  was  seized  and  haled  away  to  his  doom  ;  he  had 
done  his  work  of  deliverance,  and  it  was  nothing  to  him  that  his  own  life 
was  forfeit  ;  nay,  it  was  his  privilege  to  have  smitten  down  the  tyrant  and 
the  oppressor,  and  for  that  his  own  life  was  a  light  enough  price  to  pay. 
All  over  England  the  news  of  his  deed  was  hailed  with  an  outburst  of 
savage  jubilation  which  was  never  forgotten  or  forgiven  by  the  king  who 
had  loved  his  splendid  favourite  as  he  never  loved  another  man. 


PURITANISM 

On  the  question  of  arbitrary  imprisonment  it  appeared  that  the 
Commons  had  won  their  battle.  On  the  question  of  taxation,  it  was  made 
abundantly  clear  at  the  moment  of  the  prorogation  that  they  had  not  won. 
But  there  was  a  third  question  with  regard  to  which  there  had  not  as  yet 
been  a  violent  collision  between  the  Crown  and  the  Commons,  but  which 
nevertheless  had  been  for  some  lime  past  fermenting  in  men's  minds,  and 
was  now  about  to  be  placed  in  the  forefront  of  dispute.  This  was  the 
religious  question.  And  here,  as  in  the  question  of  taxation,  we  have  to 
realise  that  tlie  quarrel  arose  because  the  Crown  strained,  in  defiance  of 
popular  sentiment,  powers  which  the  Tudors  had  exercised  almost  without 


RIGHT   DIVINE 


405 


queslion,  because  both  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth  had  been  careful  not  to 
go  beyond  tlie  limits  of  popular  acquiescence.  And  in  this  respect  James  I. 
had  on  the  whole  followed  the  example  of  his  predecessors. 

In  England  the  country,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  had  accepted  the 
general  principles  that  uniformity  of  religion  was  to  be  enforced,  that  the 
formulae  of  uniformity  must  have  the  sanction  of  the  State,  and  that  the 
supreme  ecclesiastical  authority  of  the  State  was  the  Crown.  The  Crown 
preserved  the  old  episcopal  organisation  of  church  government  as  a  matter 
of  course.  The  uniformity  which  was  insisted  on  permitted  of  a  wide 
latitude  of  doctrine  and  of  an  appreciable 
variety  in  ceremonial.  With  this  the  mass 
of  the  people  had  been  content.  The  limit 
of  latitude  in  the  direction  of  Roman 
doctrine  was  set  primarily  by  the  an- 
tagonism to  the  assertion  of  any  claim 
to  authority  within  the  realm  by  any  ex- 
ternal potentate, whether  spiritual  or  secular. 
When  the  popular  mind  learnt  to  associate 
particular  doctrines  or  practices  with  alle- 
giance to  the  pope,  it  became  hotly  an- 
tagonistic to  those  doctrines  and  practices. 
In  the  other  direction,  the  popular  mind 
was  generally  disposed  to  resent  an  attitude 
which  challenged  lawful  authority.  Popular 
sentiment  sympathised  with  demands  for 
increased  latitude,  but  not  with  their  aggres- 
sive expression,  and  so  long  as  Noncon- 
formity was  unaggressive,  popular  sentiment 
was  opposed  to  its  aggressive  repression. 

Now  popular  opinion  had  approved  or  acquiesced  in  the  rigorous  re- 
pressive action  of  the  State  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  at  the  time  of  the 
Martin  Mar-Prelate  pamphlets,  when  Nonconformity  adopted  a  violently 
aggressive  attitude  and  thereby  lost  the  popular  sympathy  which  was  being 
drawn  to  it  in  reaction  against  the  arbitrary  methods  of  Whitgift  and  the 
Court  of  High  Commission.  The  Hampton  Court  Conference  on  the  other 
hand,  with  its  immediate  results,  made  the  set  of  popular  feeling  favourable 
to  the  Nonconformists.  Gunpowder  Plot,  the  Catholic  marriage  projects, 
and  the  attempts  to  relax  the  penal  laws  against  Romanists,  all  tended  to 
foster  and  intensify  the  alarmed  hatred  of  Romanism  and  the  unpopularity 
of  the  specific  doctrines  and  practices  which  were  looked  upon  as  akin  to 
those  of  Rome.  But  what  King  James  cared  about  most  was  insistence  on 
the  authority  of  an  episcopate  intimately  associated  with  the  monarchy  ; 
and  during  the  greater  part  of  his  reign  bishops  as  a  body  were  rather 
Calvinistic  in  their  theology,  and  were  not  irritatingly  strict  in  their  insist- 
ence on  unpopular  details  of  ceremonial. 


[rrom  a  miniature  drawing  by  Mntthew 
Snelling,  1647.] 


4o6  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

Thus  circumstances  combined  to  develop  Puritanism.  Now  the 
essential  characteristic  of  Puritanism  is  the  vivid  consciousness  of  an 
immediate  personal  relation  between  the  individual  and  his  Maker,  which 
recognises  no  mediator  between  God  and  man  except  the  Son  of  God,  who 
is  both  God  and  man.  No  Church,  no  hierarchy  of  saints,  can  be  inter- 
posed between  the  soul  and  God.  There  is  no  ordained  channel  for 
the  Divine  Grace,  which  must  be  sought  directly  by  prayer  and  the  study 
of  God's  Word,  God  revealed  in  the  Scriptures.  Of  that  Word  there  is  no 
infallible  interpreter  ;  the  only  interpreter  is  thgfeindividual  himself,  guided 
by  the  Spirit  of  God.  The  individual,  therefore,  must  in  all  things  be 
guided  by  the  inward  monitor.  Puritanism  is,  in  short,  the  principle  of 
individualism  carried  to  its  highest  pitch  in  matters  of  religion. 

But  Puritanism  in  the  seventeenth  century,  when  it  searched  the 
Scriptures,  turned  to  the  Old  Testament  rather  than  the  New.  It  believed 
very  emphatically  in  prophets,  and  its  prophet  par  excellence  was  Calvin, 
Its  primary  dogma  was  that  of  Predestination,  a  grim  creed  which  tends 
to  make  its  adherents  absolutely  fearless  of  what  man  can  do  to  them,  but, 
while  it  fills  them  with  the  fear  of  God,  does  not  greatly  tend  to  inspire 
them  with  a  love  of  His  creatures.  So  Puritanism  dwells  upon  the  Power 
of  an  offended  God  and  the  Righteousness  of  His  Judgments  rather  than 
upon  His  Love  and  His  Mercy.  And  an  Old  Testament  Puritanism 
contained  a  grave  element  of  political  danger  to  monarchy  ;  since  neither 
the  institution  of  monarchy  among  the  Hebrews  nor  its  persistence,  nor  the 
attitude  of  the  Prophets  to  the  Kings,  suggest  a  high  conception  of 
royalty. 

Logically  it  would  appear  that  Puritanism  ought  to  be  tolerant.  If 
there  is  no  authority  except  Scripture,  and  no  interpreter  of  Scripture  ex- 
cept the  individual,  there  can  be  no  arbiter  between  individuals,  no 
one  who  can  impose  his  own  judgment  upon  his  neighbour,  and  every 
man  must  be  left  to  follow  his  own  conscience.  Accordingly  it  was 
among  the  Puritans  that  the  doctrine  of  toleration  was  first  maintained 
as  distinct  from  the  doctrine  of  comprehension.  Unqualified  toleration 
leaves  opinion  absolutely  free.  A  qualified  toleration  may  repress  tiie  ex- 
pression of  opinions,  not  on  the  ground  that  they  are  false,  but  because 
their  dissemination  is  injurious  to  public  order;  on  the  ground,  that  is,  not 
of  religious  truth  but  of  political  expediency.  Comprehension,  on  the  other 
hand,  draws  a  distinction  between  things  fundamental  and  things  indifferent, 
and  is  under  no  obligation  to  tolerate  variations  of  opinion  with  regard  to 
fundamentals.  Comprehension,  not  toleration,  is  the  normal  attitude  of  a 
State  Church.  But  the  Puritan  may  interpret  his  position  in  two  ways.  If 
he  admits  his  own  fallibility,  he  is  logically  bound  to  leave  to  his  neighbour 
the  same  right  of  private  judgment  which  he  claims  for  himself.  Yet  the 
Puritan  may  claim  infallibility  for  himself,  having  assurance  of  the  direct 
guidance  of  the  Spirit.  It  follows,  then,  that  any  one  who  thinks  differently 
from  himself  is  not  under  the  guidance  of  the  Spirit,  and  therefore  has  no 


RIGHT    DIVINE  407 

claim  to  toleration.  Hence  Puritanism  could  also  display  a  supreme 
intolerance,  rendered  additionally  offensive  by  its  egotism.  Again,  Puritan- 
ism is  not  essentially  connected  with  any  particular  form  of  ecclesiastical 
organisation.  It  is  perfectly  compatible  with  an  Episcopalian,  a  Presby- 
terian, or  a  Congregational  system.  It  can  accept  creeds  infinitely  various. 
We  may  then  sum  up  the  Puritanism  of  the  seventeenth  century  by 
saying  that  it  w^as  predestinarian  in  its  creed,  that  it  drew  its  public  morals 
from  the  Old  Testament,  that  its  personal  morals  were  of  an  extreme 
austerity,  and  that  it  identified  the  Papacy  with  the  Scarlet  Woman  of  the 
Apocalypse.  It  w-as  disposed  to  be  anti-prelatical,  partly  because  it  regarded 
the  old  system  as  being  too  nearly  akin  to  that  of  Rome,  partly  because  the 
Episcopate  was  presented  as  a  means  of  subjecting  the  things  of  the  Spirit 


tK«  Ak'ny 


Westminster  in  the  time  of  Charles  I. 

[From  a  print  by  Hollar.] 

to  the  arm  of  the  flesh  ;  whereas  the  Puritan  advocates  of  Presbyterianism 
regarded  that  system  as  a  means  of  subjecting  the  arm  of  the  flesh  to 
spiritual  control.  But  Puritanism  was  not  to  be  identified  with  Presby- 
terianism, nor  did  it  become  definitely  antagonistic  in  England  to  the 
episcopal  system  until  the  Episcopate  itself  took  on  a  new  colour  in  the 
reign  of  Charles  I, 

The  head  and  front  of  the  movement  in  the  Church  which  aroused  the 
bitter  hostility  of  Puritanism  was  William  Laud,  who  was  raised  to  his  first 
bishopric,  that  of  St»  Davids,  by  James  I.  under  pressure  from  Buckingham 
and  the  Prince  of  Wales.  The  old  king  yielded  to  the  young  men,  but  not 
without  a  warning  grumble  that  trouble  wxDuld  come  of  it,  not  in  his  day  but 
in  theirs.  Just  so  also  he  warned  them  against  their  folly  in  encouraging 
the  impeachment  of  Middlesex,  the  Treasurer,  who  was  opposed  to  the  war 
with  Spain  on  which  the  duke  and  the  prince  as  well  as  the  Commons  had 
set  their  hearts.  They  would  find  they  had  more  than  enough  of  impeach- 
ments without  going  out  of  their  way  to  encourage  them. 


4o8  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

The  old  king's  warning  came  true.  In  his  time  Puritanism  in  general 
acquiesced  sombrely  while  appointments  were  given  to  prelates  with  Puritan 
sympathies.  A  few  of  that  sect  who  called  themselves  Independents  de- 
manded a  liberty  of  worship  which  they  could  only  obtain  by  migrating  to 
Holland  or  Denmark,  and  when  a  band  of  them,  joined  by  some  associates 
from  England,  sailed  in  the  Mayflower  and  set  up  in  North  America  that 
community  which  became  the  nucleus  of  the  New  England  States,  they 
were  readily  granted  a  charter,  as  having  provided  an  outlet  for  a  class  of 
persons  who  were  rather  troublesome  to  the  authorities  ;  but  a  more  active 

interference  with  the  liberty  of  worship 
was  required  at  home  before  a  demand 
for  greater  freedom  gave  a  strong  im- 
pulse to  emigration.  The  pressure  came 
when  Charles  ascended  the  throne  and 
the  higher  ecclesiastical  appointments 
were  habitually  appropriated  to  the  dis- 
ciples of  that  school  of  which  Laud  was 
the  leader. 

The  laxity  of  discipline  prevalent 
under  King  James  disappeared.  The 
lower  clergy  took  their  tone  from  the 
fathers  of  the  Church.  Breaches  of  the 
law  were  no  longer  overlooked  or  con- 
doned. Unfamiliar  doctrines  were  heard 
from  the  pulpits.  Sermons  became  ex- 
positions of  the  divine  authority  of  kings. 
The  accustomed  dogma  of  predestina- 
tion began  to  be  displaced  in  the  pulpits 
by  those  less  rigid  views  which  are  called 
Arminian  from  their  great  exponent  the  Dutch  Doctor  "  Arminius."  The 
new  school,  while  repudiating  the  Roman  authority,  emphasised  the  claim  of 
the  Church  in  England  to  be  a  branch  of  the  Catholic  Church,  while  denying 
that  title  to  those  Churches  which  had  not  maintained  the  continuity  of 
episcopal  ordination.  They  emphasised  tradition,  the  authority  of  the  early 
fathers,  and  the  rulings  of  the  four  first  General  Councils.  To  the  Puritans  all 
these  things  were  the  inventions  of  priestcraft,  innovations,  insidious  methods 
by  which  English  Protestantism  was  to  be  seduced  into  the  snares  of  Rome. 
Each  one  of  Charles's  parliaments  lifted  up  its  voice  against  the  new  teachers, 
and  still  while  old  Archbishop  Abbott  remained  the  Primate  the  Crown 
seemed  likely  to  be  restrained  from  using  the  Ciiurch  as  its  own  instrument. 
But  in  1628  control  over  the  licensing  of  publications  was  transferred 
from  the  archbishop  to  a  commission  which  was  practically  managed  by 
Laud,  who  was  made  Bishop  of  London.  An  attack  in  the  Commons  upon 
Mainwaring  and  Montague,  two  of  the  clergy  who  had  just  identified  them- 
selves with  the  most  extreme  doctrines  of  Absolutism  as  a  part  of  the  Divine 


Archbislmp  Laud. 
[After  the  portrait  by  Vandyck.] 


RIGHT   DIVINE  409 

Order,  was  followed  by  the  promotion  of  both.  The  king  had  made 
the  Church  his  ally  in  the  constitutional  struggle,  while  parliament  and 
Puritanism  were  ranged  together  in  antagonism  to  the  Crown  and  to 
the  authority  of  the  bishops  represented  by  Laud. 


VI 


RULE   WITHOUT   PARLIAMENT 

The  prorogued  parliament  assembled  again  early  in  1629.  Buckingham 
was  dead,  but  Wentworth  was  already  a  minister  of  the  Crowai,  having 
been  appointed  to  the  Presidency 
of  the  Council  of  the  North. 
Montague,  censured  by  the  Com- 
mons, had  been  preferred  to  the 
Bishopric  of  Chichester.  Laud's 
activities  as  the  new  Bishop  of 
London  were  in  full  play.  The 
king  had  been  levying  tonnage 
and  poundage  as  in  the  past  ;  the 
goods  of  sundry  merchants  had 
been  seized  on  their  refusal  to 
pay  the  duty,  and  among  them 
was  a  member  of  parliament, 
John  Rolles.  In  the  existing 
state  of  tension  it  was  easy 
enough  for  the  Commons  to  be- 
lieve that  they  had  been  tricked 
and  betrayed  by  the  king.  The  king  had  a  still  better  right  to  declare  that 
his  own  conduct  had  been  unimpeachable,  and  that  the  attitude  of  the 
Commons  was  wholly  unconstitutional. 

The  elasticity  of  an  unwritten  constitution  enables  the  machinery  to 
work  with  an  admirable  ease  so  long  as  mutual  understanding,  good  temper, 
and  the  spirit  of  accommodation  prevail.  But  now  questions  had  come  to 
the  front  with  regard  to  which  the  respective  powers  of  the  Crown  and  the 
parliament  were  debatable,  each  side  being  determined  to  push  its  own 
claim  to  the  utmost.  Instead  of  mutual  understanding  there  was  mutual 
distrust,  and  both  sides  were  irritated  and  out  of  temper.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  king  was  more  disposed  to  accommodation  than  the  exasperated 
Commons,  who  adopted  a  directly  provocative  course  ;  and  both  Commons 
and  king  went  on  to  set  the  conventions  of  the  constitution  at  naught. 

The  Commons  opened  by  declaring  themselves  to  be  in  effect  the 
judges  of  what  was  or  was  not  orthodox  in  religion,  and  attacked  the 
"innovations"    of   the   clergy  who   had  reverted    to    customs  which   were 


A  lady  in  her  chair. 
[From  a  MS.  (1603-1638)  in  the  Sloane  Collection,  British  Museui: 


410  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

looked  upon  as  papistical.  They  summoned  the  innovators  to  give  an 
account  of  themselves  before  the  House,  and  in  the  meantime  turned  their 
attention  to  tonnage  and  poundage.  The  king  had  made  the  offer,  reason- 
able enough  in  itself,  that  if  the  Commons  would  act  according  to  precedent 
and  vote  him  the  duties  for  the  term  of  the  reign,  he  would  waive  the 
question  of  right.  This  was,  in  fact,  the  vital  question,  and  it  was  the  issue 
on  which  Pym  wished  to  fight ;  for,  unless  the  Commons  could  recover 
that  control  over  tonnage  and  poundage  which  had  been  in  abeyance  for 
two  hundred  years,  the  king  would  be  able  to  command  a  sufficient 
revenue  to  carry  on  the  government  after  a  fashion  without  appealing  to 
parliament  for  aid.  But  Pym  was  overruled  by  Eliot,  and  the  Commons 
elected  to  fight  on  the  question  of  privilege  involved  by  the  seizure  of  the 
goods  of  a  member  of  parliament.  The  officers  who  had  seized  the  goods 
were  summoned  to  the  bar  of  the  House  ;  the  king  forbade  them  to  obey 
the  summons,  since  they  had  only  acted  in  obedience  to  his  orders.  He 
ordered  the  House  to  adjourn  till  March  2nd.  In  the  interval  he  en- 
deavoured to  negotiate  with  leading  members.  The  negotiations  failed. 
When  the  House  met,  Eliot  moved  three  resolutions  :  against  innovations 
in  religion  and  the  introduction  of  unorthodox  opinion  ;  against  all  persons 
who  should  be  concerned  in  the  levying  of  tonnage  and  poundage  without 
direct  parliamentary  sanction  ;  against  all  persons  who  should  pay  tonnage 
and  poundage  if  it  should  be  so  demanded.  All  such  persons  were  declared 
to  be  enemies  of  the  king.  Before  the  resolution  could  be  moved  the 
Speaker,  Finch,  announced  that  he  had  orders  to  adjourn  the  House  again. 
But  two  of  the  members  held  him  forcibly  in  the  chair.  The  House  broke 
out  into  wild  disorder  ;  one  of  the  members  locked  the  door  and  put  the 
key  in  his  pocket.  When  comparative  calm  had  been  restored,  the  Speaker 
refused  to  put  the  resolutions  to  the  House.  The  king's  troops  were 
approaching  to  compel  the  assembly  to  disperse.  While  the  Speaker  was 
held  in  the  chair.  Holies,  a  member,  read  the  resolutions.  They  were 
carried  by  acclamation.  Then  the  doors  were  unlocked  and  the  members 
poured  out.  Their  dispersion  was  followed  by  the  announcement  that  the 
parliament  was  dissolved. 

Eleven  years  passed  before  another  parliament  met.  The  king  took  his 
stand  upon  his  legal  rights.  The  Petition  of  Right  did  not  bar  him  from 
exercising  to  the  full  the  statutory  powers  of  tlie  arbitrary  Courts  which 
could  override  the  Common  Law — the  Courts  of  Star  Chamber,  of  High 
Commission,  and  of  the  Councils  of  the  North  and  of  Wales.  These  Courts 
were  in  effect  ready  to  do  the  Royal  bidding.  For  the  punishment  of  Eliot 
and  his  most  prominent  supporters  it  was  unnecessary  to  appeal  even  to 
those  Courts.  They  were  charged  in  the  King's  Bench  with  riot  and  sedition. 
They  pleaded  privilege  of  parliament,  declaring  that  the  House  alone  had 
jurisdiction  with  regard  to  matters  which  took  place  in  parliament.  The 
objection  was  overruled  on  the  ground  that  riot  and  sedition  could  not  be 
a  part   of  parliamentary  proceedings.     Eliot   refused  to   admit   the   juris- 


RIGHT   DIVINE  411 

diction,  and  was  tlirown  into  prison,  where  he  was  shamefully  treated,  and 
died  after  three  years. 

The  resolutions  of  the  House  of  Commons  could  not  touch  the 
actual  legality  of  the  levying  of  tonnage  and  poundage,  and  the  Courts 
maintained  that  the  Petition  of  Right  covered  only  those  forms  of  direct 
taxation  which  were  specifically  enumerated  therein.  The  king  then  could 
carry  on  his  government  after  a  fashion,  by  straining  to  the  utmost  every 
right  which  the  Courts  would  maintain,  but  only  with  a  strictly  economical 
expenditure.  To  carry  on  Buckingham's  French  war  was  impossible,  and 
terms  of  peace  were  soon  arrived  at,  since  the  war  itself  was  a  quite  un- 
justifiable intervention  on  the 
part  of  England  in  French 
affairs.  Richelieu  was  victorious 
over  the  Huguenots,  but  he 
used  his  victory  with  unexpected 
moderation,  maintaining  the 
principle  of  toleration.  English 
Protestantism  was  therefore  not 
irritated  by  the  peace.  Inter- 
vention in  Germany  was  also 
not  possible,  but  this  mattered 
the  less,  because  in  1630  Gus- 
tavus  Adolphus  of  Sweden,  the 
greatest  soldier  of  the  day,  threw 
his  sword  into  the  Protestant 
scale.  Thenceforth  England  and 
Scotland  were  affected  by  the  Thirty  Years'  War  only  because  a  large 
number  of  adventurers,  principally  Scots,  learnt  the  art  of  war  as  mercenaries 
in  the  armies  of  the  Swedish  king. 

For  the  first  few  years  of  his  government  without  parliament  Charles 
was  indebted  to  the  ingenious  financial  management  of  his  Treasurer, 
Weston,  who  discovered  fresh  legal  devices  for  procuring  funds,  and  suc- 
cessfully prevented  the  king  from  plunging  into  impossible  expenditure. 
Weston  was  the  useful  man  of  business  who  found  the  supplies  for 
carrying  on  the  king's  government ;  the  government  itself  was  carried 
on  mainly  by  Wentworth  and  Laud. 

The  Council  of  the  North  had  been  established  in  the  time  of  Henry  VIII. 
to  replace  the  old  system  of  government  of  the  Border  Counties — in 
other  words,  of  England  north  of  the  H umber.  Its  institution  had  been 
the  outcome  of  the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace.  It  had  been  endowed  with 
large  arbitrary  powers,  and  the  sway  of  its  president  was  now  almost 
despotic.  Wentworth  was  a  despot  who  ruled  without  fear  or  favour,  but 
crushed  all  opposition  with  an  iron  hand.  As  between  subjects,  he  enforced 
law  untouched  by  considerations  of  the  wealth,  power,  or  influence  of  the 
persons  concerned.     As  between  the  Crown  and  the  subject,  he  enforced 


The  Old  "  Star  Chamber." 
[Pulled  down  after  the  burning  of  old  Houses  of  Parliament.] 


412 


THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 


the  will  of  the  government  without  any  respect  to  law  at  all.  Between 
subjects,  stern  impartial  justice  was  to  be  dealt  out  ;  between  Crown  and 
the  subject,  justice  was  not  in  question ;  all  that  the  subject  received  was 
by  grace  of  the  Crown.  In  the  north  of  England,  however,  Wentworth's 
rule  was  brief ;  in  1633  he  was  transferred  to  Ireland. 

In  Ireland  Wentworth  played  the  despot  very  much  to  the  benefit 
of  the  country  in  v^hich  he  ruled.  Comparative  peace  had  indeed  de- 
scended on  the  land  since  the  stormy  days  of 
Elizabeth  ;  but  it  was  an  ill  ordered  peace.  In 
Wentworth's  view,  what  the  country  needed  was 
a  ruler  with  an  iron  will  and  an  efficient  army 
to  enforce  that  will.  Resistance  was  to  be  paralysed, 
and  justice  was  to  be  dealt  out  on  the  lines  already 
described.  Disorder  and  violence,  except  violence 
in  the  king's  service  or  by  the  king's  servants,  was 
to  be  sharply  repressed  and  punished.  Magnates 
were  to  find  no  favour  merely  because  they  were 
magnates.  The  great  lesson  to  be  inculcated  was 
that  of  obedience  to  the  supreme  authority.  Went- 
worth could  not  dispense  with  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment, but  he  could  make  it  subservient.  He  got 
from  it  the  money  which  enabled  him  to  muster 
and  train  a  disciplined  army.  Competent  men 
were  appointed  to  administrative  offices  ;  under 
the  Deputy's  fostering  care  industry  and  com- 
merce began  to  flourish  as  they  had  never 
flourished  before ;  in  particular  the  Irish  linen 
manufacture  began  to  aciiieve  that  pre-eminence 
which  it  has  maintained  ever  since. 

But  the  fatal  flaw  in  Wentworth's  system  lay 
in  his  principle  that  neither  law  nor  promises 
were  binding  on  the  Crov/n.  What  Wentworth 
thought  good  to  do,  that  he  did,  though  it  might 
involve  the  breaking  of  solemn  pledges.  The  general  result  was  that 
Wentworth  made  himself  absolute  master  in  Ireland,  and  had  in  his  own 
hands  probably  the  most  efficient  military  force  in  the  three  kingdoms. 
The  Ireland  over  which  he  ruled  was  rapidly  achieving  a  material  prosperity 
for  which  there  was  no  precedent  ;  but  it  was  an  Ireland  which  felt  itself 
to  be  enslaved,  and  the  greater  part  of  Ireland  preferred  its  accustomed 
anarchy  to  a  prosperous  slavery. 

While  the  one  strong  man  on  the  king's  side  was  ruling  in  Ireland  on 
the  principles  which  he  called  by  the  name  of  "Thorough,"  an  obstinate 
man  was  controlhng  the  king's  ecclesiastical  counsels  in  England,  also  on 
the  principles  of  Thorough.  Laud,  who  became  archbishop  at  about  the 
time    when    Wentworth    went    to    Ireland,   was    bent    on   establishing   the 


A  Pikeman,  1635. 
[From  Skelton's  "  Armour."] 


RIGHT    DIVINE  413 

supremacy  of  his  own  ecclesiastical  views,  views  which  were  detestable  in  the 
eyes  of  the  whole  body  of  Puritans.  While  he  was  Bishop  of  London  he 
had  been  content  to  enforce  a  strict  conformity  throughout  his  own  diocese, 
while  his  power  was  otherwise  felt  chiefly  through  the  supreme  influence 
which  he  exercised  in  the  control  of  ecclesiastical  preferments  which  were 
confined  to  the  men  of  his  own  school.  As  archbishop  he  exercised  to  the 
full  the  authority  of  the  Primate  of  England.  The  clergy  were  required  to 
encourage  the  treatment  of  Sunday  as  a  Feast  Day,  which  to  the  Puritan 
was  scandalous.  The  Communion  Table  of  the  Puritan  churches  again 
acquired  the  character  of  an  Altar.  Every  detail  of  the  ritual  which  Laud 
himself  loved  was  forced  upon  the  Puritan  clergy,  and  those  who  were 
recalcitrant  were  fined  or  deprived.  Quite  erroneously,  belief  gathered 
ground  that  Laud  was  preparing  the  way  for  a  reunion  with  Rome.  True, 
he  had  rejected  the  cardinal's  hat  which  had  twice  been  offered  to  him, 
but  the  popular  mind  seized  upon  the  fact,  not  that  it  had  been  rejected 
but  that  it  had  been  offered.  The  conventional  English  Puritanism 
was  based  upon  what  may  be  called  the  No  Popery  sentiment  more 
than  upon  any  reasoned  theological  convictions,  and  nothing  was  more 
certain  to  arouse  popular  hostility  than  an  alarm  of  Popery.  The  con- 
ventional Puritanism  had  not  yet  assumed  the  garb  of  ascetic  austerity  ; 
there  had  been  no  demonstrations  when  John  Prynne  was  first  penalised 
for  making  a  violent  attack  upon  the  stage  and  all  its  works  ;  but  now 
when  he  and  two  other  Puritans  were  set  in  the  pillory  for  writing  violent 
pamphlets  against  the  Church  Government,  the  victims  of  the  Court  of 
High  Commission  received  a  popular  ovation.  Laud's  innovations  or 
revivals  had  set  the  Puritan  tide  flowing. 

Weston's  financial  devices  were  impolitic,  mainly  because  they  were 
palpable  tricks  which  happened  to  touch  in  an  irritating  manner  classes  of 
the  community  whose  goodwill  the  king  would  have  done  well  to  cultivate. 
Thus  he  had  enraged  the  whole  group  of  moderate  landowners  by  dis- 
covering that  all  who  had  a  ^40  holding  had  been  legally  bound  to  take 
up  knighthood  at  the  king's  coronation,  and  were  technically  liable  to  a 
heavy  fine  (which  was  now  enforced)  if  they  had  neglected  to  do  so.  But 
Weston's  methods  were  strictly  within  the  letter  of  the  law  ;  no  one  could 
claim  that  they  w^ere  illegal.  Now,  although  there  was  peace  with  France 
there  were  some  alarms  lest  the  peace  should  not  last,  and  the  Government 
became  anxious  to  strengthen  the  fleet  for  coast  defence.  All  precedent 
warranted  the  issuing  of  an  order  to  the  ports  to  provide  ships,  or  a  cash 
equivalent  for  ships,  for  this  purpose,  when  war  was  in  progress  or  was 
imminent.  Ship-money,  therefore,  was  levied  on  the  ports  in  accordance 
with  precedent.  But  Weston  died  in  1635,  and  the  counsellors  about  the 
king's  person  were  mere  courtiers.  The  king  wanted  more  money  and 
more  ships,  and  an  order  was  issued  contrary  to  all  precedent  requiring 
inland  towns  to  pa}^  ship-money.  There  was  no  answer  to  the  argument 
that  naval   defence  ought  to  be  paid  for  by  inland  towns  just  as  much  as 


414  TPIE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

by  seaports  ;  but  there  was  also  no  answer  to  the  other  argument,  that  no 
law  or  precedent  could  be  found  for  imposing  this  particular  tax.  The 
demand  was  immediately  challenged ;  the  king  obtained  from  the  judges  a 
decision  in  his  favour,  the  weight  of  which  was  materially  diminished  by 
the  fact  that  in  the  course  of  the  reign  three  judges  had  been  suspended  or 
dismissed  for  giving  decisions  adverse  to  the  king.  The  pronouncement, 
however,  was  published  all  over  the  country,  but  the  authority  for  collecting 
the  levy  was  directly  challenged  by  John  Hampden,  who  carried  the  case 
before   the   Court   of   Exchequer.     Of    the    twelve   judges,   five   supported 

Hampden,  but  of  the 
five,  three  did  so  on 
purely  technical 
grounds.  Seven  main- 
tained the  claim  of  the 
Crown,  on  the  express 
ground  that  the  Crown 
had  the  right  to  de- 
mand whatever  money 
was  required  for  the 
defence  of  the  realm, 
and  that  it  lay  with  the 
Crown  to  judge  what 
money  was  required 
for  that  purpose.  It 
was  palpable  that  if 
that  judgment  held 
good  there  was  no 
limit  to  the  amount  of 
money  that  Charles 
could  raise  on  the  pretext  that  it  was  required  for  the  defence  of  the 
realm.  Yet  the  nation  could  only  rage  in  silence  ;  it  had  no  mouthpiece, 
for  it  had  no  parliament. 

But  we  must  turn  now  to  those  complications  in  the  northern  kingdom 
of  Scotland  which  at  last  drove  Charles  once  more  to  summon  an  English 
parliament. 


Cheapside  and  the  Cross  in  i 


[From  a  conteirporary  account  of  the  entry  of  Marie  of  Medici,  mother  of  Henrietta 
Maria,  Queen  of  Charles  I.,  into  London.] 


VII 


SCOTLAND 


In  England  the  system  of  government  was  fixed  partly  by  statutes 
explicitly  defining  the  respective  powers  of  the  Crown  and  of  the  Estates 
or  parliament,  and  partly  upon  conventions.  There  was  no  question 
in  the   mind  of  any   man  that  the  explicit  provisions  of  the  statutes  viusf 


RIGHT    DIVINE  415 

not  be  over-ridden  ;  there  was  no  question  that  an  established  convention 
ought  not  to  be  over-ridden.  A  constitutional  problem  was  presented  only 
when  the  real  bearings  of  the  convention  were  a  matter  of  doubt,  when 
the  Crown  exercised  in  defiance  of  the  popular  will  powers  which  had 
hitherto  been  exercised  in  conformity  with  the  popular  will.  The  system, 
that  is,  worked  satisfactorily  so  long  as  Crown  and  parliament  were  in 
agreement ;  when  they  were  in  disagreement  disputes  arose  as  to  the 
actual  extent  of  the  powers  which  the  conventions  conveyed  to  one  party 
or  the  other.  But  in  England  there  existed  in  parliament  a  definite 
body  which  was  the  legal  mouthpiece  of  public  sentiment  ;  a  body  more- 
over which  could  compel  the  Crown  to  give  at  least  a  degree  of  considera- 
tion to  popular  sentiment  through  its  power  of  withholding  additional 
supplies,  of  which  the  Crown  habitually  stood  in  need  over  and  above 
its  normal  revenue. 

Now  in  Scotland  there  was  no  such  balance  of  constitutional  powers  ; 
parliamentary  institutions  were  undeveloped.  There  was  a  parliament,  but 
in  practice  it  had  become  a  body  merely  for  registering  the  decrees  of 
the  Government.  The  Government  itself  was  conducted  through  the 
committees  which  had  been  known  as  the  Lords  of  the  Articles,  whose 
composition  was  very  largely  controlled  by  the  faction  among  the  nobles 
which  was  for  the  time  being  in  the  ascendant.  The  dissensions  and 
rivalries  of  the  magnates  had  then  enabled  the  ''  kingcraft "  of  King  James 
VI.  to  convert  the  governing  body  into  a  privy  council  of  the  Crown's 
own  nominees.  The  parliament  was  practically  powerless,  because  the 
small  public  expenditure  made  the  Crown  virtually  independent  of  the 
control  exercised  in  England  by  a  body  which  could  refuse  supplies  until 
grievances  were  considered.  The  body  most  nearly  representative  of 
popular  feeling  was  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Kirk,  which  possessed 
neither  legislative  nor  financial  powers.  The  weak  point  in  the  absolutism 
of  the  Crown  lay  in  the  difficulty  of  enforcing  its  will  upon  defiant  or 
reluctant  magnates  who  could  not  easily  be  crushed  by  force,  or  upon 
a  population  with  whom  magnates  were  disposed  to  make  common  cause. 
So  long  as  the  magnates  were  in  tolerable  accord  with  each  other  and 
with  the  Crown,  the  Crown  could  take  its  own  course 

In  England  the  State  control  over  religion  was  not  in  question  ;  the 
question  we  have  seen  coming  to  the  fore  was  vjhether  that  control  should 
be  exercised  by  the  Crown  or  by  parliament ;  and  the  Episcopal  system  went 
far  to  ensure  that  it  should  be  exercised  by  the  Crown.  In  Scotland,  however, 
the  Reformation  had  taken  a  different  course.  It  had  been  forced  upon 
the  Crown  by  the  people  instead  of  being  imposed  on  a  not  unwilling 
people  by  the  Crown,  as  had  been  the  case  in  England.  The  system 
adopted  was  rooted  in  Calvinism,  and  demanded  "  spiritual  independence." 
It  produced  a  Presbyterian  system  and  a  Presbyterian  ministry  who 
claimed  an  authority  in  things  spiritual  free  from  State  control,  and  sought 
to  extend  spiritual  dominion  into  the  political  sphere  ;  whereas  in  England 


41 6  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

Calvinism  was  merely  a  graft,  hitherto  admitted  only  so  far  as  it  was 
content  to  recognise  the  controlling  authority  of  the  State,  in  practice 
at  least  if  not  in  theory.  These  claims  the  kingcraft  of  James  VI.  had 
enabled  him  to  combat  effectually.  Before  he  became  King  of  England 
as  well  as  of  Scotland  he  had  succeeded  in  establishing  the  Royal  authority 
within  the  General  Assembly  itself  and  in  regrafting  Episcopacy  upon 
the  Presbyterian  system.  He  had  succeeded,  because  the  magnates  were 
with  him  in  opposition  to  the  claims  of  the  Presbyterian  ministry,  and 
because  in  his  campaign  against  the  preachers  he  had  been  careful  not  to 

run  counter  to  the 
interests  of  the  mag- 
nates. 

This  policy  Tames 
maintained  through- 
out his  reign.  It  was 
his  persistent  aim  to 
recast  the  Scottish 
Ecclesiastical  polity 
on  Prelatical  lines, 
and  to  assimilate  the 
Church  in  Scotland  to 
the  Church  in  Eng- 
land. He  was  wise 
enough  not  to  go  so 
fast  as  to  arouse 
violent  popular  hos- 
tility, while  taking 
advantage  of  the  sub- 
passion  in  connection  v.'ith  the  subject.  But  he  went 
if  he  did  not  actually  transgress  them  ;  and 


Plan  and  view  of  Edinburgh  in  the  early  17th  century. 
[From  a  contemporary  print.] 


sidence  of  popular 

to  the  utmost  limits  of  safety, 

in  Scotland  as  in  England  those  bounds  were  passed  by  his  son. 

According  to  the  last  phase  before  the  Union  of  the  Crowns,  it  was 
exceedingly  doubtful  whether  a  General  Assembly  could  legally  be  con- 
vened without  the  authority  of  the  Crown.  In  1604  and  1605  James 
refused  to  call  one,  and  in  the  latter  year  a  number  of  ministers  met  at 
Aberdeen,  claiming  to  be  the  legal  General  Assembly.  Several  of  those 
who  had  attended  were  punished,  but  the  amount  of  sympathy  they  re- 
ceived made  James  hesitate  to  adopt  extreme  measures.  He  tried  unsuc- 
cessfully to  convert  some  of  the  leaders  to  his  own  views  by  bringing  them 
up  to  London  to  consort  with  the  English  bishops,  but  he  gained  little  by 
this  beyond  keeping  Andrew  Melville  permanently  out  of  the  country.  Then 
the  king  summoned  an  informal  convention  of  ministers  and  laymen,  to  whom 
he  propounded  a  scheme  for  providing  each  presbytery  with  a  permanent 
"moderator"  or  president.  From  tliis  he  advanced  to  making  the  moder- 
ators of  the  Provincial  Synods  also  permanent,  each  bishop  being  moderator 


RIGHT   DIVINE  417 

of  his  own  presbytery  and  his  own  synod,  and  an  ex  officio  representative  in 
the  General  Assembly.  The  permanent  moderators  in  general  provided 
an  obvious  step  towards  the  development  of  episcopal  government  ;  while 
Church  lands  appropriated  by  the  Crown  were  restored  to  the  Church  in 
order  to  make  provision  for  an  enlarged  episcopate.  Popular  irritation 
was  soothed  by  the  professed  application  of  the  funds  to  the  enforcement 
of  the  penal  laws  against  Romanism.  But  the  practical  outcome  was  that 
when  a  regular  Assembly  was  held  in  16 10  it  was  dominated  by  the  Crown, 
admitted  that  no  Assembly  could  be  held  without  the  Royal  authority,  and 
assented  to  the  extension  of  the  episcopate  and  of  an  episcopal  authority 
of  a  more  comprehensive  and  penetrating  character  than  had  been  granted 
when  bishops  were  first  introduced.  An  important  detail  was  added  when 
three  of  the  bishops  were  regularly  ordained  by  bishops  in  England,  thus 
reviving  the  apostolic  succession  which,  in  the  Anglican  view,  constituted 
the  difference  between  an  unrecognised  sect  and  a  branch  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  These  proceedings  were  ratified  with  some  further  modifications 
by  a  parliament  in  16 12.  As  yet,  however,  no  changes  were  made  in  the 
accustomed  ritual  and  liturgy  of  the  Church,  which  still  in  general  retained 
its  Presbyterian  organisation. 

The  next  move  was  made  in  a  General  Assembly  in  1616.  Proposals 
were  made,  after  some  order  had  been  taken  for  the  further  repression  of 
Popery,  to  introduce  a  revised  liturgy,  confession  of  faith,  and  catechism. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  at  this  time  the  Presbyterians  had  not  de- 
veloped their  later  objection  to  a  stereotyped  form  of  service.  The  pro- 
posals were  carried,  and  James  then  resolved  to  introduce  further  alterations 
after  the  Anglican  model.  He  had  avoided  the  mistake,  in  Scotland  as  in 
England,  of  appointing  bishops  of  the  High  Anglican  School.  Hence  it 
was  with  extreme  reluctance,  and  against  their  own  judgment,  that  they 
endorsed  the  innovations  embodied  in  the  Five  Articles  of  Perth,  which  were 
adopted  by  the  General  Assembly  held  in  that  city  in  1618.  These  Articles 
required  the  observation  of  certain  Church  Festivals,  and  admitted  the 
private  administration  of  the  Sacrament  under  special  circumstances.  But 
the  Article  which  seriously  alarmed  the  Calvinistic  conscience  was  that 
which  required  kneeling  at  Communion,  since  this  was  regarded  as  imply- 
ing the  act  of  Adoration.  The  practice  had  been  retained  in  England 
through  the  firm  resistance  offered  by  Cranmer  and  Ridley  to  the  pressure 
of  Knox  and  Hooper  when  the  Second  Prayer  Book  of  Edward  VI.  was 
authorised.  Alarm  and  resentment  were  now  aroused ;  and  it  was  not 
without  difficulty  that  the  ratification  of  parliament  was  obtained  three 
years  later,  while  popular  sentiment  encouraged  the  clergy  to  ignore  the 
new  regulations. 

James,  then,  had  carried  matters  at  least  as  far  as  it  was  safe  to  venture. 
But  when  Charles  I.  ascended  the  throne  he  was  guided  in  Scotland  as  in 
England  by  considerations  which  left  popular  feeling  out  of  account.  It 
was  enough  for  him  to  beheve  that  he  was  acting  within  his  rights  ;  whether 

2  D 


41 8  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

in  so  doing  and  enforcing  his  own  will  he  was  serving  the  people's  interests, 
it  was  for  him  and  not  for  them  to  judge.  His  own  religious  convictions 
were  deep  and  sincere,  and  he  had  no  qualms  about  compelling  his  people, 
whether  in  England  or  in  Scotland,  to  conform  to  them.  Moreover,  he 
had  the  singularly  unfortunate  habit  of  forgetting  that,  if  he  wished  to 
enforce  unpopular  measures,  it  was  at  least  advisable  to  seek  means  of 
conciliation  instead  of  accumulating  causes  of  irritation  ;  that  if  he  was 
bent  on  alienating  one  section  of  the  community,  it  would  be  politic  to 
secure  support  in  other  quarters. 

The  religious  innovations  under  James  VI.  had  been  possible  because 
the  old  king  had  kept  on  good  terms  with  the  magnates.  The  one  thing 
wanting  to  combine  the  whole  country  in  a  solid  opposition  to  the  Royal 
policy  was  a  quarrel  between  the  magnates  and  the  Crown.  A  means  of 
irritating  the  magnates  lay  ready  to  the  king's  hand  ;  having  discovered  his 
opportunity,  he  did  not  neglect  to  seize  it.  Since  the  party  of  the  Reforma- 
tion had  triumphed  in  Scotland,  quantities  of  Church  lands  had  been 
granted  away  ;  every  great  landowner  and  many  of  the  small  ones  had 
profited  thereby.  Charles  was  no  sooner  on  the  throne  than  he  issued  an 
Act  of  Revocation,  resuming  for  the  Crown  all  grants  of  land  made  since 
the  death  of  James  V.  in  1542.  The  Revocations  were  not  intended  to  be 
pure  confiscations  ;  the  holders  were  to  receive  compensation  ass-essed  by 
a  commission.  But  as  a  matter  of  course  the  assessment  was  more  than 
sufficiently  adverse  to  the  holders  to  create  in  them  a  rankling  sense  of 
injustice.  It  was  part  of  Charles's  scheme  to  appropriate  a  portion  of  the 
revenues  accruing  to  make  provision  for  the  clergy.  What  are  called  in 
England  ''tithes"  and  in  Scotland  "teinds"  had  in  the  course  of  the 
Reformation  passed  into  the  hands  of  miscellaneous  laymen  who  had  no 
other  connection  with  the  lands.  When  the  arrangements  for  the  Revoca- 
tion were  completed,  a  process  which  occupied  some  five  years,  the  land- 
owmers  were  enabled  to  recover  the  teinds  at  a  low  price,  a  portion  only 
being  appropriated  to  the  ministerial  stipends.  The  clergy  benefited  and 
the  Crown  benefited  ;  but  the  "Titulars  of  Teind,"  as  the  holders  had  been 
called,  got  only  about  two  years'  purchase  by  way  of  compensation,  and 
the  landowners  got  only  ten  years'  purchase.  Thus  both  these  bodies 
were  driven  into  an  attitude  of  angry  hostility  to  the  Crown,  while,  in  the 
eyes  of  the  clergy,  the  financial  benefits  they  received  were  by  no  means 
an  equivalent  for  the  increased  control  of  the  Crown  over  the  Church. 
And  now  when  the  clergy  kicked  against  the  pricks,  the  sympathies  of  every 
nobleman  and  every  laird  or  landowner  were  on  their  side  instead  of  on 
the  king's.  And  as  in  the  case  of  ship-money  in  England,  human  nature 
ignored  the  honest  intention  behind  the  arbitrary  act,  and  assumed  that 
the  whole  thing  had  been  done  in  order  to  mcrease  the  power  of  the 
Crown. 

Having  thus  combined  a  united  opposition  where  his  father  had  been 
careful  to  preserve   for  himself  powerful  sectional  support,  Charles  pro- 


RIGHT   DIVINE  419 

ceeded  with  that  ecclesiastical  reconstruction  which  James  had  carried  as 
far  as  he  dared,  thereby  also  attracting  the  sympathies  of  Puritan  England, 
already  sufficiently  alarmed  and  irritated,  to  the  cause  of  the  Scottish 
Presbyterians.  Scottish  Presbyterianism  too  had  already  felt  its  sympathies 
aroused  for  the  English  parliament,  both  on  account  of  its  Puritanism,  and 
because  of  the  alarm  generated  by  the  Catholic  successes  on  the  Continent 
and  the  failures  of  Buckingham's  administration. 

In  1633,  the  year  in  which  Wentworth  was  to  go  to  Ireland  and  Laud 
was  to  become  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Charles  visited  his  northern 
kingdom  in  company  with  Laud.  He  had  already  entered  on  the  dangerous 
course  of  appointing  Laudian  bishops.  The  ritual  of  the  services  attended 
by  the  King  of  Scotland  was  alarming  to  Scottish  Protestantism.  The 
parliament  summoned  at  Edinburgh  was  hardly  permitted  to  express  its 
antagonism  to  the  bills  laid  before  it  by  the  Lords  of  the  Articles,  who  in 
the  nature  of  things  were  practically  all  king's  men  ;  moreover,  it  was  placed 
in  a  difficulty  by  being  required  to  reject  or  to  pass  the  whole  series  en  bloc. 

Even  under  these  conditions  the  bills  were  passed  with  difficulty,  though 
Charles  may  have  been  unaware  of  the  intensity  of  the  antagonism  which 
they  aroused.  In  the  main,  they  were  confirmations  of  the  Acts  of  the  last 
reign  and  of  the  Act  of  Revocation.  Soon  after  Charles  left  Scotland  a 
widely-signed  protest  was  drawn  up  by  Lord  Balmerino ;  whereupon  he 
was  prosecuted  for  treason,  though  the  only  punishment  inflicted  was  a 
short  imprisonment.  For  the  first  time  since  the  Reformation  a  bishop  was 
appointed  to  the  Chancellorship — a  fresh  grievance  to  the  nobles,  and  a 
fresh  ground  of  hostility  towards  the  bishops  at  large. 

In  1636  a  Book  of  Canons,  or  Ecclesiastical  Regulations,  was  issued, 
with  no  warrant  save  that  of  the  royal  authority,  in  which  the  Presbyterian 
constitution  of  the  Church  was  ignored  ;  and  in  the  following  year  was  issued 
a  new  Service  Book,  which  differed  from  that  used  in  England  only  in  some 
details  which  rendered  it  more  anti-Calvinistic.  It  was  assumed  that  Laud 
was  responsible  ;  erroneously,  as  it  happened,  because  the  most  objection- 
able details  had  been  introduced  against  his  judgment  at  the  instance  of 
certain  Scottish  bishops,  who  were  more  Laudian  than  Laud  himself. 

A  mere  perusal  of  the  new  Service  Book  was  all  that  was  needed  to  drive 
the  still  existing  moderate  party  into  full  opposit'on.  On  the  first  attempt 
to  read  the  new  service  in  St.  Giles's  in  Edinburgh,  an  unseemly  riot  broke 
out ;  tradition  affirms  that  it  was  opened  by  a  woman  named  Jenny  Geddes, 
who  flung  her  stool  at  the  head  of  the  officiating  Dean.  Popular  feeling 
was  overwhelmingly  on  the  side  of  the  rioters,  whom  the  magistrates 
did  not  dare  to  punish.  All  over  the  country,  it  became  manifest  that  half 
the  ministers  would  refuse  on  their  own  account  to  use  the  Service  Book 
in  spite  of  the  Royal  injunction,  and  the  other  half  would  not  be  allowed  to 
use  it  by  their  congregations. 

Petitions  poured  in  against  the  innovations.  A  vast  gathering  of  pro- 
testors was  resolved   into   a  group    of   elected   committees  known  as   the 


420  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

"  Tables,"  who  acted  practically  as  if  they  had  been  a  legally  assembled  parlia- 
ment of  the  nation.  The  Tables  formulated  the  National  League  and  Cove- 
nant for  the  defence  of  religion,  and  in  March  1638  the  whole  Scottish  nation 
was  signing  it.  The  document  was  based  upon  a  Covenant  of  158 1  "  against 
popery,"  which  had  been  signed  by  King  James  himself  ;  but  it  was  accom- 
panied by  explanatory  clauses  explicitly  condemning  recent  innovations. 
It  was  expressly  and  even  fervently  loyal  to  the  Crowai,  but  it  was  an 
emphatic  refusal  on  the  part  of  the  whole  nation  to  have  forced  upon  it  a 
form  of  religion  which  it  regarded  as  intolerable,  though  it  did  not  actually 
denounce  Episcopacy. 

Faced  with  such  a  unanimous  resistance  the  king  sent  the  Marquis  of 
Hamilton  to  negotiate,  with  full  powers,  while  Puritan  England  looked  on 
and  sympathised  with  the  Scots.  The  Scots  insisted  on  a  free  parliament, 
a  free  General  Assembly,  and  the  revocation  of  the  new  Service  Book  and 
the  Book  of  Canons  ;  and  they  w^ould  not  listen  to  the  king's  demand  that 
the  National  Covenant  should  itself  be  withdrawn.  Charles  was  obliged  to 
give  way.  At  the  end  of  the  year  a  General  Assembly  met ;  the  bishops 
refused  to  recognise  its  authority  over  them.  The  Assembly  insisted ; 
when  Hamilton  dissolved  it,  it  paid  no  attention,  but  continued  to  act  on 
its  own  responsibility,  deposed  the  bishops,  and  abolished  the  Episcopate. 


VIII 

THE  BISHOPS'  WARS 

It  was  not  possible  to  pretend  that  the  action  of  the  General  Assembly 
was  legal.  In  plain  terms,  a  crisis  had  arrived  in  which  the  will  of  the  king 
and  the  will  of  the  nation  were  in  flat  opposition,  and  the  constitution 
provided  the  nation  with  no  legal  means  of  resisting  the  Crown.  The 
General  Assembly,  in  fact,  constituted  itself  the  governing  body  of  the 
nation,  and  it  did  so  with  the  approval  of  probably  at  least  nine-tenths  of 
the  population.  The  Scots  were  well  aware  that  they  might  be  compelled 
to  resort  to  maintaining  the  popular  liberties  in  arms,  and  they  had  been 
making  preparations  for  that  possibility.  They  had  been  collecting  sub- 
scriptions which  were  virtually  compulsory  though  nominally  voluntary. 
They  now  chose  officers  ;  troops  were  being  drilled  on  all  hands,  and  there 
were  in  the  country  experienced  veterans  who  had  fought  under  Gustavus 
Adolphus — soldiers  who  understood  discipline,  and  captains  competent  to 
hold  high  command,  of  whom  the  chief  was  Alexander  Leslie. 

Charles,  on  his  side,  appeared  to  have  no  other  alternatives  before  him 
than  complete  surrender  or  successful  coercion,  since  the  Royal  authority 
had  been  practically  defied.  But  he  could  not  coerce  Scotland  with 
Scottish  troops,  for,  apart  from  the  remoter  highlands  and  islands,  the 
immense  majority  of  the  fighting  men  were  on  the  side  of  the  Covenant. 


RIGHT   DIVINE  421 

To  coei-ce  Scotland  he  must  have  an  English  army.  He  could  rely  on  the 
loyalty  of  the  Marquis  of  Huntly  in  the  north,  and  of  the  city  of  Aberdeen  ; 
elsewhere  he  could  hope  for  very  little  support.  In  the  spring  of  1639 
Montrose, for  the  Covenant,  captured  Aberdeen,  and  Leslie  secured  Edinburgii 
Castle.  As  General-in-Chief  of  the  self-constituted  government,  Leslie,  then, 
with  a  considerable  force,  proceeded  to  Dunselaw,  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Berwick.  Charles  had  succeeded  in  collecting  some  levies  in  England,  and 
faced  the  covenanting  force  ;  but  his  troops  were  untrained,  his  ofhcers 
without  experience,  and  the  men  were  at  the  best  half-hearted  and  quite 
unfitted  to  do  battle  with  Leslie.  The  Scots  had  no  desire  for  war,  and 
Charles  came  to  terms,  which  merely  postponed  the  conflict,  which  is  known 
as  the  Bishops'  war.  Under  the  terms  of  the  treaty,  both  sides  were  to 
disband  their  forces,  and  a  free  Assembly  and  Parliament  were  promised. 
Assembly  and  Parliament  met  in  August  only  to  confirm  the  proceedings 
of  the  previous  Assembly,  and  to  order  a  universal  signing  of  the  Covenant. 

For  ten  years,  as  we  have  seen,  it  had  been  possible  to  carry  on  the 
king's  government  in  England  without  an  appeal  to  parliament  for  further 
funds.  But  without  further  funds  the  organisation  of  an  army  com- 
petent to  coerce  Scotland  was  not  possible.  VVentworth,  now  raised  to 
the  earldom  of  Strafford,  advised  the  step  of  calling  a  parliament.  The 
voice  of  opposition  had  been  so  long  silenced  that  the  Deputy,  long  absent 
in  Ireland,  may  well  have  imagined  that  a  new  parliament  might  be 
coerced  or  cajoled  into  satisfying  the  king's  demand.  If  so  he  was 
mistaken.  The  assembly  known  as  the  Short  Parliament  met  in  April 
1640,  only  to  demand  that  grievances  should  be  dealt  with  before  supply. 
Strafford's  Deputyship  had  carried  him  out  of  touch  alike  with  England 
and  Scotland  ;  and  it  is  evident  that  he  completely  misjudged  the  temper 
of  both  peoples.  His  recommendations  for  a  northern  campaign  had 
been  based  on  the  assumption  that  the  Scottish  resistance  was  merely 
superficial  ;  and  even  now  he  seems  to  have  been  under  the  illusion  that 
in  this  emergency  the  English  people  would  rally  to  the  Crown. 

But  the  Short  Parliament  would  not  grant  the  king  the  twelve  sub- 
sidies for  which  he  asked,  even  though  he  had  offered  to  withdraw  the  claim 
to  ship-money  as  the  price.  The  king,  certainly  not  by  Strafford's  advice, 
was  unwise  enough  to  reject  the  proposal  put  forward  by  the  moderate 
party  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  the  sense  of  the  House  should  be 
taken  on  the  question  of  granting  a  supply  without  committing  them  to 
any  specific  amount.  It  was  tolerably  certain  that  parliament  would  not 
grant  all  that  he  asked  ;  and,  choosing  to  have  either  all  or  nothing,  he 
dissolved  the  parliament  when  it  had  been  sitting  for  only  three  weeks. 

A  considerable  war-fund  was  raised  by  contributions  which  were 
strictly  voluntary.  Again  Charles  marched  to  the  North,  where  he  was 
joined  by  Strafford,  who  had  in  the  meanwhile  been  back  in  Ireland 
arranging  for  the  organisation  of  a  force.  But  before  his  arrival  the 
Scots   had   already   crossed   into    England,   easily   routing  the    English    at 


422      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

Newburn ;  for  the  king's  army  was  no  better  than  it  had  been  in  the 
previous  year.  The  Scots  came,  declaring  themselves  to  be  in  no  way 
hostile  to  the  English.  To  fight  under  the  existing  conditions  would  have 
been  mere  folly.  Again  the  king  entered  on  negotiations,  and  withdrew 
to  the  South  ;  leaving  Northumberland  and  Durham  in  the  hands  of 
the  Scots  as  security  for  the  payment  of  their  expenses.  It  was  clear 
that  without  vigorous  support  from  England  the  king  would  be  com- 
pelled to  concede  to  the  subjects  of  his  northern  kingdom  whatever  they 
might  demand.  Without  aid  from  an  English  parliament  Charles  was 
paralysed  ;  and  in  the  desperate  hope  that  such  aid  might  after  all  be  forth- 
coming, the  assembly  known  as  the  Long  Parliament  was  summoned  in 
November. 


CHAPTER    XVI 

THE  FALL  OF  THE  MONARCHY 

I 

THE   LONG   PARLIAMENT 

Among  the  supporters  of  the  king  there  was  a  single  commanding  figure 
which  utterly  dwarfed  all  others,  one  man  whom  the  Commons  of  England 
had  learnt  to  regard  as  their  deadly  enemy,  one  man  whom  they  hated 
because  he  was  the  man  whom  they  feared — the  apostate  Strafford.  Laud 
might  be  the  object  of  popular  detestation  but  no  one  was  afraid  of  him,  or 
of  the  crowd  of  intriguing  courtiers  who  were  much  less  likely  to  devise 
a  working  scheme  of  absolutism  than  to  wreck  by  short-sighted  jealousies 
the  daring  designs  of  the  one  master  mind.  While  Strafford  stood  by  the 
king,  the  Commons  could  devise  no  stroke  without  the  fear  that  it  might  be 
defeated,  and  even  turned  against  them,  by  the  keen  brain  and  the  in- 
domitable will  of  the  great  minister.  Before  anything  else  could  be 
accomplished  Strafford  must  go.  Among  the  moderate  men  there  were 
at  least  not  a  few  who  believed  or  hoped  that  if  Strafford  were  removed 
the  king  and  the  nation  might  be  reconciled.  Charles,  with  no  Buckingham 
and  no  Wentworth  to  dominate  him,  might  submit  to  be  guided  by  the 
moderates,  and  all  would  be  comparatively  well.  But  while  Strafford 
remained  nothing  could  be  done.  The  Scots  were  in  possession  of  the 
north  of  England,  but  the  parliament  and  the  English  nation  had  nothing 
to  fear  from  the  Scots.  The  Houses  had  hardly  been  assembled  when  the 
Commons  resolved  on  the  impeachment  of  Strafford. 

The  earl,  now  fully  alive  to  the  temper  of  the  people  and  the  parliament, 
conscious  that  his  enemies  would  leave  no  stone  unturned  in  their  efforts 
for  his  destruction,  knew  that  both  his  own  safety  and  the  safety  of  the  king 
would  best  be  served,  if  only  the  king  could  be  trusted,  by  his  own  with- 
drawal to  Ireland  ;  but  the  king  dared  not  stand  alone.  Strafford  remained 
to  abide  the  storm.  The  Commons,  led  by  Pym,  impeached  him  of  treason 
at  the  Bar  of  the  House  of  Lords;  he  was  arrested  and  confined  in  the 
Tower.  Within  six  weeks  Laud  too  was  arrested  on  the  charge  of  treason  ; 
others  of  the  king's  most  prominent  agents  had  fled  the  country  in  fear  of 
a  like  fate. 

Strafford  had  been  some  four  months  in  prison  before  the  preparations 
for  the  trial  were  complete.     But  when  the  case  for  the  prosecution  was  un- 

423 


424      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

folded,  it  became  more  and  more  evident  that  the  charge  of  treason  must 
break  down  in  law.  Strafford  had  striven  to  subvert  the  constitution,  as 
interpreted  by  the  parliamentary  lawyers  ;  but  seeking  to  make  the  Crown 
absolute  could  by  no  means  be  translated  into  treason  in  the  technical 
sense.  The  Lords  were  sitting  as  the  supreme  legal  court  in  the  country, 
and  were  bound  to  give  judgment  according  to  law.  The  Commons' 
managers  of  the  trial  saw  that  they  would  be  defeated.  The  most  effective 
piece  of  evidence  was  contained  in  papers,  'in  which,  referring  to  the  Scots 
war,  Strafford  had  said  :  <'  You  have  an  army  in  Ireland  that  you  may  employ 
to  reduce  this  kingdom  to  obedience,  for  I  am  confident  the  Scots  cannot 
hold  out  three  months."  But,  however  popular  feeling  might  be  inflamed 
by  the  charge  that  Strafford  had  meant  to  use  the  army  in  Ireland  to  coerce 
England,  it  was,  in  the  first  place,  impossible  to  prove  that  England,  not 
Scotland,  was  the  country  to  be  coerced,  i'l  which  case  the  English  Parlia- 
ment had  nothing  to  say  in  the  matter  ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  it  was 
more  than  doubtful  whether  the  term  treason  could  be  stretched  to  cover 
words  inciting  the  king  to  coerce  his  subjects. 

The  Commons  then  resolved  on  a  step  which  set  the  struggle  on  a  new 
footing.  Hitherto  they  had  taken  their  stand  on  the  law  ;  at  all  points  they 
had  claimed  that  they  were  asserting  the  legal  rights  of  the  House  of 
Commons  against  prerogatives  claimed  by  the  Crown  which  had  no  place 
in  the  constitution.  Now  they  found  that  the  law  was  against  them  ; 
not  merely  the  law  as  interpreted  by  judges  whose  authority  was  deprived 
of  weight  by  their  personal  dependence  on  the  king,  but  the  law  as  it  must 
be  interpreted  by  the  House  of  Peers  itself.  They  resolved  to  drop  the 
impeachment  and  to  proceed  by  bill  of  attainder.  The  argument  that  the 
attempted  subversion  of  the  constitution  was  treason  against  the  State,  and 
was  therefore  treason  against  the  person  of  the  king,  would  not  hold  in 
law  ;  it  followed  that  there  was  no  law  by  which  treason  against  the  State, 
as  distinct  from  treason  against  the  king's  person,  could  be  punished. 
Punishment,  therefore,  could  only  be  inflicted  by  a  process  overriding  the 
law,  and  this  could  only  be  effected  by  a  special  Act  of  parliament  dealing 
with  the  emergency  ;  not  a  resolution  of  one  House  or  of  both  Houses, 
but  an  Act  by  the  king  in  parliament,  the  ultimate  sovereign  authority 
which  alone  can  override  all  law.  A  bill  of  attainder  condemning  Strafford 
to  die  as  a  public  enemy  was  introduced  and  carried  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  It  was  carried  in  the  House  of  Lords.  The  king  had  given 
Strafford  the  most  solemn  pledges  that  if  he  remained  in  England  he  should 
be  protected  by  the  Crown.  Without  the  king's  assent  the  Act  was  waste 
paper.  Would  the  king  veto  it  ?  Would  he  face  the  storm  of  popular 
resentment  which  was  already  beginning  to  clamour  against  the  queen  as 
well  as  the  minister  ?  Queen  and  courtiers  hated  the  great  man  who  was 
no  courtier  ;  they  were  blind  to  their  own  incapacity,  to  their  own  need  of 
Strafford.  Every  influence  was  brought  to  bear  upon  Charles  to  persuade 
him  to  surrender.    He  yielded,  and  by  the  great  betrayal  sealed  his  own  doom. 


■*^^^J^ 


Tin     IKl    1     MWNLR   OI    THE   SIITINU   HI     1111      1       i   I   ~-    \\U   LOMMOXS   OF   PARLIAMEM 
UPON    THE    TRVAL    OF    THOMAS,     EARLE    OF    STRAFFORD,     1 64 1    " 


:4,'" 


'U 


m 


ft  •  c 


PHE     TKLL     MWMK     OI      THI      E\ElL1IO\     Oi       iHoM\-^.     1    \KL1 
UPON    TOWER    HILL      THE     1 2TH    OF    M  \Y      1 64 1 

From  etchings  by  Hollar,  1641. 


THE   FALL   OF   THE   MONARCHY  425 

Strafford's  head  had  hardly  fallen  when  the  Commons  set  about  reaping 
the  fruits  of  their  victory.  In  three  months  every  instrument  of  absolutism 
on  which  the  king  had  sought  to  rely  throughout  his  reign  was  abolished. 
While  Strafford  was  still  in  the  Tower,  government  without  parliament 
had  been  abolished  by  an  Act  requiring  that  parliament  should  assemble 
at  least  once  in  every  three  years,  with  or  without  the  royal  summons. 
An  Act  was  now  passed  which  forbade  the  dissolution  of  the  existing 
parliament  without  its  own  consent.  The  right  to  ship-money,  tonnage 
and  poundage,  and  customs  duties  was  formally  abrogated.  The  arbitrary 
courts  of  Star  Chamber,  of  High  Commission,  and  of  the  Council  of  the 
North  were  abolished,  so  that  no  offenders  could  be  tried  except  by  the 
ordinary  courts  under  the  ordinary  law. 

So  far  Lords  and  Commons  had  acted  together.  Save  in  the  matter 
of  the  attainder  of  Strafford,  the  whole  series  of  Acts  only  abolished  claims 
of  the  Crown  which  had  never  been  admitted  by  the  Commons,  or  removed 
glaring  abuses.  But  now  the  Commons  began  to  assert  powers  which 
they  had  never  pretended  to  claim  before  King  Charles  ascended  the 
throne.  They  attacked  the  bishops,  in  a  bill  which  demanded  their 
removal  from  the  House  of  Lords  and  from  the  Privy  Council  ;  and  this 
brought  them  into  collision  with  the  House  of  Lords,  which  rejected  the 
bill.  The  advanced  Puritan  party  in  the  Commons  responded  with  a  bill 
aiming  not  at  a  compromise  but  at  the  abolition  of  Episcopacy,  known  as 
the  Root  and  Branch  bill.  For  the  first  time  the  Commons  themselves 
were  divided,  while  the  majority  in  the  Lords  was  in  direct  opposition  to 
the  majority  in  the  Commons. 

But  the  contest  was  deferred.  The  Scots  army  had  now  been  duly 
paid  off,  and  Charles  paid  a  visit  to  the  Northern  kingdom,  where  Montrose 
and  others  had  now  broken  away  from  the  Covenanting  chiefs,  headed  by 
Argyle,  whose  domination  was  hotly  resented  in  many  quarters.  The 
king,  however,  found  the  party  of  revolt  so  weak  that  he  was  obliged  to 
place  himself  in  Argyle's  hands,  and  Argyle  himself  was  strengthened  by 
the  discovery  of  a  plot  against  his  person,  in  which  both  the  king  and 
Montrose  were  implicated,  though  without  justification,  by  popular  rumour. 
And  while  the  movement  of  affairs  in  Scotland  was  disturbing,  events  of 
a  still  more  serious  character  were  taking  place  in  Ireland. 

Wentworth  had  ruled  Ireland  with  a  strong  hand.  Disorder  had  been 
crushed  and  prosperity  had  begun  to  make  its  way.  But  the  order  and 
the  prosperity  both  depended  upon  the  unscrupulous  vigour  and  ability  of 
a  fearless  Deputy.  When  Wentworth  vanished  behind  the  portals  of  the 
Tower,  there  was  no  one  to  take  his  place  in  Ireland,  and  no  one  to 
curb  the  hostilities  of  the  settlers  and  the  native  Irish,  of  Catholics  and 
Protestants,  of  family  rivalries.  While  Strafford  lived,  there  was  always 
the  chance  that  he  would  return,  and  the  certainty  that  if  he  did  it  would 
be  in  an  evil  day  for  any  one  who  had  tried  to  make  trouble  during  his 
absence.     But  the  restraining  hand  was  gone,  and  in   the   autumn   there 


426  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

came  a  sudden  savage  outburst  of  the  Irishry  against  the  Englishry. 
Ghastly  tales  of  brutal  barbarity  and  of  blood-thirsty  massacres  flew  over 
England.  The  truth  was  hideous  enough,  and  became  fivefold  more 
hideous  in  the  telling.  England  raged  for  vengeance,  but — ^where  was 
the  avenger  ?  If  an  army  were  despatched  to  Ireland  under  the  king's 
officers,  what  would  that  army  do  ?  Suspicions  grim  and  foul  were  in 
men's  minds.  The  rising  was  the  work  of  Jesuits,  of  Papists ;  perhaps  the 
king's  French  wife  was  at  the  bottom  of  it  ;  it  was  a  plot  to  provide  the 
king  with  an  army  for  destroying  the  liberties  of  England.  For  such  wild 
suspicions  there  was  no  sort  of  justification  ;  but  the  plain  fact  stood  out, 

that  if  an  army  were 
placed  under  the 
king's  control  the 
work  which  the 
parliament  had  just 
accomplished  would 
almost  inevitably  be 
undone. 

Almost  at  the 
moment  when  the 
news  arrived  from 
Ireland,  the  parlia- 
ment which  had  been 
adjourned  in  August 
reassembled.  The 
only  constitutional 
,     ,.       ,   ,  action   possible    was 

A  newspaper  heading  of  1 041.  '■  ,.         ^ 

to  vote  supplies  for 
an  Irish  war,  the  control  of  which  would  be  in  the  king's  hands  ;  which 
was  precisely  the  thing  which  the  parliament,  or  at  least  the  Puritans,  dared 
not  do.  The  alternative  was  to  show  cause  why  the  king  should  not  be 
trusted  with  a  control  which  was  his  by  constitutional  right. 

So  the  Opposition  leaders  drew  up  the  Grand  Remonstrance,  a  detailed 
indictment  enumerating  ail  the  arbitrary  proceedings,  all  the  misgovernment, 
with  which  the  king  had  been  charged.  It  was  a  statement  of  the  case  for 
parliament  against  the  Crown.  The  Grand  Remonstrance  completed  the 
work  of  dividing  the  Commons,  which  had  begun  with  the  Puritan  attack 
on  the  constitution  of  the  Church.  It  amounted  to  a  virtual,  though  not  a 
formal,  demand  for  the  abdication  of  the  king's  sovereignty.  It  rallied  to 
the  support  of  the  Crown  all  those  who,  while  they  had  been  ready  to 
insist  on  limiting  the  royal  prerogative,  dreaded  the  unchecked  tyranny 
of  an  irresponsible  House  of  Commons  more  than  the  tyranny  of  the 
king.  Hour  after  hour  the  stormy  debate  raged  ;  not  till  after  midnight 
was  the  division  taken  and  the  Remonstrance  carried  by  eleven  votes. 
Then  a  motion  was  brought  forward  that  the  Remonstrance  itself  should 


THE    FALL   OF   THE    MONARCHY  427 

be  printed  and  published  ;  the  storm  broke  out  with  redoubled  fury  when 
the  minority  proclaimed  their  intention  to  protest,  a  course  for  which 
there  was  no  precedent.  Swords  were  drawn  ;  it  seemed  that  blood  would 
be  shed  on  the  floor  of  the  House  itself,  when  John  Hampden  succeeded  in 
procuring  the  adjournment  of  the  debate. 

At  the  moment,  the  king  was  on  his  way  back  from  Scotland.  On  his 
arrival  in  London  he  found  that  there  had  rallied  to  his  support  not  only 
something  like  half  the  House  of  Commons  but  a  great  force  of  popular 
feeling  in  the  city.  The  violence  of  the 
Opposition  had  so  far  overreached  itself 
that  a  very  little  tact  and  skill  would  have 
sufficed  at  this  period  to  turn  the  scale 
decisively  in  favour  of  the  Crown.  But 
the  tact  and  the  skill  were  both  wanting. 
The  king  adopted  a  course  which  stiffened 
the  Opposition  and  dashed  the  hopes  of 
his  own  supporters.  Perhaps  he  thought 
that  the  victory  was  already  won  ;  at  any 
rate  he  proceeded  not  to  conciliate,  but  to 
strike.  One  of  the  Lords  and  five  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Opposition  in  the  Commons 
were  found  to  have  held  communication 
with  the  Scots,  which  was,  undoubtedly, 
in  the  technical  sense,  treasonable.  Charles 
laid  an  impeachment  of  the  Members 
before  the  House  of  Lords,  and  on  the 
following  day  came  down  to  the  House  of 
Commons  in  person,  attended  by  a  troop 
of  armed  men,  to  arrest  them. 

Newsof  his  coming  had  already  reached 
the  House,  and  the  five  members  had  been 
sent  off  by  water  to  the  City  where  it  was 
known  that  they  would  be  secure.  Charles  entered,  leaving  his  followers 
outside  the  still  open  doors,  and  advanced  to  the  Speaker's  chair  amid  cries 
of  "  Privilege  "  from  every  hand.  Announcing  that  he  had  come  to  take  the 
"traitors,"  he  asked  Lenthall,  the  Speaker,  if  they  were  present.  Lenthall, 
kneeling,  replied  that  he  had  neither  eyes  to  see  nor  tongue  to  speak  save  as 
the  House  should  direct  him.  Himself  scanning  the  benches,  and  seeing 
that,  in  his  own  words,  "  The  birds  had  flown,"  he  withdrew,  with  a  warning 
that  if  the  House  did  not  send  them  to  him  he  must  take  his  own  course. 
All  that  he  had  gained  by  the  proceedings  over  the  Grand  Remonstrance 
was  lost,  at  least  outside  the  House,  London  was  united  in  solid  support 
of  the  outraged  Commons,  who  for  safety  held  their  sittings  in  the  City 
instead  of  at  Westminster.  A  week  later  the  king  left  Whitehall,  not  to  enter 
it  again  till  the  country  had  passed  through  the  storms  of  civil  war. 


The  Church  Militant :  a  Bishop  of  1642. 

From  a  contemporary  caricature.  ] 


428      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

The  next  eight  months  were  spent  by  both  sides  in  preparations  for  an 
armed  conflict,  diversified  by  negotiations,  futile  because  neither  beheved  in 
the  sincerity  of  the  other.  The  moderates  gradually  left  London  to  join 
the  king ;  among  the  number  were  reckoned  three-fourths  of  the  House  of 
Lords  and  about  one-third  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  Houses,  which 
continued  to  sit  at  Westminster,  consisted  entirely  of  the  representatives  of 
one  side,  although  they  Wure  still  technically  the  National  Parliament.  But 
virtually  all  real  chance  of  peace  had  been  ended  when  the  king  attempted 
to  arrest  the  five  members.  Both  sides  were  raising  troops,  appointing 
officers,  and  collecting  money.  The  king  sent  his  queen  to  get  financial 
aid  from  her  brother  in  France,  and  from  Holland,  where  the  young 
Stadtholder,  William  of  Orange,  had  married,  a  year  since,  the  English 
Princess  Mary.  Charles's  nephews,  Rupert  and  Maurice,  the  younger  sons 
of  the  late  Elector  Palatine,  left  what  was  practically  a  lost  cause  abroad 
to  take  up  the  king's  cause  in  England.  Hull  closed  its  gates  to  the  king's 
followers;  and  the  last  semblance  of  peace  vanished  when  the  king  un- 
furled his  standard  at  Nottingham  in  August  (1642). 


n 

THE    FIRST   STAGE    OF   THE   CIVH.   WAR 

One  immense  advantage  the  parliament  possessed  ;  it  had  the  fleet  on 
its  side,  and  held  control  of  almost  every  port  in  the  country.  It  controlled 
also  the  machinery  for  taxation,  whereas  the  king  was  obliged  to  rely  for 
financial  support  chiefly  on  voluntary  contributions.  The  struggle  at  the 
outset  was  an  English  struggle  ;  Scotland  stood  aside,  and  Ireland  was  too 
deeply  plunged  in  its  own  embroilments  to  take  a  hand  in  the  conflict  on  the 
east  of  St.  George's  Channel.  In  England,  roughly  speaking,  the  northern 
and  western  counties  favoured  the  royalist  cause,  the  midlands  were 
divided,  and  the  eastern  counties  from  the  Humber  to  the  Isle  of  Wight 
favoured  the  parliament,  while  Devon  and  Cornwall  at  first  hung  in  the 
balance.  But  the  towns  tended  to  favour  the  parliament,  and  all  over 
the  country  Puritan  gentry  were  to  be  found  in  the  Royalist  counties,  and 
Royalist  gentry  in  the  Parliamentarian  counties.  Precisely  as  the  Reforma- 
tion had  taken  hold  readily  in  the  eastern  portion  of  England,  while  the  north 
and  the  west  clung  to  their  traditional  beliefs,  Puritanism  was  accepted  in  the 
east,  while  the  Conservatism  of  the  north  and  west  kept  them,  in  the  main, 
on  the  side  of  the  Church  and  the  Crown.  As  in  the  past,  so  now,  London, 
Kent,  and  the  Eastern  Counties,  were  the  districts  most  zealous  in  asserting 
popular  rights.  And  now,  as  before,  the  seamen  in  the  ports  of  the  west  as 
well  as  of  the  east  were  on  the  Puritan  and  popular  side. 

Only  to  a  very  limited  extent  was  the  war  one  of  classes.  It  was  no  up- 
rising of  an  oppressed  population  against  the  domination  of  an  aristocracy. 


THE    FALL   OF   THE    MONARCHY  429 

There  was,  indeed,  a  preponderance  of  the  aristocracy,  of  the  hmded  gentry, 
on  one  side,  and  of  the  burgess  element  on  the  other ;  but  on  both  sides 
both  were  represented,  and  for  two  years  the  chief  parHamentary  com- 
manders were  the  Earls  of  Essex  and  Manchester.  The  whole  of  the  great 
English  civil  war  was  further  characterised  by  an  honourable  absence  of 
the  ferocity  for  which  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  still  raging  on  the  Continent, 
was  distinguished.  Both  sides  w^ere  fighting  for  principles  which  it  was  not 
inherently  impossible  to  harmonise  ;  on  both  sides  the  majority  sought 
only  the  predominance  of  its  own  principles,  not  the  complete  destruction 
of  its  opponents.  And  in  consequence  the  havoc  wrought  and  the  brutali- 
ties committed  were  extraordinarily  small  in  comparison  with  those  of 
other  wars  of  equal  magnitude.  Even  the  damage  wrought  in  churches 
and  cathedrals  by  iconoclastic  Puritantism  was  slight  in  comparison  with 
what  had  been  done  under  shelter  of  law,  w-hen  there  was  no  war  at  all,  in 
the  reigns  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Edward  VI. 

The  war  in  its  initial  stages  was  a  war  of  military  amateurs.  There 
were  few  living  Englishmen  in  1642  who  had  ever  seen  a  pitched  battle  or 
witnessed  a  scientifically  conducted  campaign  under  capable  commanders. 
For  its  rank  and  file,  one  side  had  to  rely  mainly  on  city  train-bands  or  on  a 
very  raw  militia,  while  the  other  drew  its  recruits  largely  from  the  establish- 
ments of  great  landow^iers.  The  Royalists,  or  Cavaliers,  were  very  much 
better  furnished  with  horse,  while  the  strength  of  the  Parliamentarians,  or 
Roundheads,  lay  in  the  stubborn  valour  of  their  foot-soldiers.  The  distin- 
guishing feature  lay  in  the  great  preponderance  among  the  Cavaliers  of  the 
class  corresponding  to  the  public-school-boys  of  to-day.  "  Their  troops," 
said  Cromwell,  "  are  gentlemen's  sons,  younger  sons  and  persons  of  quality, 
gentlemen  that  have  honour  and  courage  and  resolution  in  them.  You 
must  get  men  of  a  spirit  that  is  likely  to  go  on  as  far  as  gentlemen  will  go, 
or  else  you  will  be  beaten  still."  With  all  the  grit  and  courage  which  the 
Roundhead  troops  displayed  in  the  first  stages  of  the  war,  a  grit  and 
courage  which  frequently  saved  them  from  disastrous  defeat,  their  training 
had  not  given  them  the  audacity  which  was  necessary  to  the  winning  of 
victories.  The  problem  for  the  Roundhead  leaders  was  to  find  that  inspira- 
tion which  would  make  their  men  fight  to  win  instead  of  fighting  to  hold 
their  own. 

Hence  for  the  first  year  of  the  war  the  parliamentary  troops  were 
habitually  on  the  defensive  ;  and  the  Royalists  were  the  attacking  party. 
But  at  the  moment  when  the  king's  standard  was  raised  at  Nottingham, 
neither  party  was  ready  to  strike.  Essex,  the  Roundhead  General-in-Chief, 
was  collecting  his  forces  at  Northampton  to  block  the  way  of  a  Royalist 
march  on  London.  The  king  shifted  to  Shrewsbury,  a  better  centre  for 
collecting  his  main  army  ;  Essex  moved  to  Worcester.  When  the  king 
began  his  advance,  Essex  again  moved  to  intercept  him,  and  the  armies 
met  at  Edgehill.  The  charge  of  the  Royalist  cavalry  on  the  wings  swept 
their   opponents  off   the    field,   with   the  Cavalier    horse   in   pursuit.     But 


430 


THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 


the  Roundhead  foot  in  the  centre  held  their  ground,  two  regiments  of 
horse  which  had  not  been  swept  away  charged  upon  the  RoyaHst  flank, 
and  Rupert  reappeared  on  the  field,  which  he  supposed  to  have  been 
already  won,  in  time  only  to  prevent  a  rout. 

Still,  the  fruits  of  victory  lay  with  the  Royalists,  who  were  able  to 
continue  their  march  to  Oxford  and  establish  headquarters  there  ;  Essex, 
however,  was  able  to  fall  back  and  block  the  way  between  Oxford  and 
London.  The  Royalists,  though  they  carried  Brentford,  did  not  venture 
to  attack  his  position  at  Turnham  Green,  and  fell  back  upon  Oxford, 
whence  during  the  spring  and  summer  of  1643  Ri-ipert  conducted  cavalry 
raids ;    but    no    action    of    importance    was    fought.       The    parliamentary 

cause,  however,  suffered  a  serious  loss  by 
the  death  of  John  Hampden  in  a  skirmish 
at  Chalgrove  Field.  During  these  months, 
the  Royalist  Association  of  the  Northern 
Counties,  organised  by  Newcastle,  brought 
the  North  almost  entirely  under  Royalist 
control,  though  the  Parliamentarians  under 
the  Fairfaxes  held  possession  of  Hull.  In 
the  south-west,  which  at  the  outset  hung  in 
the  balance,  the  first  successes  of  the  parlia- 
mentary general.  Waller,  were  counteracted 
by  those  of  the  Royalist  Hopton.  In  July 
the  defeat  of  Waller  at  Roundway  Down, 
and  the  surrender  of  Bristol,  secured  almost 
the  whole  of  the  West  country  for  the   Royalists. 

The  parliament  still  sat  at  Westminster,  and  the  successes  of  the  royal 
arms  almost  induced  the  Houses  to  accept  terms  of  peace  which  would 
have  been  a  virtual  surrender.  But  now  there  was  a  check.  Rupert 
would  have  appeared  to  have  designed  a  great  converging  movement  upon 
London,  the  king  advancing  with  his  main  army  from  Oxford,  Hopton 
moving  along  the  south,  and  Newcastle  descending  from  the  North  through 
(he  Eastern  Counties.  But  Newcastle  and  Hopton  were  not  prepared  respec- 
tively to  leave  Hull  and  Plymouth  on  their  rear.  Charles  resolved 
to  secure  the  West  by  the  capture  of  Gloucester ;  and,  by  attacking  it, 
drew  Essex  to  advance  to  its  relief.  The  relieving  movement  was  itself 
successful.  Charles,  however,  intercepted  Essex  on  his  withdrawal  at 
Newbury.  A  decisive  victory  might  have  brought  the  war  to  an  end 
at  once,  but  Essex  succeeded  in  cutting  his  way  through,  and  the  oppor- 
tunity was  lost. 

Meanwhile  Pym,  the  head  of  the  administration  at  Westminster,  had 
been  at  work  on  the  design  of  drawing  the  Scots  into  active  alliance  with 
the  English  Parliament.  Religion  alone  was  the  ground  on  which  the 
Scots  were  prepared  to  intervene  in  England,  and  for  them  religion  meant 
the  establishment  of  Presbytcrianism  in  the  southern  country.     The  parlia- 


Reverse  of  three -pound  piece  of 
Charles  I.  struck  at  Oxford,  1643. 


THE    FALL   OF   THE    MONARCHY 


431 


ment  men  adhered  in  general  to  the  common  view  that  uniformity  of 
reHgion  was  to  be  enforced ;  they  were  committed  to  the  demand  for 
the  abolition  of  Episcopacy,  and  Presbyterianism  was  the  apparent  alterna- 
tive. The  result  of  the  negotiations  was  the  signing  of  the  Solemn  League 
and  Covenant  for  the  common  establishment  of  religion,  reformed  "  accord- 
ing to  the  Word  of  God  and  the  example  of  the  best  reformed  churches." 
The  form  of  the  Covenant  is  attributed  to  the  diplomacy  of  Sir  Harry 
Vane,  who  by  this  means  made  the  pledge  sufficiently  elastic  to  admit  of 
the  now  growing  demand  for  a  much  wider  toleration  than  was  con- 
templated by  either  English  or  Scottish  Presbyterianism.  The  scheme 
itself  was  in  some  sense  a  development  born 
of  an  Anglo-Scottish  assembly  at  Westminster, 
which  drew  up  the  famous  Weslviinsfer  Con- 
fession, a  formula  for  British  Puritanism 
which  corresponds  to  the  Lutheran  Confession 
of  Augsburg.  It  must  be  remarked,  how- 
ever, that  the  English  who  were  already  in 
arms,  and  the  Scots  who  were  about  to  take 
arms,  to  coerce  the  Crown,  both  in  the 
Covenant  declared  their  loyalty  to  the  king's 
person.  The  Solemn  League  and  Covenant 
was  the  last  achievement  of  John  Pym,  the 
greatest  of  the  parliamentary  chiefs ;  he  died 
before  the  year  was  out.  Early  in  the  new 
year  a  joint  committee  of  both  kingdoms  was  formed  to  control  the 
management  of  the  war. 

The  man  who  discovered  the  inspiration  of  which  the  Roundhead 
armies  stood  in  need  was  Colonel  Oliver  Cromwell,  who  had  distinguished 
himself  as  a  cavalry  officer  at  Edgehill.  Since  that  time  he  had  not 
been  prominent  in  the  field,  but  had  been  preparing  for  great  achievement 
by  organising  the  Eastern  Counties  in  such  fashion  as  to  render  any 
Royalist  movement  there  a  sheer  impossibility.  Nominally  as  the  sub- 
ordinate of  the  Earl  of  Manchester,  he  set  himself  to  the  task  of  raising 
regiments  imbued  with  a  spirit  which  would  make  them  a  match  for  Rupert's 
gentlemen,  and  with  a  discipline  which  would  give  them  a  decisive  superi- 
ority. In  officers  and  men  the  great  desiderata,  according  to  the  civilians 
assembled  at  Westminster,  were  respectability  and  orthodoxy.  Cromwell 
wanted  men  who  were  full  of  enthusiasm  for  the  Cause,  and  ready  to 
submit  to  the  severest  discipline.  For  their  orthodoxy  he  cared  not  a  jot, 
though  he  required  that  they  should  be  men  of  religion  and  of  moral 
austerity.  Given  these  conditions,  military  fitness  was  the  sole  quality 
he  required  in  his  subordinate  officers.  Out  of  such  chosen  material  he 
constructed  those  picked  regiments  which  under  his  leadership  were  to 
become  the  best  troops  in  Europe.  A  first  taste  of  their  quality  was  given 
at  Winceby  fight,  when  a  Royalist  force  had  passed  the  Humberand  entered 


Coin  portrait  of  Charles  I.  on  three- 
pound  piece  of  1643. 


432  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

the  Eastern  Counties  before  the  end  of  1643.  That  fight  enabled  him  to 
reheve  Hull,  the  one  point  in  Yorkshire  where  the  Fairfaxes,  besieged  by 
Newcastle,  were  still  holding  out. 

His  time  had  not  yet  come,  but  early  in  the  year  (1644)  the  Scots, 
commanded  by  old  Alexander  Leslie,  Earl  of  Leven,  and  his  distant  kins- 
man, David  Leslie,  had  crossed  the  Border.  With  this  new  enemy,  New- 
castle was  no  longer  able  to  maintain  his  grip  on  the  North.  In  April  he 
was  obliged  to  throw  himself  into  York,  where  he  was  pressed  by  the  Scots 
and  by  the  Fairfaxes  from  Hull.  In  the  south  the  defeat  of  Hopton  at 
Cheriton  removed  immediate  anxieties,  and  the  army  of  the  Eastern  Counties 
Association  under  Manchester,  with  Cromwell  as  his  cavalry  chief,  prepared 
to  invade  the  North.  Rupert,  who  had  been  detached  from  the  king's  main 
army  to  operate  in  Lancashire,  made  a  successful  dash  to  the  relief  of  York, 
and  raised  the  siege  ;  but  when  the  Roundhead  army  began  to  retire,  he 
advanced  and  offered  battle  at  Marston  Moor.  The  forces  on  either  side 
were  the  largest  assembled  in  any  engagement  in  the  course  of  the  war  ; 
Manchester's  army  of  twenty-seven  thousand  men  considerably  outnumber- 
ing the  Royalists.  In  the  cavalry  engagement  on  the  wings,  Cromwell's 
"  Ironsides "  routed  Rupert's  troopers,  while  Fairfax  on  the  Roundhead 
right  was  routed  by  Goring.  In  the  infantry  engagement,  the  Roundheads 
on  the  left  and  the  Royalists  in  the  centre  were  victorious,  so  that  the 
Scots  on  the  right  of  tlie  Roundheads  were  attacked  on  one  flank  by  the 
victorious  Royalist  foot  and  on  the  other  by  those  of  the  Royalist  horse 
who  had  not  ridden  off  in  pursuit.  The  stubborn  resistance,  however,  of 
the  Scots,  against  overwhelming  odds,  enabled  horse  and  foot  from  the 
Roundhead  left  to  come  to  their  rescue  and  cut  the  Royalists  to  pieces. 

Marston  Moor  shattered  the  Royalist  force  on  the  north,  and  it 
established  Cromwell  as  the  first  cavalry  leader  of  the  day.  He  had  routed 
the  hitherto  irresistible  Rupert,  and  he  had  shown  a  quality  which  Rupert 
never  possessed,  that  of  maintaining  a  perfect  control  over  his  troops  in  the 
moment  of  victory.  Rupert,  as  a  rule,  swept  all  before  him,  but  his  men 
were  not  held  in  check,  and  continued  a  furious  pursuit  or  turned  to 
pillaging.  Cromwell's  Ironsides  drove  their  opponents  in  rout,  halted,  re- 
formed, and  were  again  launched  on  the  flank  or  rear  of  the  adversary. 
Long  ago  the  son  of  King  Henry  III.  had  been  taught  the  great  principle 
of  cavalry  fighting,  to  his  cost,  at  Lewes,  and  never  repeated  the  blunder 
which  lost  him  that  battle.  Cromwell  himself  had  applied  the  principle,  as 
Rupert  had  ignored  it,  in  the  first  pitched  battle  in  the  war  at  Edgehill  ; 
but  Rupert  and  the  gallants  of  England  never  learnt  the  lesson,  and  the 
Cavaliers  paid  the  penalty  in  full  measure  at  Naseby  fight,  within  a  year  of 
Marston  Moor. 

If  the  Ironsides  and  the  Scots  had  won  the  North  of  England,  elsewhere 
matters  were  by  no  means  going  favourably  for  the  parliament.  Hopton's 
defeat  by  Waller  at  Cheriton  gave  the  parliamentary  gener;ils  an  oppor- 
tunity for  taking  the  offensive  against  the  king,  who  fell  back  to  Worcester. 


THE    FALL   OF   THE   MONARCHY  433 

But  Waller  and  Essex  made  the  blunder  of  dividing  their  forces,  the  former 
remaining  to  deal  with  Charles,  while  the  latter  marched  into  Devon  in  hope 
of  recovering  the  West  country.  Thus,  a  few  days  before  Marston  Moor, 
Charles  was  able  to  rout  Waller  at  Cropredy  Bridge,  and  marched  south-west 
in  pursuit  of  Essex.  At  Lostvvithiel,  in  Cornwall,  the  parliamentary  General- 
in-Chief  was  surrounded  by  a  superior  force,  and  though  he  was  able  to  cut 
his  way  through  with  his  cavalry,  and  himself  to  escape  by  sea,  the  bulk  of 
his  force  was  compelled  to  capitulate.  The  Royalists  were  again  undis- 
puted masters  of  the  West. 

Cropredy  Bridge  and  Lostwithiel  together  were  not  an  equivalent  for 
Marston  Moor.  The  victorious  army  of  the  North  was  stronger  than  the 
victorious  army  of  the  South.  Nevertheless,  it  was  only  under  severe  pressure 
that  Manchester  was  induced  to  leave  the  Scots  behind  him,  and  march 
south  to  cut  off  the  return  of  Charles.  Manchester  failed  in  his  task,  to  the 
bitter  indignation  of  his  second  in  command.  He  intercepted  Charles  at 
Newbury,  and  ought  to  have  crushed  him,  but,  though  victorious  in  the 
battle,  he  allowed  the  Royalist  army  to  escape  past  him,  and,  by  refusing 
to  press  on  its  heels,  allowed  the  king  to  rally  his  scattered  forces.  The 
moment  for  crushing  him  w^as  lost. 

Meanwhile  events  took  a  new  turn  in  Scotland.  The  party  of  Argyle 
was  completely  predominant  in  the  Lowlands,  but  the  best  troops  and  the 
best  commanders  were  all  engaged  in  England.  Argyle  himself,  though 
an  astute  politician,  was  no  soldier.  The  Highland  clans  had  hitherto 
taken  little  part  in  the  troubles  which  did  not  practically  concern  them, 
but  to  many  of  them  the  clan  Campbell  and  its  chief  were  extremely 
obnoxious.  Advantage  was  taken  of  the  state  of  feeling  in  the  Highlands 
by  Montrose,  whose  loyalty  had  been  rewarded  by  a  marquisate.  Joined 
by  Alastair  Macdonald  of  Islay,  at  the  head  of  a  half-Scottish  force  from 
Ireland,  he  raised  the  royal  standard  in  the  North,  and  routed  the  troops 
of  the  Scottish  Government  at  Tippermuir,  following  up  his  first  success 
by  the  capture  of  Aberdeen  ;  which  was  dealt  with  in  a  merciless  fashion, 
strongly  contrasted  with  Montrose's  treatment  of  the  same  city  when  he 
had  captured  it  for  the  cause  of  the  Covenant  five  years  before. 


Ill 

THE   NEW   MODEL 

As  the  autumn  of  1644  "^^''^'^  passing  into  winter  the  critical  moment 
of  the  war,  though  not  the  critical  engagement,  was  immediately  at  hand. 
Although  the  biggest  battle  of  the  war  had  been  fought  and  won  by  the 
Roundheads,  with  decisive  effect  so  far  as  the  North  was  concerned,  only 
one  fact  of  importance  favourable  to  the  parliament  had  emerged;  they 
had  found  a  cavalry  leader  who  was  more  than  a  match  for  Rupert   and 

2  E 


434  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

troopers  who  were  more  than  a  match  for  Rupert's  gentlemen.  But  the 
second  battle  of  Newbury  had  shown  that  under  the  existing  system  there 
was  no  prospect  that  the  chiefs  of  the  army  would  realise  that  it  was 
their  business  to  strike  home  and  win.  Again,  Scots  and  English  together 
had  won  the  victory  of  Marston  Moor,  but  it  had  not  united  them.  The 
honours  of  the  day  had  been  divided  between  the  Scottish  pikemen  and 
the  Ironsides,  and  the  Scots  angrily  resented  the  assumption  of  all  the 
credit  to  Cromwell  and  his  troopers.  Nor  was  jealousy  alone  responsible 
for  the  rupture.  The  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  was  interpreted  by 
the  Scots  as  a  pledge  that  the  English  Parliament  would  establish  the 
Presbyterian  system  on  Scottish  lines,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  sectaries,  who 
were  to  them  an  abomination.  But  Cromwell  had  stepped  into  the  front 
rank ;  half  his  troopers  were  sectaries,  and  he  himself  notoriously  cared 
nothing  for  Presbyterian  orthodoxy.  His  men  might  be  Anabaptists, 
Baptists,  Independents,  anything,  provided  that  the  "root  of  the  matter" 
was  in  them  and  they  knew  how  to  fight.  But  the  Scottish  cause  in 
England  was  the  cause  not  of  parliament  but  of  Presbyterianism ;  it  was 
on  that  understanding  that  the  Scots  had  crossed  the  Border.  If  Cromwell 
and  the  men  of  his  kind  won  the  victory  for  parliament,  the  Presbyterian 
ideal  was  not  likely  to  be  realised.  Thus  cordial  co-operation  between 
the  Scots  and  Cromwell  was  not  to  be  looked  for.  Moreover,  as  time 
passed  on  it  began  to  be  doubtful  how  long  the  Scots  army  would  be 
ready  to  remain  in  England — whether  it  would  not  have  to  return  across 
the  Tweed  to  deal  with  Montrose,  with  whom  Argyle  was  proving  himself 
quite  unable  to  cope. 

Cromwell  was  not  the  only  man  who  saw  that  there  could  be  no 
decisive  success  without  reorganisation  ;  a  reorganisation  which  meant  the 
substitution  of  a  new  type  for  the  present  army  chiefs,  and  for  the  present 
rules  of  discipline — the  Cromwellian  type. in  both  cases.  As  matters  stood, 
the  best  that  the  parliament  could  hope  for  was  to  say  to  the  king,  "  You 
cannot  beat  us  ;  let  us  come  to  terms  "  ;  and  under  such  conditions  satis- 
factory terms  were  not  to  be  expected.  In  Cromwell's  view,  parliament 
could  be  and  must  be  placed  in  a  position  to  dictate  terms.  Hitherto  he 
had  not  been  prominent  as  a  debater,  though  the  force  of  the  man  had 
made  itself  felt  on  the  rare  occasions  when  he  intervened.  But  now  it  was 
in  parliament  itself  that  the  immediate  battle  must  be  fought  ;  and  Cromwell 
opened  the  campaign  by  a  direct  attack  upon  Manchester  for  neglecting 
his  duty  as  a  commander  to  crush  the  enemy  when  in  his  power.  But  it 
was  the  principle,  not  the  man,  which  mattered;  he  had  no  vindictive 
feeling  towards  Manchester,  and  readily  dropped  the  attack  on  him  when 
the  way  was  cleared  for  a  more  effective  procedure. 

The  parliament  itself  had  degenerated  since  its  first  meeting  in  1640. 
Of  its  abler  and  nobler  members  not  a  few  had  taken  their  stand  on  the 
king's  side.  Since  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  the  greatest  statesman  among 
its  members,  John  Pym,  had  died,  and  Hampden,  the  most  honoured  and 


THE    FALL   OF   THE    MONARCHY  435 

respected  of  all,  had  fallen  on  Chalgrove  Field.  Others,  like  Waller  and 
Cromwell,  had  been  drawn  away  to  active  duty,  and  those  who  remained 
lost  tone.  There  were  politicians  at  Westminster,  but  few  men  of  states- 
manship. The  politicians,  however,  were  capable  of  realising  that  the  war 
was  being  conducted  on  wrong  principles,  that  an  efficient  army  under 
efficient  commanders  would  give  it  a  new  aspect.  Cromwell,  the  man  of  the 
moment,  must  have  his  way  for  the  moment ;  the 
turn  of  the  politicians  would  come  afterwards. 

The  first  step,  then,  was  the  Self-denying  Ordi- 
nance, under  which  every  member  of  parliament  in 
either  House  resigned  his  own  command.  It  is  usually 
said  that  an  exception  was  made  in  favour  of  Crom- 
well ;  but  technically,  at  least,  this  is  inaccurate.  The 
object  of  the  Ordinance  was  the  removal  of  incom- 
petent commanders,  but  it  did  not  preclude  the 
reappointment  of  any  one  who  was  conspicuously  fit. 
Not  to  have  reappointed  the  one  man  who  was 
obviously  not  only  fit  but  necessary  would  have  been 
an  absurdity,  although  in  the  circumstances  it  would 
no  less  obviously  have  been  out  of  the  question  to 
place  him  in  chief  command.  For  that  office  Sir 
Thomas  Fairfax  was  chosen,  a  man  who  enjoyed  the 
confidence  of  every  one  with  whom  he  had  been 
associated,  welcome  not  only  to  Cromwell  himself, 
who  had  fought  beside  him  at  Marston  Moor,  but  on  all 
hands,  on  account  both  of  his  military  ability  and  his 
personal  character.  To  Cromwell  was  presently  given 
the  post  of  Lieutenant-General,  or  second  in  command, 
which  included  the  command  of  the  horse.  Pro- 
motion was  in  the  hands  of  the  General-in-Chief,  who 
could  be  trusted  to  bestow  it  where  it  was  deserved, 
regardless  of  other  considerations  than  military  ability. 

The  next  step  was  to  construct  the  New  Model 
Army,  a  compact  group  of  regiments  entirely  under  the  control  of  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  regularly  paid  ;  a  standing  army,  in  short,  very 
different  from  the  miscellaneous  local  levies  controlled  by  miscellaneous 
local  committees,  irregularly  paid  and  under  no  systematic  discipline.  The 
pick  of  the  veterans  were  promptly  enrolled  in  the  new  regiments,  com- 
prising something  over  twenty  thousand  men,  though  the  numbers  were  not 
made  up  without  compulsory  impressment.  And  the  best  of  these  troops, 
who  soon  set  the  tone  for  their  comrades,  were  Independents  or  Sectaries 
of  the  type  whom  Cromwell  had  enlisted  and  promoted,  regardless  of 
Presbyterian  orthodoxy. 

While    Fairfax    and    Cromwell    were    organising    the    New    Model,    it 
was  becoming  increasingly  clear  that   they  would   not    be  able  to   count 


A  cuirassier,  1645. 
[From  Skelton's  "Armour."] 


436      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

on  sufficient  support  from  the  Scots.  The  LesHes  were  much  more  incHned 
to  think  of  returning  to  Scotland  than  of  carrying  their  operations  further 
south.  Montrose  in  the  Highlands  flashed — no  historian  can  avoid  using 
the  word — from  point  to  point,  falling  swiftly  and  suddenly  upon  the 
Covenanting  troops,  harrying  Argyle's  own  territory,  and  dispersing  armies 
far  larger  than  his  own.  His  victory  at  Inverlochy,  early  in  the  year, 
almost  warranted  his  promise  to  the  king  that  before  the  end  of  the 
summer  he  would  have  won  Scotland,  and  would  be  ready  to  aid  Charles 
against  his  rebels  in  England.  Even  when 
Argyle  was  displaced  by  more  efficient  com- 
manders, the  swiftness  of  Montrose's  movements 
enabled  him  to  outmanoeuvre  them. 

But  in  England  the  generals  of  the  New 
Model  were  determined  to  strike  decisively. 
They  realised  that  it  was  their  business,  not  to 
capture  and  garrison  strong  places,  but  to  bring 
Charles's  main  army  to  a  decisive  engagement 
and  shatter  it  irrevocably.  No  one  had  at- 
tempted to  shatter  it  before  ;  Manchester,  indeed, 
had  deliberately  avoided  doing  so.  In  June  they 
started  in  pursuit,  and  came  up  with  the  Royalist 
army  near  Naseby,  in  Northamptonshire.  The 
New  Model  did  its  work.  On  the  Royalist 
right  Rupert's  charge  swept  away  Ireton's 
cavalry.  On  the  Roundhead  right  Cromwell 
and  his  Ironsides  swept  off  the  Royalist  horse. 
In  the  centre,  the  infantry  on  both  sides  fought 
fiercely,  and  the  fortunes  of  the  day  were  in 
doubt  until  Cromwell  crashed  back  upon  the 
^,    ^     ,.        ..,,    ,     ,,„,,,.,   enemy's  flank  while  Rupert's  headlong  horsemen 

The  Cavalier  us "  Lngland  s  \\  oil.  -'  r  ts 

[From  a  parliamentarian  broadside  of  .646.]  wcrc  still  far  away.  Thc  victory  was  completc. 
The  Royalist  horse  escaped  with  curiously 
little  injury,  and  Ciiarles  himself  was  forced  to  fly;  but  the  Royalist  foot 
were  shattered  beyond  hope  of  recovery.  The  whole  of  the  baggage  and 
all  the  munitions  of  war  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  victors. 

There  was  still  an  army  in  the  south-west,  under  Goring's  command, 
which  F'airfax  proceeded  without  delay  to  shatter  at  Langport.  During 
the  month  which  passed  between  these  two  battles,  Montrose  in  Scotland 
had  again  defeated  the  best  of  the  Covenanting  commanders ;  and  about 
a  month  after  Langport  he  won  at  Kilsythe  a  victory  which  seemed  to 
have  brought  Scotland  under  his  hand.  David  Leslie  hurried  to  Scotland, 
but  before  he  was  across  the  Border  the  fleeting  character  of  Montrose's 
success  was  manifested.  The  Highlanders,  whose  desperate  charges  routed 
their  foes,  understood  hand-to-hand  fighting  but  not  campaigning.  They 
scattered    to    their    homes    when    Montrose   descended   to   the    Lowlands, 


THE    FALL   OF   THE    MONARCHY  437 

and  Leslie  with  four  thousand  men  caught  the  great  Marquis  at  Phiiiphaugh 
with  a  very  much  smaller  force  counted  by  hundreds.  Of  these,  some 
half  fought  with  desperate  courage  ;  the  rest  hardly  took  part  in  the 
engagement.  Montrose's  men  were  cut  to  pieces  ;  some  of  them  were 
massacred  in  cold  blood ;  even  the  women  and  children  belonging  to 
Montrose's  Irish  troops  were  slaughtered.  Phiiiphaugh  was  an  ugly 
revenge  for  the  ugly  deeds  of  which  the  Irishmen  had  been  guilty.  In 
Scotland  as  well  as  in  England  the  last  chance  of  the  Royalist  cause 
disappeared. 

There  were  no  more  pitched  battles.  Charles  had  persistently  followed 
the  false  policy  of  keeping  his  foUowers  dispersed  in  garrisons  all  over  the 
Royalist  districts,  instead  of  concentrating  them  to  strike  effective  blows. 
The  reduction  of  these  garrisons  now  became  the  main  business  of  the 
Roundhead  force.  The  great  manor  houses  and  halls  which  could  bid 
defiance  to  the  onslaught  of  casual  troops  were  wholly  unfitted  to  stand 
siege  when  siege  ordnance  was  brought  up  against  them.  Resistance 
where  resistance  is  obviously  useless,  and  can  mean  nothing  but  a  sheer 
waste  of  life,  is  not  countenanced  by  the  laws  of  war.  Only  here  and 
there,  as  at  Basing  Hall,  did  garrisons  maintain  a  stubborn  defiance  in  the 
face  of  palpably  inevitable  destruction  ;  and  except  in  such  cases  they  were 
habitually  permitted  to  surrender  on  honourable  terms.  The  fierce  spirit 
of  hatred  expressed  in  Macaulay's  rousing  ballad  of  Naseby  had  not  yet 
come  into  play.  The  soldiers  of  the  New  Model  were  held  under  a  stern 
discipline  ;  robbery  and  outrage  were  practically  unheard  of. 

But  meanwhile  the  king,  if  he  was  unable  to  strike,  was  able  to  watch 
events.  Victory  in  the  field  was  out  of  the  question,  but  the  growing  signs 
of  dissension  among  his  opponents  gave  him  ample  hope  of  victory  by 
diplomacy.  Within  the  year  after  Naseby,  he  placed  himself  in  the  hands 
of  the  Scots  Army  in  England,  as  the  most  promising  quarter  from  which 
to  conduct  his  negotiations. 


IV 

DOWNFALL 

The  government  of  the  country  was  in  the  hands  of  the  parliament  at 
Westminster  ;  the  army  was  the  army  of  the  parliament,  and  its  officers 
were  the  parliament's  officers.  The  politicians  imagined  that  their  turn 
had  come ;  but  the  army  was  by  no  means  disposed  to  allow  its  victory  to 
be  thrown  away  or  to  be  utilised  for  purposes  of  which  it  disapproved. 
And  it  was  quite  certain  to  disapprove  of  much  which  the  parliament  and 
the  Scots  desired.  In  order  to  secure  victory  in  the  field  parliament  had 
suspended  its  Presbyterian  rigour.  The  ranks  of  the  army  were  filled  with 
Sectaries  ;  officers  and  men,  including  those  who  were  themselves  Presby- 


438      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

terians,  had  no  more  mind  to  surrender  liberty  of  religion  at  the  dictation 
of  Presbyterians  than  at  the  dictation  of  bishops.  But  they  were  led  by 
men  whom  they  trusted  completely,  and  neither  Fairfax  nor  Cromwell  was 
willing  to  resort  to  force  until  force  was  proved  to  be  the  only  available 
argument. 

At  the  end  of  1645,  the  year  of  Naseby,  the  narrow  Presbyterian  section 
in  parliament  lost  something  of  its  predominance.  Several  seats  had 
become  vacant,  which  were  now  filled  up,  and  a  large  proportion  of  the 
new  members  were  in  sympathy  with  the  broad  ideas  of  toleration.  The 
Presbyterians,  however,  still  held  a  substantial  majority,  and  some  two 
months  after  Charles  had  joined  the  Scots  they  formulated  their  proposals. 
Parliament  was  to  have  complete  control  of  the  militia  for  twenty  years, 
the  king  was  to  sign  the  Covenant,  and  Presbyterianism  was  to  be  estab- 
lished, while  the  Episcopal  system  and  all  kinds  of  sectaries  were  to  be 
suppressed.  Either  the  predecessor  or  the  successor  of  Charles  on  the 
throne  would  have  accepted  those  terms,  trusting  their  own  wits  so  to 
manipulate  parties  after  the  setdement  that  they  should  recover  their  own 
predominance.  But  Charles  had  neither  the  cunning  of  his  father  nor  the 
keen  political  wit  of  his  son.  He  had  no  more  respect  for  the  spirit  of  his 
pledges  than  either  of  them,  no  compunction  whatever  about  tricking  his 
opponents.  But  he  had  a  conscience  of  his  own,  and  the  one  thing  that 
he  would  not  do  was  to  act  against  his  religious  convictions.  Therefore  he 
temporised,  believing  that  all  he  required  was  to  gain  time — that  the  longer 
a  settlement  was  delayed,  the  more  certain  it  was  that  dissensions  among 
the  ranks  of  his  opponents  would  enable  him  to  make  his  own  terms. 

In  fact,  by  accepting  the  terms  at  the  moment  he  would  have  united  the 
Scots  and  the  English  Presbyterians  in  his  support,  but  his  shifts  to  procure 
delay  failed  in  their  purpose.  The  Scots  realised  that  he  had  no  intention 
of  signing  the  Covenant,  the  one  matter  of  importance  to  them.  Even  at  the 
best  they  were  not  too  w-ell  satisfied  with  the  English  Presbyterianism, 
which  rejected  the  Scottish  doctrine  of  spiritual  independence  and  main- 
tained the  subordination  of  the  Church  to  the  State.  Having  made  up 
their  minds  that  the  object  they  themselves  had  in  view  was  unattainable, 
they  resolved  to  withdraw  themselves  from  English  affairs  altogether.  They 
signified  to  the  English  parliament  that  they  held  the  king  as  a  hostage, 
but  would  hand  him  over  to  the  parliament  when  the  moneys  due  to  them 
for  their  expenses  in  the  war  were  paid  up  ;  for  it  had  been  agreed  as  a 
part  of  the  bargain,  when  the  Scots  intervened,  that  they  did  so  at  the 
charges  of  their  allies.  The  sums  claimed  were  promptly  paid  over  ;  the 
Scots  surrendered  the  king  to  the  parliamentary  commissioners  and  betook 
themselves  across  the  Border.  The  king  was  placed  at  Holmby  House  in 
Northamptonshire. 

The  departure  of  the  Scots  pressed  forward  the  crisis  between  Parlia- 
ment and  the  Army.  While  the  Army  remained,  it  might  interfere  with 
the  strong  hand,  if  Parliament  endeavoured  to  override  its  will.     There 


THE   FALL   OF   THE   MONARCHY  439 

was  no  wish  on  the  part  of  its  chiefs  to  usurp  the  government,  but  on  the 
fundamental  point  of  general  toleration,  Parliament  was  not  to  be  trusted, 
and  on  that  point  the  Army  was  prepared  to  insist. 


Parliament,  aware  of 


f^      Roundhead  throughout  the  war.    llllllllll|    Became  Roundhead  after  Marston  Moor. 
The  unshaded  portions  remained  Royalist  throughout  the  war. 
Royalist  and  Roundhead  in  the  Civil  War. 

its  danger,  began  to  discuss  the  disbandment  of  the  Army  while  it  continued 
to  negotiate  with  the  king.  In  May  1647  Parliament  came  to  terms  with 
the  king.  Presbyterianism  was  to  be  established,  though  liberty  of  worship 
was  reserved  to  Charles  ;  but  the  agreement  was  to  hold  good  for  three 


440      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

years  only.  But,  meanwhile,  it  was  known  that  Parliament  was  negotiating 
with  the  Scots  for  the  establishment  of  Presbyterianism,  and  that  the  domi- 
nant party  were  propounding  measures  for  rendering  the  Army  powerless. 
The  bulk  of  it  was  to  be  disbanded,  mulcted  of  most  of  its  arrears  of  pay. 
The  remainder  of  it  was  to  be  recast  under  Presbyterian  officers,  excluding 
all  members  of  Parliament,  Cromwell  of  course  among  them.  Of  this  Army 
a  portion  was  to  be  despatched  to  Ireland,  while  the  remainder  would  be 
merely  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  Presbyterian  government.  The 
Army  demanded  guarantees  for  liberty  of  conscience  and  the  payment  of 
arrears  before  it  would  consent  to  disbandment.  No  such  guarantees  were 
forthcoming. 

The  Army  chiefs,  who  had  for  long  had  a  difficult  task  in  restraining  the 
troops,  saw  that  the  time  had  come  for  taking  the  law  into  their  own  hands. 
A  troop  of  horse  was  despatched  under  Cornet  Joyce  to  Holmby  House, 
whence  the  king  was  conducted  to  headquarters  at  Newmarket.  Then  the 
troops  marched  upon  London,  occupied  the  city,  and  demanded  the  ex- 
clusion from  parliament  of  eleven  obnoxious  members.  The  Army  was 
master  of  parliament  and  of  the  situation. 

But  even  now  the  chiefs  were  bent  upon  extreme  moderation.  It  was 
not  their  business  to  undertake  a  constitutional  settlement,  or  to  set  up  a 
military  government  ;  but  it  was  their  business  to  secure  the  thing  on 
which  their  hearts  were  set,  liberty  of  conscience.  They  drew  up  certain 
"  heads  of  proposals  "  which  if  they  had  been  accepted  would  have  settled 
the  religious  question.  The  penal  laws  against  Romanists  were  to  remain 
in  force  ;  but  with  this  single  exception,  to  which  practically  no  one  but  the 
Romanists  was  disposed  to  object,  there  was  to  be  complete  toleration.  Epis- 
copalians, Presbyterians,  and  Sectaries  were  to  enjoy  entire  freedom 
of  worship  subject  to  no  civil  penalties  or  disabilities. 

Neither  the  king,  who  was  now  domiciled  at  Hampton  Court,  nor  the 
Presbyterians  were  ready  to  adopt  the  proposals.  The  chiefs  reluctantly 
withdrew  them  and  contented  themselves  with  endeavours  to  secure  a 
tolerable  compromise.  But  Charles  could  not  free  himself  from  his  con- 
viction that  by  temporising  and  intriguing  he  would  still  succeed  in 
effecting  his  own  aims.  He  escaped  from  Hampton  Court,  but  was 
stopped  in  the  Isle  of  Wight  and  detained  in  Carisbrooke  Castle,  whence  he 
continued  to  carry  on  open  negotiations  with  Parliament  and  the  Army, 
and  at  the  same  time  other  secret  negotiations  which  were  to  prove  his 
ruin.  The  Army  was  at  odds  with  the  Parliament  ;  it  was  at  odds  now 
even  with  itself,  for  there  had  grown  up  in  it  a  fiery  democratic  element, 
the  element  which  became  known  as  the  Levellers.  These  men  were 
imbued  with  the  republican  spirit,  a  contempt  for  social  rank,  hatred  for 
the  privileges  of  birth.  They  wanted  the  abolition  of  all  such  privileges  ; 
the  destruction  of  the  Monarchy  and  the  Peerage.  Every  man,  in  their  eyes, 
had  a  right  to  a  voice  in  the  government  of  the  country.  Moreover,  while 
they  demanded  toleration  for  Sectaries,  most  of  them  included  Anglicanism 


THE   FALL   OF   THE    MONARCHY 


441 


in  the  general  bann  which  nearly  all  Protestants  extended  to  Romanists. 
Many  of  them  were  now  denouncing  Cromwell  and  Ireton,  because  those 
generals  had  hitherto  set  their  faces  against  the  republican  doctrine  and 
persistently  advocated  the  toleration  of  Episcopacy. 


I'A'^  ^J;7^h^'-)L  u-i 


The  trial  of  Charles  I. 
[From  a  print  in  Nalson's  report  of  ihe  trial  published  in  16S4.] 


If  the  Army  broke  itself  up  now,  the  king  might  come  by  his  own  ;  if 
the  Royalists  rose  again  they  would  surely  be  victorious.  So  Charles 
intrigued  and  plotted,  and  told  the  Scots  that  if  they  helped  him  to  his 
throne  in  England  he  would  establish  Presbyterianism  and  make  war  upon 
the  Sectaries.     Scotland  swallowed  the  bait,  though  not  without  opposition 


442      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

from  Argyle,  who,  despite  his  faults,  was  not  without  some  qualities  of 
statesmanship.  In  the  spring  of  1648  a  Scots  army,  led  by  the  Duke  of 
Hamilton,  crossed  the  Border,  in  arms  for  the  King  of  England.  Charles's 
intrigue  bore  fruit  in  a  sudden  blaze  of  Cavalier  insurrections  in  Wales,  in 
Cornwall  and  Devon,  and  in  Kent  and  the  south-east. 

But  the  effect  on  the  Army  was  not  what  the  king  had  anticipated. 
While  its  chiefs,  at  the  risk  of  their  own  popularity  and  to  the  danger  of 
their  own  power,  had  been  straining  every  nerve  to  keep  the  passions  of  the 
soldiery  in  check,  striving  honestly  and  openly  to  arrive  at  a  reasonable 
compromise  which  should  be  tolerable  to  every  one  ;  while  they  had  been 
abstaining  from  violence,  and  had  appealed  to  a  show  of  force  only  when 


The  excciiliun  of  Charles  I.  in  Whitehall,  January  30,  1^149. 
[From  a  print  of  the  year.] 


self-defence  left  them  no  alternative  ;  the  king  had  been  playing  with  them, 
plotting  for  the  destruction  of  the  liberties  for  which  they  had  fought. 
Compromise,  agreements  which  depended  upon  good  faith,  could  no  longer 
be  considered.  There  was  one  thing  to  be  done  at  once — to  stamp  out  the 
flame  of  insurrection.  And  then  the  Army  and  its  leaders  would  be  at  one. 
Fairfax  took  charge  of  the  insurrection  in  the  south-east,  suppressed  it 
in  Kent,  and  held  the  main  body  of  the  insurgents  shut  up  in  Colchester. 
Cromwell  flung  himself  into  Wales.  By  the  time  that  he  had  crushed 
resistance  there  the  Scots  army,  badly  led  and  badly  organised,  was  stream- 
ing into  Lancashire.  Near  Preston,  Cromwell  fell  upon  the  flank  of  the 
long  advancing  column,  cut  it  in  two,  and  destroyed  it  in  a  running  fight 
which  lasted  for  three  days.  Colchester  surrendered  to  Fairfax.  The 
spirit  which  had  led  the  conquerors  in  the  first  civil  war  to  act  always  with 


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444  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

humanity,  and  as  a  rule  mercifully  and  even  generously,  was  killed.  This 
was  a  war  wantonly  stirred  up,  when  the  sword  had  already  been  sheathed 
and  the  king  who  had  incited  it  was  pretending  to  seek  reconciliation. 
The  insurgents  were  treated  as  rebels,  and  large  numbers  of  them  were 
shipped  off  to  servitude  in  the  plantations  of  Barbadoes. 

The  first  step  had  been  taken  ;  the  insurrection  had  been  stamped  out. 
The  victorious  troops  were  returning,  determined  to  dictate  their  own 
terms,  when  the  news  reached  them  that  the  king  and  the  Presbyterian 
majority  at  Westminster  had  struck  their  own  bargain.  The  Army  would 
have  no  more  bargains.  On  the  6th  December  Colonel  Pride  and  a 
body  of  musketeers  took  up  their  stand  at  the  door  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  arrested  fifty  of  the  members,  and  excluded  a  hundred  more. 
The  remnant,  the  Rump,  as  they  were  called,  then  assumed  the  functions 
of  parliament.  On  the  4th  January  they  declared  themselves  the  sole 
sovereign  authority  in  the  country,  and  pronounced  that  their  enact- 
ments had  the  force  of  law  whether  the  Crown  and  the  Peers  assented 
or  no. 

But  behind  this  there  was  a  more  terrible  determination.  While  the 
king  lived  there  could  be  no  peace.  Charles  had  wrought  treason  against 
the  nation  ;  it  was  he  who  had  deluged  the  land  in  blood,  he  who  had 
foiled  every  attempt  to  establish  a  basis  for  a  lasting  peace.  The  king 
must  die,  not  because  a  republic  was  better  than  a  monarchy,  not  because 
the  Crown  was  in  itself  an  evil,  but  because  Charles,  personally,  was  an 
impossible  king,  and  while  he  lived  neither  a  republic  nor  another  king  were 
possible.  As  for  the  justification,  let  the  Blood  of  the  Saints  testify!  If 
the  king  were  amenable  to  no  human  law,  should  the  servants  of  the  Lord 
be  therefore  debarred  from  acting  as  the  instruments  of  His  vengeance  ? 
So  reasoned  Cromwell  and  the  Army.  Yet  all  should  be  done  at  least 
with  a  semblance  of  law.  The  Rump,  as  self-constituted  sovereign,  ap- 
pointed a  High  Court  of  Justice  to  try  "the  man  Charles  Stuart."  The 
king  took  his  stand  on  the  plain  and  obvious  fact  that  such  a  court  had 
no  conceivable  authority.  He  refused  to  plead.  No  one  could  even  pre- 
tend that  the  authority  of  the  Court  rested  upon  the  will  of  the  nation  any 
more  than  it  rested  upon  law.  The  nation  stood  aghast,  half  paralysed, 
while  Fairfax  and  many  others  who  had  been  appointed  on  the  Commission 
refused  to  take  part  in  the  proceedings.  The  responsibility  lay  with  those 
who  had  the  power  to  enforce  their  way,  and  did  not  fear  to  do  what  they 
had  persuaded  themselves  was  their  duty.  In  the  eyes  of  the  nation  the 
king  had  committed  no  crime  ;  now  he  played  his  part  with  a  sincerity  and 
a  dignity  which  carried  the  popular  sympathy  to  his  side  ;  and  which  for 
all  time  has  clothed  the  figure  of  King  Charles  the  Martyr  with  a  halo  of 
reverential  pity.  But  the  stern  men  who  had  doomed  him  did  not  shrink  ; 
for  them  he  was  the  enemy  of  God  and  of  the  people.  The  Court  pro- 
nounced sentence  of  death,  and  P2ngland  saw  the  head  of  its  king  fall  under 
the  executioner's  axe. 


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H      2 


CHAPTER    XVII 

THE   COMMONWEALTH 

I 

DROGHEDA   AND   WORCESTER 

Englishmen  above  all  people  in  the  world  love  adherence  to  precedent 
and  custom  ;  but  in  the  government  of  England,  now,  precedent  and 
custom  were  toppled  into  the  abyss.  Hitherto,  for  some  four  centuries  at 
least,  king  and  parliament  had  shared  authority,  though  with  differences  of 
opinion  as  to  their  respective  proportions.  No  one  had  ever  dreamed  of 
such  a  thing  as  the  arraigning  of  a  king  before  his  own  subjects  for  treason. 
None  except  kings  had  ever  challenged  the  right  of  free  access  to  parlia- 
ment by  its  members,  the  right  of  freedom  of  debate,  or  the  right  of 
free  decision.  Kings,  relying  on  the  support  of  the  will  of  the  nation, 
had  curbed  barons  ;  barons  relying  on  the  same  support  had  curbed 
kings  ;  kings  had  ruled  autocratically  when  their  policy  harmonised  with  the 
national  feeling  expressed  in  parliaments  ;  parliaments  with  the  will  of  the 
people  behind  them  had  refused  submission  to  kings.  But  the  Great 
Rebellion  had  reached  a  climax,  when  the  monarchy  was  abolished  alto- 
gether, and  the  authority  of  parliament  was  scattered  to  the  winds 
because  parliament  had  ceased  to  represent  the  national  will. 

In  fact  there  was  no  national  will,  but  a  mere  chaos  of  conflicting 
parties  ;  and  out  of  this  chaos  had  emerged  one  body  strong  enough  to 
impose  its  will  upon  the  rest.  No  other  form  of  government  was  possible. 
That  body  had  made  up  its  mind  to  have  done  with  the  monarchy ;  it  did 
not  wish  to  have  done  with  parliament,  but  there  were  no  visible  means  of 
procuring  a  parliament  capable  of  exercising  the  functions  of  government. 
So  it  took  the  parliament  that  was  there,  purged  it  in  accordance  with  its 
own  views,  abolished  the  House  of  Peers,  and  endeavoured  to  treat  the  Rump 
in  the  House  of  Commons  as  the  Representative  Assembly  of  the  nation. 
Through  the  Rump  it  constructed  an  Executive  Council,  composed  partly 
of  military  officers,  partly  of  members  of  the  Rump  itself ;  and  Council 
and  Rump  together  provided  the  government  of  the  nation.  The  one  thing 
vital  for  the  moment  was,  for  that  government  to  establish  and  maintain  its 
own  authority,  since  reversion  to  chaos  was  the  sole  alternative. 

The  new  government  was  threatened  on  every  side,  from  without  as 
well  as  from  within.     As   a  regicide  government,  every  state   in  Europe 

445 


446  THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

would  have  rejoiced  at  its  downfall,  and  not  least  Holland,  whose  young 
Stadtholder,  William  II.,  was  brother-in-law  to  the  claimant  of  the  English 
throne.  Scotland  was  righteously  indignant ;  for  the  people  of  England  or 
their  rulers  had  cut  off  the  head  of  the  King  of  Scotland,  to  whom  the 
Scots  had  never  ceased  to  profess  loyalty,  even  when  they  were  in  arms 
against  him,  or  when  they  handed  him  over  to  his  English  subjects. 
Moreover,  Scotland  was  entirely  hostile  to  the  Sectaries,  who  had  now 
taken  control  of  affairs,  and  in  particular  to  the  Man  w^ho  had  led  the 
Sectaries  to  victory.  In  Ireland,  the  death  of  Charles  I.  united  against 
the  regicide  government  the  Cavalier  element  and  the  native  Irish — to 
whom  any  English  government  was  sufficiently  detestable,  but  a  rule  at 
once  English  and  Puritan  was  an  abomination.  In  England  itself,  Cavalier 
loyalty  and  Presbyterian  respectability  were,  according  to  circumstances, 
stung  to  fury  or  grievously  shocked  at  the  usurpation  of  Sectarians  and 
regicides.  Finally,  in  the  victorious  party  itself,  an  angry  spirit  was  aroused 
among  many  who  had  looked  for  liberty  at  least  for  themselves,  and  now 
saw,  occupying  the  seats  of  the  mighty,  men  who  could  not  refrain  if  they 
would  from  acting  despotically.  Even  of  the  fleet,  a  substantial  portion 
declared  at  first  against  the  new  regime. 

The  government  weathered  the  storm.  A  stern  and  remorseless 
discipline  arrested  the  mutinous  spirit  in  the  army  ;  in  the  navy,  after  the 
first  moment  of  doubt,  it  became  evident  that  the  great  preponderance  lay 
with  those  who  declared  for  loyalty  to  the  Commonwealth.  The  last  year's 
campaign  had  impressed  upon  Cavaliers  and  Presbyterians  the  futility  of 
armed  insurrection.  Foreign  Powers  might  be  hostile,  but  they  had  other 
things  to  think  of  than  intervention  in  English  affairs.  Scotland  did  not 
espouse  the  cause  of  Charles's  son,  would  not  even  hasten  to  set  the  crown 
of  Scotland  itself  on  his  head,  until  she  had  made  her  own  terms  with  him. 
The  pressing  danger  was  in  Ireland,  where  Cavaliers  and  Catholics  together 
threatened  to  wipe  out  their  opponents,  and  to  provide  a  basis  whence  the 
combined  elements  of  disaffection  might  organise  an  attack  on  the  English 
Government. 

To  Ireland,  then,  Cromwell  was  despatched  in  the  August  after  the 
execution  of  King  Charles  ;  and  he  dealt  with  that  country  on  the  general 
principle  that  his  opponents  were  rebels  ;  at  any  rate  that  those  humane 
modifications  in  the  commonly  recognised  laws  of  war,  which  had  habitually 
prevailed  during  the  contest  in  England,  were  not  to  be  applied  in  Ireland. 
Here,  at  least,  he  acted  on  the  conviction  that  by  striking  ruthlessly  at  once 
he  would  make  a  prolonged  war  and  prolonged  bloodshed  impossible.  He 
turned  upon  Drogheda,  stormed  it  when  it  refused  to  surrender,  and  no 
quarter  was  given  to  those  in  the  town  who  were  in  arms.  Then  he  fell 
upon  Wexford,  which  was  treated  after  the  same  fashion,  though  this  time 
the  slaughter  was  carried  out  by  the  soldiery  without  direct  orders.  The 
massacres  of  Drogheda  and  Wexford  served  their  purpose.  When  Cromwell 
had  made  it  clear  that  resistance  in   the  first  place  was  futile,  and  in  the 


THE   COMMONWEALTH  447 

second  place  would  be  punished  without  mercy,  resistance  practically  dis- 
appeared. Garrison  after  garrison  surrendered  after  being  summoned,  and 
there  was  little  more  actual  bloodshed.  Cromwell  was  perhaps  right  in 
believing  that  so  far  as  the  immediate  war  was  concerned  the  truest  mercy 
was  in  mercilessness.  Moreover,  he  suffered  from  the  conviction  common 
to  practically  all  Englishmen,  for  at  least  a  century  past,  that  the  Irish  were 
too  barbarous  to  understand  other  methods  than  those  of  barbarism  ;  they 
were  savages,  controllable  only  by  terrorism.  For  the  rest,  again  in 
common  with  all  Englishmen,  he  believed  in  the  full  tale  of  the  atrocities 
committed  in  the  Irish  insurrection  of  1641,  and  imagined  that  the  worst 
he  did  fell  far  short  of  being  a  just  punishment  for  the  crimes  of  the  past. 

Terror  triumphed  ;  but  Cromwell  had  not  exacted  the  full  penalty  in 
the  streets  of  Drogheda  and  Wexford.  Sweeping  confiscations  of  land 
followed,  and  numbers  of  the  Puritan  troopers  were  planted  on  Irish  soil, 
to  form  an  effective  garrison  for  years  to  come.  But  if  Cromwell's  doings 
tended,  as  he  beUeved,  to  save  the  effusion  of  blood,  they  sowed  afresh  the 
seeds  of  racial  and  religious  hate,  that  monstrous  crop  which  was  to  be 
reaped  by  generations  upon  generations  as  yet  unborn,  the  black  inheritance 
of  the  Curse  of  Cromwell. 

Before  Cromwell  was  ready  to  leave  the  completion  of  his  work  in 
Ireland  to  his  lieutenants,  the  clouds  were  gathering  in  the  North. 
Scotland  and  England  were  bound  together  solely  by  the  one  link  of  the 
crown,  and  that  link  England  herself  had  severed  when  she  abolished  her 
own  monarchy  by  cutting  off  her  own  king's  head  and  rejecting  his  suc- 
cessor. Her  action  was  not  binding  upon  Scotland  ;  was  on  the  contrary 
entirely  repudiated  by  Scotland  ;  which,  with  entire  justification,  declared 
it  to  be  a  flagrant  breach  of  the  terms  of  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant — 
a  Covenant  which  pledged  both  countries  to  loyalty  to  the  person  of  the 
king.  But  if  Scotland  chose  to  acknowledge  Charles  II.,  the  situation  for 
England  would  manifestly  be  dangerous. 

Scotland  would  only  acknowledge  Charles  on  condition  of  his  signing 
the  Covenant.  That  most  cynical  of  princes  would,  with  perfect  cheerfulness 
and  entire  good-nature,  have  signed  a  dozen  covenants  to  gain  his  own 
ends,  and  would  have  torn  them  up  afterwards  as  suited  his  convenience. 
But  devoted  loyalty,  in  the  person  of  Montrose,  was  eager  to  set  the  young 
king  on  his  throne  untrammelled  by  ignominious  promises.  Charles  always 
showed  a  gracious  alacrity  in  encouraging  his  neighbours  to  self-sacrifice 
on  his  behalf.  He  temporised  with  the  Scots  from  his  safe  quarters  in 
Holland,  while  he  suffered  the  heroic  Montrose  to  go  to  his  doom.  The 
enterprise  was  hopeless.  Montrose  landed  in  Scotland,  not  in  the  regions 
where  the  kilted  hosts  were  ready  to  flock  to  the  standard  of  the  brilliant 
leader  who  would  launch  them  against  the  hated  Argyle  and  the  Campbells, 
but  in  the  far  north,  where  the  n^  me  of  McCallam  Mohr  roused  no  passionate 
hostility.  Instead  of  gathering  an  increasing  host,  he  soon  found  himself 
alone  and  deserted,  was  taken  prisoner  in   Ross-shire,  handed  over  to  the 


448  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

Government,  and  hanged  as  a  traitor,  leaving  a  heroic  memory  cherished 
by  all  lovers  of  self-sacrificing  loyalty  and  splendid  self-devotion. 

Since  the  "Great  Marquis"  had  lost  the  hazard,  Charles,  with  superb 
cynicism,  accepted  the  terms  offered  him  by  the  men  who  had  just  slain  his 
most  loyal  servant  as  a  traitor.  He  accepted  the  Covenant  and  landed  in 
Scotland,  where  he  probably  learnt  to  feel  something  more  akin  to  re- 
pentance than  he  suffered  at  any  other  time  of  his  Hfe.  For  Charles  could 
endure  hardship  and  privation,  but  he  loathed  seriousness,  and  in  Scotland 
he  had  to  wear  the  mask  of  seriousness  everyday  and  all  day,  and  a  specially 

lugubrious    mask    on    the 
Sabbath. 

In  Scotland,  then,  the 
nation  had  accepted  a 
covenanted  king,  on  whose 
person  was  focussed  all  the 
sentiment  of  loyalty  in 
England  which  had  been 
evoked  by  his  father's 
tragedy.  If  he  claimed 
the  throne  of  England, 
there  would  be  on  his  side 
not  only  the  Cavaliers,  but 
the  whole  weight  of  ortho- 
dox Presbyterianism,  rein- 
forced by  numbers  of  the 
moderate  men  who  had 
been  shocked  by  the  high- 
handed illegality  whereby  the  Commonwealth  had  been  created.  And 
behind  Cavaliers  and  Presbyterians  would  be  the  Scots.  Yet  nothing 
could  be  more  obvious  than  the  right  of  the  Scots,  an  independent  nation 
over  whom  England  exercised  no  jurisdiction  whatever,  to  maintain  the 
monarchy  and  to  acknowledge  the  king  in  whose  veins  ran  the  blood  of 
the  Bruce.  Once  more  the  English  government  had  before  it  the  question 
whether  government  should  be  overthrown  in  the  name  of  the  law,  or 
maintained  by  a  palpable  breach  of  law.  Once  more  it  resolved  that  the 
security  of  the  State  is  the  supreme  law — and  the  security  of  the  State 
demanded  the  coercion  of  Scotland. 

An  initial  difficulty  presented  itself.  Fairfax,  the  General-in-Chief,  now 
as  before  refused  to  act  against  his  conscience.  England  had  no  moral  right 
to  coerce  Scotland.  He  would  not  seek  to  impose  his  own  will  upon  England, 
but  he  would  not  lead  an  army  into  Scotland.  He  was  obdurate  to  Cromwell's 
persuasions.  It  was  no  ambition  of  his  own  which  had  set  him  in  com- 
mand of  the  forces  of  the  Commonwealth.  His  resignation  was  the  only  way 
out  of  the  difficulty,  and  was  accepted  with  more  reluctance  than  it  was  offered. 
Cromwell  became  tlie  General-in-Chief  of  the  Commonwealth  army. 

In  July  Cromwell  was  in  Scotland,  but  the  government  of  the  Covenant 


nose  to  the  fjrindstone. 


The  Scots  keep  their  young  king': 

f  From  a  broadside  of  1651  satirising  the  acceptance  of  the 
Covenant  by  Charles  U.] 


THE   COMMONWEALTH  449 

would  not  listen  to  his  arguments,  and  when  he  advanced  upon  Edinburgh 
he  found  that  the  skill  of  David  Leslie  had  posted  their  troops  impregnably. 
He  had  no  alternative  but  to  fall  back  upon  Dunbar,  followed  and 
shepherded  by  the  Scots.  Supplies  were  running  low,  the  Scottish 
generals  were  not  to  be  outmanoeuvred,  and  it  seemed  that  Cromwell  would 
be  driven  to  escape  as  best  he  could  to  the  ships  which  were  in  attendance. 
He  was  saved  by  the  unspeakable  folly  of  the  enemy.  Leslie  was  over- 
ridden by  the  ignorant  fanaticism  of  the  clerical  counsellors,  who  cried  out 
to  him  to  smite  the  blasphemers  and  sectaries  whom  the  Lord  had  delivered 
into  their  hands.  With  amazement  and  thanksgiving,  Cromwell  saw  the  Scots 
repeating  the  supreme  folly  of  Flodden  and  Pinkie-Cleugh,  and  defiling  from 
the  position  in  which  to  attack  them  would  have  been  madness,  apparently 
with  the  idea  of  cutting  him  off  from  the  sea.  As  he  had  smitten  them  at 
Preston  by  hurling  himself  upon  the  centre  of  their  straggling  column,  so 
now  he  smote  them  in  the  rout  of  Dunbar.  He  was  as  sure  as  the  enemy 
themselves  had  been  that  this  thing  was  the  Lord's  doing. 

But  if  it  was  the  Scots  whom  the  Lord  had  delivered  into  the  hand  of 
the  English,  and  not  vice  versa,  Dunbar  did  not  by  any  means  suffice  to 
annihilate  the  Scottish  resistance.  Cromwell  occupied  Edinburgh,  but 
Cavaliers  and  Covenanters  in  combination  were  still  able  to  block  his 
further  advance  and  to  reject  his  negotiations.  His  own  activity  was 
checked  by  illness,  but  in  the  spring  he  advanced  upon  Perth,  with  the 
effect  which  he  had  perhaps  anticipated.  The  way  lay  open  for  a  Scottish 
invasion  of  England  ;  and  the  Scots,  carrying  the  king  with  them,  seized 
their  opportunity  and  marched  for  the  Border.  They  entered  England  by 
the  same  route  as  before,  streaming  down  through  the  Western  Counties. 
Cromwell  was  swift  to  follow,  while  another  English  force,  under  Lambert, 
moved  towards  Worcester  to  intercept  them.  But  the  English  Cavaliers 
and  Presbyterians  did  not  venture  to  rise.  Cromwell  following  hard  on 
the  heels  of  the  Scots  overtook  them  at  Worcester,  and  there  won  the 
crowning  victory.  The  Scots  army  was  shattered,  the  young  king  became 
a  fugitive,  and  after  sundry  hair's-breadth  escapes  succeeded  in  finding 
at  the  village  of  Brighton  a  boat  which  carried  him  to  safety  across 
the  Channel.  It  was  never  again  necessary  for  Cromwell  to  take  the 
field. 

In  fact,  the  English  Cavaliers,  after  the  campaign  of  1648,  had  despaired 
of  further  warfare  on  land  and  betaken  themselves  to  the  sea,  where 
Prince  Rupert  appeared  in  a  new  role.  He  found,  however,  more  than 
his  match  in  the  great  admiral  of  the  Commonwealth,  Robert  Blake  ;  who 
after  the  fashion  of  the  times  was  placed  in  command  of  the  fleet  because 
he  had  proved  his  capacity  as  a  soldier  ashore.  Blake  swept  Rupert  off 
the  English  seas,  and  driving  him  into  the  Mediterranean  laid  the  foundation 
of  that  English  ascendency  in  the  great  inland  sea  which  played  so 
tremendous  a  part  in  her  subsequent  wars.  The  victory  of  Worcester 
laid  Scotland  at  the  mercy  of  England,  and  in  that  country  the  military 
control  was  left  in  the  hands  of  General  Monk. 


450 


THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 


II 


THE    RUMP 


The  personality  of  Cromwell  so  completely  overshadows  that  of  any 
other  man    among   his    contemporaries,  from   Marston   Moor  to   the    day 
_.  of  his  death,  that  we 

are  somewhat  apt  to 
think  of  him  as  a 
military  dictator  who 
imposed  his  arbitrary 
will  upon  England 
throughout  thatperiod. 
That  conception,  how- 
ever, is  erroneous. 
Until  after  the  battle 
of  Preston,  he  did  in- 
deed embody  in  his 
own  person  the  will 
of  the  Army,  but 
neither  he  nor  the 
Army  attempted  to 
seize  for  themselves 
the  functions  of 
government.  They 
stood  only  as  the 
champions  of  liberty 
of  conscience,  battling 
for  a  settlement  which 
should  secure  that 
Hberty  ;  and  their  de- 
mands were  urged 
under  the  sanction  of  their  ability  in  the  last  resort  to  apply  force.  But 
Cromwell  was  so  far  from  being  a  dictator  that  he  did  not  succeed  in 
inducing  the  actual  government  to  make  the  settlement,  which  he  desired, 
though  he  prevented  them  from  making  the  very  different  settlement 
wiiich  they  desired. 

After  Preston,  the  will  of  the  Army,  still  embodied  in  Oliver,  enforced 
the  construction  of  a  form  of  government  intended  to  be  as  constitutional 
as  the  circumstances  allowed  ;  a  government  whose  first  business  was 
to  make  itself  secure,  because  that  seemed  the  primary  condition  without 
which  peace  could  not  be  re-established.  But  neither  in  form  nor  in 
fact  did  Cromwell  assume  the  political  direction  of  that  government.     From 


Oliver  Cruuiv.cli. 
[From  a  miniature  by  Samuel  Cooper.] 


THE   COMMONWEALTH  451 

the  death  of  the  king  to  the  battle  of  Worcester,  he  was  entirely  engaged 
upon  mihtary  duties,  and  upon  the  affairs  of  Ireland  and  Scotland,  not 
upon  the  affairs  of  England,  from  which  he  was,  for  the  most  part,  absent. 
Her  affairs  were  in  the  hands  of  the  Rump  and  the  Council  of  State.  It 
was  not  Cromwell  who  dictated  the  admirable  administrative  policy  by 
which  Sir  Harry  Vane  on  the  Council,  and  Blake  on  the  sea,  reorganised 
the  navy,  and  established  England  on  an  equality  with  Holland,  as  a  Naval 
Power  which  had  no  other  rival.  It  was  not  Cromwell  who  guided  the 
financial  policy  which  supplied  the  heavy  demands  of  the  Treasury  from  the 
estates  of  the  Cavaliers.  It  was  not  Cromwell  who  refused  toleration  to 
Anglicanism  and  Anglican  services,  and  replaced  Anglican  incumbents  by 
Presbyterians,  Baptists,  and  Independents.  Finally,  it  was  not  Cromwell 
who  directed  the  foreign  policy  of  the  government. 

Long  before  Worcester  was  fought,  the  fleet  had  been  reorganised  by 
Vane,  and  the  might  of  the  English  Navy  had  been  established  by  Blake. 
England's  one  rival  upon  the  seas  was  Holland,  and  commercially  Eng- 
land was  far  behind  Holland.  The  great  Thirty  Years'  War  had  come 
to  an  end  in  the  last  year  of  King  Charles  I.  The  religious  question  on 
the  Continent  had  been  more  or  less  solved  by  the  virtual  partition  of 
Germany  into  Protestant  States  in  the  North  and  Catholic  States  in  the 
South  ;  among  which  Austria  retained  an  immense  predominance,  while 
the  Imperial  Crown  was  now  permanently  associated  with  the  House  of 
Hapsburg.  But  the  mutter ings  of  religious  strife  were  not  yet  over  ;  and 
EngHsh  Puritanism  was  still  moved  by  the  dream  of  a  league  of  Protestantism 
against  a  still  aggressive  Catholicism.  No  European  Power,  however,  was 
ready  to  offer  the  hand  of  friendship  to  the  regicide  Republic.  The  death 
of  the  Dutch  Stadtholder  in  1650  established  in  Holland  an  unqualified 
Republic,  which  was  not  disturbed  by  the  birth  of  the  posthumous  son  who 
grew  up  to  become  William  III.  ;  and  this  change  in  Holland  inspired  a 
momentary  hope  in  the  English  government  of  a  Dutch  alliance.  But  the 
English  overtures  were  rejected  ;  so  that  the  hostility  engendered  by  com- 
mercial rivalry  was  allowed  free  play. 

England,  then,  since  its  proffered  friendship  was  refused,  assumed  an 
aggressive  attitude.  About  the  time  when  Cromwell  was  winning  the 
battle  of  Worcester,  parliament  was  passing  the  Navigation  Act.  The 
enormous  mass  of  the  carrying  trade  of  the  world  was  in  the  hands  of 
Holland.  The  Navigation  Act  renewed  the  ancient  but  ill-observed  rule 
that  English  imports  and  exports  must  be  carried  either  in  r:nglish  ships  or 
in  ships  belonging  to  the  exporting  or  importing  country.  The  intention  now 
was  simply  to  deprive  the  Dutch  of  a  large  part  of  their  carrying  trade,  and 
to  transfer  it  to  English  bottoms.  But  further,  the  English  government 
resolved  to  reassert  its  owm  dignity  and  authority,  and  to  compel  its  own 
recognition,  by  insistence  on  the  old  rule  of  saluting  the  English  flag  in  the 
narrow  seas.  If  war  resulted,  so  much  the  better.  It  would  certainly  be 
popular   with  the   fleet,   and  probably  with  the  merchants,  because   it  was 


452   ^   THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

directed  to  English  commercial  expansion.  That  it  was  not  viewed  with 
favour  by  Cromwell  or  by  the  Army,  which  was  desirous  of  friendship  with 
the  Protestant  Powers,  made  it  rather  the  more  desirable  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  parliament  men  who  were  jealous  of  military  influence.  The 
Navigation  Acts  which  writers  generally  conspire  to  describe  as  Cromwell's 
were  not  attributable  to  him  at  all. 

The  Dutch  war,  which  consequently  began  early  in  1652,  was  waged 
with  stubborn  valour  on  both  sides.  So  far  as  the  fighting  went  it  could 
never  be  claimed  that  either  side  showed  a  decisive  superiority.  Both  sides 
had  one  or  two  admirals  of  the  very  highest  class,  and  others  who  would 
be  included  in  a  large  first-class  list.  Both  fleets  were  full  of  excellent 
seamen  ;  and  if  one  or  the  other  got  the  upper  hand  for  a  time,  the  even 
balance  was  soon  recovered.  The  commerce  of  both,  however,  suffered 
seriously,  that  of  Holland  disastrously  ;  and  the  English  parliament  lost 
popularity  instead  of  gaining  it  as  they  had  expected,  although  a  salutary 
respect  for  the  English  Navy  was  inspired  in  the  continental  nations. 

Worcester  had  made  the  Commonwealth  finally  secure  ;  the  govern- 
ment by  the  Rump  and  the  Council  of  State,  however  well  it  had  done  its 
work,  was  an  emergency  government.  The  Rump  saw  no  reason  for 
changing  the  existing  state  of  things  ;  they  themselves  were  in  control  of 
the  State,  and  formed  an  oligarchy  which  treated  all  appointments  as  a 
preserve  for  their  own  kinsmen  and  friends.  They,  not  the  Council  of 
State,  were  actually  the  supreme  authority,  the  fountainhead  of  law,  the 
controllers  of  taxation,  to  whom  the  Executive  authority  of  the  Council  of 
State  was  responsible.  It  was  their  very  natural  desire  to  perpetuate  this 
arrangement.  A  representative  parliament  was  out  of  the  question.  Such 
a  parliament  would  have  in  it  a  large  Cavalier  element,  and  government  by 
it  would  be  impossible.  Their  own  idea  of  the  best  thing  for  the  country 
was  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  establishing  themselves  as  a  permanent 
oligarchy  by  summoning  a  new  parliament  ;  but  the  sitting  members,  in 
their  plan,  were  not  to  vacate  their  seats  at  all,  and  were  to  have  the  power 
of  cxchiding  from  the  new  body  such  of  the  members  returned  as  were  not 
to  their  liking. 

This  sokition  was  not  equally  satisfactory  to  any  one  else.  The  Rump 
had  forfeited  the  confidence  both  of  the  Army  and  of  the  general  public  ; 
Cromwell  himself  was  ill  pleased  at  the  unfairness  with  which  many 
Royalists  were  being  treated.  Members  were  more  than  suspected  of 
bribery  and  coiruption.  There  was  no  guarantee  that  if  the  oligarchy  were 
perpetuated  it  would  not  develop  into  a  self-seeking  tyranny  as  intolerant 
as  that  of  the  Long  Parliament  before  Pride's  Purge.  On  the  other  hand, 
no  clear  plan  had  been  formulated  for  the  constitution  of  a  satisfactory 
sovereign  authority,  and  at  the  beginning  of  1653  the  Rump  was  pushing 
its  own  plan  forward. 

Cromwell  then  urged  that  the  scheme  should  be  suspended,  and  that 
tiie  first  necessity  was  the  formation  of  a  committee  of  members  of  parlia- 


THE   COMMONWEALTH  453 

mcnt  and  army  officers  to  discuss  the  provision  of  proper  securities  against 
an  arbitrary  tyranny  ;  while  the  soldiers  were  demanding  an  immediate 
dissolution  and  the  election  of  a  Free  Parliament,  regardless  of  the  fact 
that  a  Free  Parliament  in  the  existing  circumstances  would  inevitably 
degenerate  into  a  chaos  of  factions.  The  Rump,  on  the  other  hand,  saw  in 
its  own  scheme  the  only  way  of  averting  such  a  chaos  or  a  military 
ascendency.  On  the  day  after  he  had  extracted  from  several  of  the  parlia- 
mentary leaders  a  promise  not  to  proceed  immediately  with  their  bill, 
Cromwell  learnt  that  the  House  had  assembled  and  was  pushing  the  bill 


Cromwell  ejecting  the  Rump,  1653. 
[From  a  contemporary  Dutch  print.] 


through.  Once  more  he  found  forced  upon  him  the  necessity  for  inter- 
vening arbitrarily  on  his  own  responsibility.  If  the  parliament  was  the 
only  body  in  England  which  had  any  semblance  of  legal  authority,  it  was 
now  using  that  authority  to  override  every  principle  for  which  the  Civil  War 
had  been  fought.  Cromwell,  with  a  small  band  of  soldiers  behind  him, 
burst  into  the  Chamber,  stormed  at  the  members,  summoned  his  followers 
to  "  Remove  that  bauble,"  the  mace,  and  ejected  the  Rump. 

The  Rump  was  down  ;  but  what  was  to  take  its  place  ?  The  General 
and  his  council  of  officers  resorted  to  the  desperate  expedient  of  summon- 
ing a  nominated  assembly.  The  Independent  congregations  were  instructed 
to  send  in  a  list  of  "  fit  and  godly  "  persons,  from  whom  Cromwell  and  the 


454  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

officers  selected  one  hundred  and  forty,  who  constituted  the  assembly 
known  to  history  as  the  Barebones  ParHament,  so  called  because  one  of 
its  members  bore  the  attractive  name  of  Praise-God  Barebone.  It  had 
no  pretence  of  being  a  representative  assembly;  it  was  not  much  more 
than  a  fortuitous  gathering  of  persons  whose  morals  were  unimpeachable 
and  their  intentions  excellent,  while  they  were  wholly  devoid  of  political 
knowledge  and  experience.  The  idea  undoubtedly  was  that  the  assem.bly 
of  nomiinees  was  to  inaugurate  the  rule  of  the  saints  ;  but  the  saints,  lacking 
the  wisdom  of  the  serpent,  were  not  at  all  likely  to  prove  as  harmless 
as  doves.  The  more  intelligent  among  them  very  soon  realised  the  fact 
for  themselves,  rose  up  early  one  morning,  met  together,  and  passed 
sentence  of  dissolution  on  their  own  body.  The  experiment  had  failed 
ignominiously.  Once  more  it  was  laid  upon  Cromwell  and  the  officers 
of  the  Army  to  devise  a  scheme  under  which  the  government  of  the  country 
could  be  carried  on. 


Ill 
THE   PROTECTORATE   GOVERNMENTS 

The  deliberations  of  the  officers  of  the  Army  issued  in  the  publication  of 
the  decree  called  the  Instrument  of  Government.  Until  the  overthrow 
of  Charles  I.  the  English  constitution  had  been  developed  by  regular 
growth.  There  had  been  no  revolutions  in  the  system,  however  violently 
dynastic  changes  had  been  effected.  The  Civil  War  had  effected  a  revolu- 
tion and  necessitated  the  invention  of  a  constitution  which  had  not  grown 
out  of  the  past,  of  which  the  most  that  could  possibly  be  , aid  would  be 
that  a  simulacrum  or  semblance  of  some  features  of  the  past  was  re- 
produced in  it.  The  first  experiment  had  produced  the  Rump,  which 
was  a  travesty  of  a  parHament,  coupled  with  the  Council  of  the  State, 
which  was  a  quite  practical  equivalent  for  the  various  forms  which  the 
Executive  Council  of  the  Crown  had  formerly  taken.  If  the  Rump  had 
been  a  travesty,  the  Assembly  of  Nominees  was  a  burlesque.  Now  in 
the  Instrum:;nt  of  Government  the  Army  officers  made  their  third  ex- 
periment the  rough  and  ready  framework  for  a  constitution  which  affords 
an  instructive  contrast  to  the  mathematical  accuracy  and  the  logical  per- 
fection of  the  various  impossible  constitutions  with  w^hich  France  was 
saddled  when  she  started  in  the  search  for  an  ideal  government  in 
1789. 

The  government  must  have  a  head,  and  the  head  of  the  government 
must  have  an  Executive  Council.  Unless  the  head  and  his  Council  had  very 
large  powers,  any  government  in  the  then  state  of  England  would  be  im- 
possible. On  the  other  hand,  the  people  had  a  right  to  a  voice  in  affairs  of 
state,  and  therefore  must  have  a  representative  assembly.      Practical  sense 


THE    COMMONWEALTH  455 

singled  out  one  man  as  the  only  possible  head,  the  man  whose  personality 
was  irresistibly  dominant,  OHver  Cromwell.  Cromwell  then  was  to  be 
Lord  Protector,  a  title  revived  from  times  when  a  minor  or  an  imbecile 
had  occupied  the  throne  and  a  practically  regal  authority  had  to  be  vested 
in  a  subject.  The  Executive  power  was  vested  in  the  Protector  and  the 
Council  of  State,  which  was  a  permanent  body  with  power  to  fill  up  its  own 
numbers.  But  neither  Protector  nor  Council  had  the  power  of  legislation 
or  taxation,  which,  by  the  decree,  were  appropriated  to  a  representative 
parliament  entirely  elective  and  forming  a  single  Chamber.  When  the 
Chamber  was  not  sitting  the  Executive  could  issue  decrees,  but  those 
decrees  had  effect  only  until  the 
parliament  decided  to  abrogate 
or  to  confirm  them.  Cavaliers 
were  not  eligible  to  the  House. 
The  entire  control  of  the  Army 
lay  with  the  Executive.  The 
parliament  was  to  meet  not  less 
than  once  in  three  years,  and  was 
in  no  case  to  be  dissolved  until 
it  had  been  sitting  for  five  months. 

The  Protectorate  of  Oliver 
Cromwell  began  in  December 
1653.  Its  sanction  was  nothing 
but  the  will  of  the  Army  and  the 
sulky  acquiescence  of  a  nation 
which  had  no  alternative.  For 
something  less  than  five  years 
Cromwell's  will  was  supreme.  He 
had  been  primarly  a  champion  of 

the  liberties  of  parliament ;  after  the  defeat  of  Charles  I.  he  had  been  urgent 
in  his  endeavours  to  restrain  the  rising  spirit  of  antagonism  to  the  Crown  as 
such,  earnest  in  his  pursuit  of  a  compromise.  Now  the  champion  of  liberty 
could  find  no  way  of  ruling  in  England  except  by  despotically  imposing 
his  own  will  on  her.  He  did  not  want  to  dispense  with  parliaments ; 
throughout  his  rule  he  summoned  them  according  to  law;  but  when  they 
met,  parliament  and  Protector  habitually  found  themselves  arriving  at  a 
deadlock,  from  which  the  only  escape,  just  as  in  the  case  of  parliament  and 
Charles  I.,  lay  in  the  decisive  assertion  of  the  supremacy  of  one  or  the 
other.  But,  unlike  Charles,  Cromwell  never  had  any  difficulty  in  proving 
the  decisiveness  of  his  own  supremacy.  He  had  what  Charles  had  not — 
the  obvious  superiority  in  physical  force.  There  was  no  gainsaying  the 
fact,  and  no  failure  in  the  Army's  loyalty  to  its  chief,  whose  ideals  it 
shared. 

The  nine  months  which  passed  between  the  establishment  of  the  Pro- 
tectorate and  the  convening  of  the  first  parliament  gave  opportunity  for 


The  Great  Seal  of  the  Commonwealth 


456  THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

Cromwell  to  show  what  kind  of  ideals  were  working  in  his  heart  and  brain. 
Cromwell,  more  effectively  than  any  of  his  predecessors,  grasped  at  the 
idea  of  the  union  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  a  union  which  should 
not  destroy  national  differentiation.  Scotland  and  Ireland  were  to  have 
their  share  of  representation  at  Westminster  as  members  of  the  Common- 
wealth. The  Executive  Government  of  Scotland  remained  in  the  hands 
of  a  Scottish  Council,  though  the  Englishmen  upon  it  were  for  the  present 
the  controlling  force,  and  the  troops  under  arms  were  Commonwealth 
troops.  The  treatment  of  Ireland  was  vitiated  by  the  principle  which 
virtually  recognised  only  the  Puritan  settlers  as  free  citizens.     Freedom  of 

trade  within  the  Commonwealth 
was  an  invaluable  boon  to  the 
two  poorer  communities  ;  what- 
ever benefits  England  derived 
from  the  Navigation  Act  they 
shared,  as  also  did  the  colonies. 

In  England  itself  the  religious 
question  was  still  the  one  of 
primary  importance,  and  tolera- 
tion was  Cromwell's  ruling  prin- 
ciple, accompanied  by  the  doctrine 
that  religion  should  be  maintained 
out  of  public  funds.  The  ex- 
clusion of  Anglicanism  from  the 
churches  Cromwell  admitted  as  a 
political  necessity  ;  but  the  tithes 
and  endowments  were  neither 
abolished  nor  secularised,  but 
were  applied  to  what  was  virtually 
the  concurrent  endowments  of  the  three  principal  religious  bodies  outside 
the  Anglicans  and  Roman  Catholics — the  Presbyterians,  Baptists,  and  In- 
dependents. Anglicanism  was  repressed,  because  the  assembling  of  Anglican 
congregations  would  have  provided  the  nucleus  for  Cavalier  disaffection. 
But  besides  the  bodies  among  whom  churches  and  parsonages  and  their 
endowments  were  distributed,  the  sects  were  free  to  form  and  maintain 
congregations  of  their  own.  That  liberty  was  extended  even  to  the 
Quakers,  whose  peculiarities  rendered  them  obnoxious  to  every  other 
religious  denomination  for  varying  reasons.  It  was  Cromwell's  govern- 
ment which  at  last  after  three  centuries  and  a  half  readmitted  the  Jews 
to   England. 

Once  more,  it  was  Cromwell  who  at  last  initiated  for  England  an 
active  foreign  policy  rooted  in  Protestantism.  The  obstinate  struggle  with 
the  Dutch  was  brought  to  an  end,  and  already  in  1654  Cromwell  was 
contemplating  the  use  of  the  mighty  fleet  which  the  Commonwealth  had 
created,  for  battle   not   with    the    Protestant    Dutch    but  with  the  Spanish 


The  Great  Seal  of  the  Commoiiweallh,  1651. 


THE   COMMONWEALTH  457 

power,  which   slill  to  him,  as  to  the  Elizabethans,  seemed  the  champion  of 
aggressive  Papistry. 

The  idea  that  the  Instrument  of  Government  could  be  used  as  a  step 
towards  the  real  revival  of  a  Free  Parliament  was  soon  dispelled.  The 
country  had  learnt  to  hate  the  Rump,  but  it  had  not  learnt  to  love  a  military 
domination.  The  representatives  who  came  up  to  Westminster  in  September 
1654  were  not  at  all  satisfied  with  the  Instrument  of  Government.  Crom- 
w^ell  gave  them  to  understand  that  they  had  been  assembled  to  attend  to 
business,  not  to  reconstruct  the  constitution  ;  but  constitution  making  is  an 
amusement  from  which  popular  assemblies  in  revolutionary  times  are 
seldom  capable  of  abstaining.  In  spite  of  the  exclusion  of  a  hundred 
members,  who  declined  to  accept  the  Instrument,  the  remainder  still  per- 
sisted in  proposing  changes.  Among  other  things  they  suggested  that, 
in  place  of  maintaining  toleration  on  its  present  lines,  there  should  be  a 
definition  of  heresy,  followed  by  the  suppression  of  heretics.  Of  course, 
at  bottom,  the  question  at  stake  was  whether  the  real  government  of 
the  country  should  be  vested  in  parliament  or  in  the  Protector.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  the  Army  the  Protector's  powers  were  necessary  to  the 
preservation  of  the  State.  Backed  by  the  sentiment  of  the  Army,  Cromwell 
seized  the  earliest  possible  moment  to  dissolve  the  obstinate  parliament, 
even  straining  the  letter  of  the  law  by  interpreting  the  five  months'  minimum 
as  meaning  lunar  months,  not  calendar  months. 

The  constitution  propounded  under  the  Instrument  of  Government 
did  not  require  the  summoning  of  another  parliament  until  after  a  consider- 
able interval.  During  that  interval  the  fact  of  the  Military  Dictatorship 
became  more  palpable  than  ever.  A  perfectly  futile  Cavalier  rising  at 
Salisbury,  dignified  by  the  name  of  Penruddock's  Rebellion,  was  the  occasion 
of  the  demonstration.  The  government  was  not  endangered  by  this  foolish 
and  abortive  performance,  but  it  was  significant  of  the  prevailing  unrest,  of 
the  undercurrent  of  feeling  that  a  government  so  unpopular  must  be  easily 
destroyed.  The  government  w^as  unpopular,  not  so  much  because  the 
things  it  did  were  wrong  as  because  the  authority  by  which  they  were  done 
was  a  usurped  authority,  a  military  authority,  a  thing  hitherto  unheard  of 
in  England.  Englishmen  had  a  lively  sense  in  themselves  that  they  would 
rather  be  ill-governed  by  their  own  representatives  than  enjoy  any  amount 
of  benefits  thrust  upon  them  by  a  power  whose  sanction  was  the  sword. 
Toleration  was  good  in  itself,  but  the  number  of  people  in  the  country  who 
wanted  toleration  except  for  their  own  private  "  doxy "'  was  small.  They 
did  not  want  toleration  for  Quakers,  whom  they  did  not  understand  in  the 
least.  They  did  not  want  toleration  for  the  Fifth-Monarchy  men,  who 
imagined  that  the  world  had  been  ruled  successively  by  four  great  empires 
in  the  past — the  Assyrian,  the  Persian,  the  Macedonian,  and  the  Roman — 
and  that  now  the  "fifth  empire  "  had  begun,  the  rule  of  the  Saints  whose 
monarch  was  Christ.  And  they  did  not  want  to  have  toleration  for  any 
one  forced  upon  them  by  gentlemen  with  a  Bible  in  one  hand  and  a  sword 


458  THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

in  the  other,  and  texts  out  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  Apocalypse  in 
their  mouths. 

Penruddock's  Rebellion  was  the  symptom  of  this  unrest,  and  the  only 
answer  to  it  was  the  uncompromising  assertion  of  the  authority  of  the 
governm.ent.  All  semblance  of  popular  liberty  disappeared  when  Cromwell 
mapped  out  the  country  into  eleven  military  districts,  and  set  over  each 
district  a  major-general,  who  was  the  supreme  administrative  authority. 
Like  Strafford  himself,  the  major-generals  ruled  without  fear  or  favour,  deal- 
ing out  justice  with  an  even  hand.  But  if  Strafford's  rule,  resting  on  the 
authority  of  the  king,  was  intolerable,  the  rule  of  major-generals,  whose 
authority  rested  on  the  Army,  was  still  more  so.  Moreover,  the  exigencies  of 
the  case  compelled  Cromwell  to  adopt  expedients  which  he  had  quite  rightly 
condemned  when  the  Rump  had  employed  them.  Money  was  needed,  and 
the  extra  money  was  extracted  from  the  estates  of  one  class  of  the  community, 
the  Cavaliers ;  and  under  these  conditions  the  oppression  of  the  Cavaliers 
excited  a  new  popular  sympathy.  And  to  all  these  causes  of  discontent  must 
be  added  the  austerity  of  a  Puritanism  which  sternly  repressed  an  unseemly 
indulgence  in  the  carnal  pleasures  of  the  ungodly  ;  including  most  innocent 
forms  of  amusement. 

Cromwell's  second  parliament  met  two  years  after  the  first.  It  is  note- 
worthy that  it  embodied  popular  resentment  not  against  Cromwell  personally 
but  against  the  Army.  It  recognised  in  Cromwell  himself  the  indispensable 
man.  Like  its  predecessor,  this  parliament  too  was  "  purged  "  by  the  ex- 
clusion of  about  a  hundred  members.  The  successes  attending  the  Pro- 
tector's foreign  policy,  to  which  we  shall  presently  revert,  increased  his 
personal  prestige.  The  discovery  of  a  plot  against  his  life  awakened  a  vivid 
consciousness  that  Oliver  himself  was  the  keystone  of  the  arch,  the  structure 
of  the  Commonwealth,  which  would  collapse  in  ruin  if  he  were  removed.  It 
seemed  necessary  at  least  that  the  Commonwealth  constitution  should  be 
modified  in  two  directions.  The  office  cf  the  Protector  must  be  so  modified 
that  its  functions  could  be  efficiently  discharged  without  danger  to  the  State 
when  Oliver  himself  should  be  no  longer  Protector  ;  and  the  power  of  the 
Army  itself  must  be  reduced,  even  if  in  the  process  the  personal  authority  of 
the  Protector  himself  were  increased. 

A  new  constitution,  then,  was  promulgated  by  the  parliament,  under  the 
name  of  the  Humble  Petition  and  Advice,  after  the  major-generals  had  been 
withdrawn  and  a  bill  sanctioning  the  taxation  of  Cavalier  estates  had  been 
thrown  out.  It  must  be  remembered  that  Cromwell's  arbitrary  powers  were 
suspended  whilst  parliament  was  in  session.  The  Petition  went  so  far  as  to 
make  the  office  of  Protector  permanent,  to  empower  Cromwell  to  nominate 
his  own  successor,  and  actually  to  offer  him  the  title  of  king.  The  Rump 
had  been  intolerable  because  there  had  been  no  check  on  the  arbitrary  exer- 
cise of  authority  by  a  single  Chamber.  The  Petition  sought  to  prevent  the 
resuscitation  of  this  danger  by  reconstituting  a  second  Chamber,  a  new 
House  of  Lords   nominated  by  Cromwell  but  subject  to  the  approval  of  the 


THE    COMMONWEALTH  459 

House  of  Commons.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Protector  was  to  surrender 
the  right  which  he  possessed  under  the  Instrument  of  Government  of  arbi- 
trarily excluding  members  from  the  Commons.  The  principle  was  at  the 
same  time  formally  laid  down  that  all  forms  of  Christian  religion  were  to  be 
tolerated  except  the  Romanist  and  the  Episcopalian.  Socinianism,  which 
rejects  the  Divinity  of  Christ,  was  outside  the  pale. 

The  Humble  Petition  and  Advice  was  accepted  and  became  law,  with  the 
exception  of  one  point.  Oliver  declined  the  title  of  king,  not,  it  would 
appear,  without  reluctance.  But  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  refusal  must  be 
found  in  the  strong  antagonism  of 
the  Army  to  the  proposal.  Oliver 
could  not  afford  to  make  the  army 
hostile.  Policy,  too,  demanded 
the  refusal  for  other  reasons,  since 
in  Englishmen's  minds  at  least 
the  idea  of  kingship  was  hedged 
about  with  the  traditions  of  long 
centuries,  traditions  belonging  to 
the  office,  not  the  individual,  and 
wholly  incompatible  with  the 
elevation  to  that  office  of  a  man 
with  whom  they  could  by  no 
possibility  be  associated.  In  a 
minor  degree  the  prestige  even 
of  the  new  House  of  Lords  was 
similarly  threatened  ;  it  was  remote  from  the  associations  which  gave  dignity 
at  least  to  the  old  House  of  Peers. 

Nine  months  had  elapsed  between  the  first  meeting  of  the  new  parliament 
and  the  installation  of  the  Protector  under  the  new  constitution.  Parliament 
was  not  dissolved  but  prorogued,  and  met  again  in  the  following  January, 
1658.  But  a  change  was  at  once  apparent.  The  pick  of  Oliver's  supporters 
had  been  transferred  to  the  Upper  Chamber,  and  the  hundred  elected 
members  of  the  Lower  House  whom  he  had  excluded  were  necessarily  ad- 
mitted under  the  new  constitution.  Thus,  there  was  really  a  new  House  of 
Commons,  which  at  once  proceeded  to  attack  the  constitution  which  a 
parliament  nominally  the  same  had  only  just  set  up.  Almost  its  first  move- 
ment was  to  attack  the  new  House  of  Lords  in  the  endeavour  to  re-create 


A  dinner-party  under  the  Protectorate. 

[From  the  English  edition  of  the  /anua  Lingnaru 
Comenius.  ] 


that  despotism  of   the  House  of  Commons,  the  curbing  of  which 


the 


precise  object  with  which  the  Second  Chamber  had  been  constituted.  Once 
more  the  attempt  to  invent  a  working  constitution  had  failed.  Once  more 
Oliver  had  no  alternative  but  to  assert  his  own  supremacy.  He  dissolved 
his  second  parliament.  Alone  upon  his  own  shoulders  he  bore  the  burden 
of  the  State  during  the  few  months  of  life  which  remained  to  him- 


46o      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 


IV 
FOREIGN   POLICY 

A  system  of  government  which  depends  for  its  effectiveness  upon  one 
man  of  exceptional  capacity  and  unique  moral  force  cannot  be  permanent. 
It  was  created  in  England  under  the  Commonwealth  because  the  man  was 
there  ;  the  old  system  had  broken  down,  and  for  the  time  being  there  was  no 
practical  possibility  either  of  reconstructing  it  or  of  setting  up  any  other  in 
its  place.  The  period  of  the  Commonwealth  presents  a  breach  in  the  con- 
tinuity of  constitutional  development  which  was  resumed  with  the  Restoration. 
For  the  first  and  the  only  time  in  English  history  England  had  attempted  to 
break  with  tradition,  and  the  experiment  collapsed  with  the  disappearance  of 
the  great  figure  in  whom  it  had  centred.  But  it  is  remarkable  that  in  the 
course  of  the  experiment  England  won  for  herself  such  prestige  as  she  had 
before  known  only  in  the  latter  years  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign,  in  Henry  V.'s 
day  of  triumph,  and  during  a  part  of  the  reign  of  Edward  111. 

After  the  storm  of  the  great  Civil  War,  England,  instead  of  being  exhausted, 
organised  the  most  powerful  navy  afloat  and  could  put  in  the  field  troops 
superior  to  any  in  Europe.  She  could  interfere  with  effect  on  the  Continent, 
and  made  her  alliance  desired  by  States  which  at  first  refused  even  to 
recognise  the  regicide  Commonwealth.  The  fighting  strength  of  the  Puritan 
soldiery  and  mariners  lay  in  the  combination  of  complete  discipline  with 
religious  enthusiasm,  superimposed  upon  the  normal  qualities  of  Englishmen. 
Officered  by  men  selected  on  account  of  their  proved  capacity,  while  the 
services  were  moulded  by  organisers  of  the  highest  class,  English  fleets  and 
English  troops  could  go  anywhere  and  do  anything  if  they  felt  themselves  to 
be  fighting  for  The  Cause.  Even  with  baser  and  more  material  incentives 
they  played  their  part  manfully,  as  in  the  Dutch  War,  a  war  in  which  the 
religious  motive  had  no  place. 

Cromwell,  then,  had  the  instrument  to  his  hand  for  carrying  out  an 
aggressive  Protestant  policy ;  and  to  guide  him  in  such  a  policy  he  had  the 
Elizabethan  tradition,  the  tradition  not  of  Elizabeth  herself  but  of  the 
Elizabethan  seamen.  That  tradition  fixed  upon  Spain  as  the  enemy  of 
Protestantism  and  the  legitimate  prey  of  Protestant  sailormen.  Cromwell 
liad  hardly  made  his  peace  with  the  Dutch,  very  advantageously  for  England, 
when  he  turned  his  eyes  upon  Spain  as  the  fitting  object  of  attack  by  English 
ships.  But  for  once  he  blundered  into  under-rating  the  efficiency  of  the 
enemy  and  the  quality  of  the  force  required  to  attack  him  within  his  own 
seas.  Although  there  was  no  war  between  England  and  Spain,  a  fleet  was 
despatched  across  the  Atlantic  at  the  end  of  1654,  under  the  Admirals  Penn 
and  Venables,  which  found  itself  under  orders  for  the  Spanish  Main.  But 
the  fleet  had   been   fitted   out  hastily  and  carelessly.     It  failed   completely 


THE   COMMONWEALTH  461 

before  Cartagena  ;  out,  while  retreating,  it  seized  upon  the  then  very  shghtly 
inhabited  island  of  Jamaica,  which  was  thenceforward  retained  as  an 
English  colony.  The  result  was  a  declaration  of  open  war  between  Spain 
and  England. 

The  challenge  to  Spain  was  thrown  down  quite  in  the  Elizabethan  spirit, 
and  precisely  on  the  old  excuses,  that  Spain  treated  the  wealth  of  South 
America  as  a  private  preserve,  and  that  English  sailors  in  Spanish  ports  were 
refused  the  free  practice  of  their  religion.  When  the  two  countries  were  at 
open  war  again  the  blunder  of  the  first  expedition  was  not  repeated.  The 
work  to  be  done  was  placed  in  the  competent  hands  of  Blake,  who  had  just 
been  congenially  occupied  in  smiting  the  swarms  of  Arab  and  Berber  pirates 
who  infested  the  African  shores  of  the  Mediterranean.  Blake  blockaded  the 
Spanish  coasts,  and  one  of  the  incidents  especially  favourable  to  Cromwell  at 
the  moment  when  his  second  parliament  was  called  in  1556  was  the  arrival 
in  England  of  a  Spanish  prize  laden  with  vast  wealth.  The  most  striking  of 
all  Blake's  victories  was  that  achieved  in  the  following  year,  when  he  drove 
the  Spanish  fleet  to  take  shelter  under  the  guns  of  TeneriiYe,  silenced  the 
land-batteries  with  his  own  guns,  sailed  in,  and  sank  the  Spanish  fleet  without 
losing  a  ship  of  his  own. 

Before  opening  his  attack  on  Spain  there  was  perhaps  some  uncertainty 
in  Cromwell's  mind  as  to  the  correctness  of  that  policy.  Puritanism  hesitated 
to  decide  whether  France  or  Spain  w^as  the  real  foe  of  Protestanism.  France 
and  Spain  were  anyhow  at  enmity  with  each  other,  their  quarrel  having  been 
left  undecided  when  the  Thirty  Years'  War  was  brought  to  a  close  by  the 
Treaty  of  Westphalia  in  1648.  Richelieu,  and  after  Richelieu  Mazarin,  in 
France,  aimed  at  the  policy  of  toleration  within  the  country,  the  policy 
of  the  Henry  IV.  tradition,  the  policy  of  national  consolidation.  Political 
factions,  however,  had  associated  themselves  with  the  religious  parties  for 
their  own  ends,  and  Spain,  in  order  to  foster  disintegration  in  France,  w^as 
giving  support  to  the  Huguenots.  But  when  Cromwell  made  overtures  to 
Spain,  he  immediately  found  that  she  was  as  bigoted  as  ever  in  her  Romanism. 
Hence  he  attacked  her  without  waiting  for  a  French  alliance.  Indeed,  he 
was  quite  ready  to  fight  France  as  well  as  Spain  in  the  cause  of  Protestantism ; 
and,  even  while  his  fleets  were  pursuing  their  first  unsuccessful  career  in  the 
West  Indies,  he  was  threatening  France  with  armed  intervention  on  behalf 
of  the  Vaudois,  the  Protestant  mountaineers  who  were  sufTering  from  the  per- 
secution of  the  Duke  of  Savoy.  The  persecution  was  stopped,  and  the 
French  government  welcomed  an  English  alliance,  to  be  directed  against 
Spain. 

The  sham  religious  basis  of  the  civil  troubles  in  France  itself  broke  down, 
and  the  armies  of  the  state  were  captained  by  the  Huguenot  Turenne.  In 
1657  the  Anglo-French  alliance  was  completed.  In  1658,  the  last  year  of 
Cromwell's  life,  English  Puritan  troops  were  fighting  under  Turenne  in  the 
Spanish  Netherlands,  winning  in  June  the  battle  of  the  Dunes,  which  gave 
Dunkirk  to  England  as  her  share  in  the  spoils  of  the  alliance.     A  hundred 


462  THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

years  after  the  loss  of  Calais  England  once  more  had  a  foothold  on  the 
Continent. 

Ostensibly  the  continuity  of  Cromwell's  foreign  policy  was  preserved  by 
Charles  II.  at  the  Restoration — ostensibly,  because  the  French  alliance  re- 
mained in  force.  But  the  whole  meaning  of  the  policy  was  changed. 
Cromwell  united  England  with  a  Power  which  appeared  likely  to  recognise 
the  principle  of  toleration  more  thoroughly  than  any  other,  and  which  had 
every  political  inducement  to  stand  in  antagonism  to  the  Hapsburg  leaders  of 
aggressive  Romanism.  England  and  Holland  together  could  sweep  the  seas. 
England,  Holland,  and  France  together  could  dictate  at  least  toleration  to 
the  Catholic  States.  If  France  played  her  allies  false,  England,  with  her  new 
Calais  and  with  Holland  behind  her,  could  be  dangerous  on  land,  and  her 
fleets  would  be  able  to  command  the  Mediterranean  as  well  as  the  Channel 
and  the  French  Atlantic  ports. 

Cromwell's  scheme  was  perhaps  fundamentally  erroneous,  because  the 
time  was  past  for  the  opposition  between  Catholic  and  Protestant  to  be 
made  the  basis  of  a  national  policy.  Also  it  was  no  doubt  a  fundamentally 
false  position  for  England  to  seek  deliberately  to  involve  herself  in  the  affairs 
of  the  Continent.  She  would  not  have  been  able  to  bear  the  strain  of  posing 
as  a  Power  of  the  first  magnitude  both  on  sea  and  on  land.  It  was  an  error 
also  to  seek  war  rather  than  to  seek  peace.  But  it  was  for  none  of  these 
reasons  that  Cromwell's  policy  actually  failed  after  Cromwell  was  dead.  It 
failed  because  Charles  II.  deliberately  played  into  the  hands  of  France  and 
helped  the  aggrandisement  of  France,  precisely  when,  if  Cromwell  had  been 
alive,  she  would  have  found  herself  under  the  necessity  of  adapting  her 
policy  to  that  of  the  Protector  or  else  of  facing  the  immediate  and  vigorous 
hostility  of  the  Puritan  fleets  and  armies.  In  fact  Cromwell's  foreign  policy, 
like  his  government  in  England,  was  powerful  and  effective  so  long  as  Crom- 
well himself  was  at  the  head  of  affairs.  It  would  have  failed  even  with  a 
second-rate  Cromwell.  But  with  Charles,  who  skilfully  preserved  its  out- 
ward semblance  while  entirely  transforming  its  spirit  and  intention,  it  was 
more  than  a  failure  ;  it  was  converted  into  an  instrument  for  the  aggrandise- 
ment of  Louis  XIV.  Yet  for  England  one  feature  of  the  Commonwealth 
foreign  policy  survived,  the  feature  which  made  the  preservation  of  naval 
supremacy  supreme  over  all  other  considerations. 

The  battle  of  the  Dunes  was  the  last  triumph  of  the  Puritan  arms. 
Cromwell  was  not  yet  sixty  years  old,  but  his  mortal  frame  was  worn  out  by 
the  tremendous  labours  and  responsibilities  which  had  fallen  to  his  lot  for  the 
last  fifteen  years.  Two  of  his  great  victories,  those  of  Dunbar  and  Wor- 
cester, had  been  won  on  the  3rd  of  September.  On  the  3rd  of  September 
his  great  lonely  soul  passed  away.  Three  days  before  a  terrific  storm  had 
burst  over  England;  "the  devil,"  the  Cavaliers  said,  "had  come  to  claim  his 
own."  But  Cromwell  went  before  another  Judgment  Seat  than  that  of  the 
Cavaliers. 


THE   COMxMON WEALTH  463 


THE   END   OF  THE   COMMONWEALTH 

Oliver  had  refused  the  crown,  nevertheless  it  appeared  that  he  had  some 
thought  at  least  of  creating  a  dynasty  ;  for  on  his  deathbed  he  named  as  his 
successor  his  son  Richard.  For  that  choice  there  can  be  no  other  explanation. 
Cromwell  cannot  have  imagined  that  Richard  could  take  his  own  place  as  the 
Atlas  bearing  the  Commonwealth  upon  his  shoulders.  The  younger  son 
Henry  was  a  man  of  capacity,  who  may  have  been  ruled  out  because  of  his 
fiery  temper.  But  Richard  was  wholly  incapable  of 
serving  as  anything  more  than  figurehead,  nor  had 
any  man  come  to  the  front  who  was  in  the  least 
fitted  to  maintain  an  autocratic  rule.  The  Common- 
wealth required  a  ruler,  who,  whether  he  was  in 
form  an  autocrat  or  not,  should  be  one  in  actual  fact. 

In  January  a  new  parliament  was  assembled. 
No  one  challenged  the  nominal  position  of  the 
Protector ;  no  one  recognised  his  authority  as  a 
reality.  The  immediate  question  was  merely  whether 
the  parliament  or  the  officers  of  the  Army  were 
to  be  the  supreme  authority.  The  officers  had 
fixed  upon  Fleetwood,  a  capable  soldier  and  Crom-  Richard  Cromwell. 

well's      own      son-in-law,      for      the      vacant      post      of     [From  a  miniature  by  Samuel  cooper, 

General-in-Chief.     'Had  Fairfax  been  an  ambitious 

man,  he  might  have  formed  a  party  of  his  own  in  spite  of  his  abstention  from 
public  life  for  the  last  eight  years  ;  but  he  chose  to  remain  in  retirement. 
Parliament,  intent  on  asserting  its  own  authority,  proposed  that  Richard 
Cromwell  should  be  made  General-in-Chief.  Richard,  as  the  head  of  an 
army,  w^ould  have  been  absurd,  but  the  calculation  was  that  the  army  would 
obey  its  chief,  and  its  chief  would  obey  parliament.  The  officers  had  no 
intention  of  submitting  to  such  an  arrangement.  There  was  among  them  no 
personality  of  commanding  force,  but  the  most  active  of  their  leaders  was 
Lambert.  The  Protector,  incapable  of  taking  a  line  of  his  own,  submitted  to 
the  pressure  of  Lambert  and  the  officers,  dissolved  parliament  in  May,  and 
finished  the  farce  of  his  Protectorship  by  resigning.  Once  more  the  country 
was  without  any  government  which  could  pretend  to  a  legal  title. 

Still  the  Army  did  not  wish  to  assume  official  responsibility  for  the 
government  of  the  State.  Lambert  devised  the  plan  of  resuscitating  the 
Rump  which  Oliver  had  turned  out  of  doors.  Here  was  at  least  a  sort  of 
parliament,  whose  members  had  been  elected,  which,  by  the  Statute  of  1641, 
could  never  be  dissolved  except  by  its  own  consent.  In  fact  it  never  had 
been  legally  dissolved  ;  it  had  only  been  illegally  suppressed  by  an  arbitrary 
authority.     In    short,  the  members   of  the    Long  Parliament   could  clearly 


464      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

claim  as  a  matter  of  mere  law  that  they  were  to  this  day  the  legal  House  of 
Commons ;  though  it  would  not  be  so  easy  to  prove  that  the  Commons  by 
themselves  legally  constituted  a  parliament,  or  that  the  Rump  by  itself  could 
claim  to  be  the  legal  House  of  Commons  so  long  as  those  other  members 
were  shut  out  who  had  been  excluded  by  Pride's  Purge. 

The  Rump,  however,  had  no  qualms.  From  December  1640  down  to 
Cromwell's  coup  d'etat  it  had  acted  as  the  sovereign  body  of  the  realm,  and 
had  all  but  succeeded  in  establishing  itself  permanently.  It  was  still  per- 
suaded that  it  was  the  legitimate  sovereign,  and  it  acted  upon  that  doctrine. 
It  at  once  assumed  the  tone  of  high  authority  over  the  soldiers  who  had  re- 
instated it,  threatened  to  declare  all  the  proceedings  of  the    Protectorate 

invalid,  and  showed  every 
sign  of  intending  to  revive 
all  the  old  pretensions 
which  had  made  its  ejection 
by  Cromwell  temporarily 
popular.  The  Cavaliers  im- 
agined that  they  had  found 
their  opportunity  in  the  dis- 
sensions at  headquarters ; 
but  if  the  Army  was  politi- 
cally at  sea,  it  understood 
at  least  its  own  business  of 
fighting.  The  insurrection 
was  crushed  at  Winnington  Bridge,  and  Lambert  returned  from  this  campaign 
resolved  on  another  coup  d'etat.  The  Rump  found  itself  shut  out  from  the 
Chamber.  But  Lambert  was  no  Cromwell ;  departmental  management  was 
going  to  pieces,  and  the  soldiery  discovered  that  their  pay  was  not  forth- 
coming. Before  New  Year's  Day  the  Rump  was  back  again.  But  on  New 
Year's  Day,  General  Monk  crossed  the  Scottish  Border  into  England  to  take 
control  of  affairs  on  his  own  responsibility. 

For  eight  years  past  Monk  had  been  practically  the  ruler  of  Scotland. 
For  the  greater  part  of  the  time  he  had  held  supreme  command  of  the 
Commonwealth  Army  of  ten  thousand  men  in  that  country.  The  administra- 
tion had  been  in  the  hands  of  a  small  Council  containing  a  majority  of 
Englishmen,  and  in  that  Council  Monk  himself  was  the  controlling  force. 
Strong,  clear-headed,  and  imperturbable,  he  was  moved  by  no  extravagant 
dreams  of  personal  ambition.  He  was  perfectly  loyal  to  Oliver,  as  he  would 
have  been  perfectly  loyal  to  any  established  government,  simply  because  it 
was  the  government.  As  Cromwell's  lieutenant  he  ruled  with  a  firm  hand 
in  the  realm  of  which  he  was  in  charge  ;  he  would  have  continued  to  do  so 
as  Richard  Cromwell's  lieutenant  if  Richard  had  not  chosen  first  to  prove 
himself  impossible,  and  then  to  abdicate.  But  when  "Tumbledown  Dick," 
as  the  great  Protector's  son  was  popularly  called,  vacated  his  office,  and 
Lambert  would  neither  grasp  the  reins  himself  nor  set  anybody  else  in  the 


Unite,  or  sovereign,  of  the  Commonwealth,  i66u. 
[The  only  English  coins  with  legends  in  English.] 


THE   COMMONWEALTH  465 

saddle,  Monk  began  to  think  it  was  time  for  some  one  to  take  a  hand  and 
deal  with  the  state  of  the  nation  in  a  business-hke  fashion.  Monk  had  been 
attending  strictly  to  his  own  business  in  Scotland,  and  when  he  crossed  the 
Border  at  the  head  of  his  troops  he  had  not  made  up  his  mind  to  anything 
more  definite  than  the  attempt  to  set  up  a  stable  government  in  which,  when 
it  should  be  set  up,  he  himself  had  no  intention  of  playing  the  part  of 
Cromwell.  It  was  not  till  he  was  in  England,  and  felt  himself  in  touch  with 
public  sentiment,  that  he  arrived  at  the  definite  conclusion  that  England 
must  have  either  a  Cromwell  or  a  Stuart  Restoration. 

Fairfax  issued  from  his  retirement  to  join  Monk  at  York,  and  his  doing 
so  was  at  once  accepted  by  public  opinion  as  a  guarantee  that  Monk  was  him- 
self to  be  trusted.  For  Monk  was  a  dark  horse,  but  no  one  had  a  doubt  of 
Fairfax's  single-minded  integrity  and  public  spirit. 

Five  weeks  after  crossing  the  Border,  Monk  was  in  London.  He  had 
arrived  without  any  intention  of  effecting  a  revolution  ;  with  the  object  of 
maintaining  Oliver's  principles,  which  were  incompatible  with  the  ascendency 
of  either  Cavaliers  or  Presbyterians.  But  the  fact  immediately  presented 
itself  that  neither  the  Rump  nor  the  Army  officers  represented  public  opinion 
or  the  principles  of  Cromwell.  He  had  hardly  arrived  when  the  city  of 
London  announced  its  refusal  to  pay  taxes  at  the  bidding  of  a  so-called 
parliament  in  which  it  was  unrepresented.  There  and  then,  with  the  ap- 
proval of  his  own  officers,  he  sent  to  the  Rump  a  demand  that  writs  should 
be  issued  forthwith  for  filling  the  vacant  seats — there  were  hardly  over  forty 
members  sitting — and  that  arrangements  should  be  made  for  a  dissolution 
and  a  free  parliament  within  three  months.  The  Rump  ignored  the  demand, 
whereupon  Monk  summoned  the  rest  of  the  surviving  members  of  the  Long 
Parliament,  who  still  had  precisely  the  same  title  as  the  Rump  to  take  their 
seats.  The  Rump  was  swamped  by  a  majority  which  forthwith  voted  for  a 
dissolution  and  the  summoning  of  a  new  parliament. 

Neither  Monk  nor  the  nation  had  taken  long  to  recognise  that  the  time 
for  experiments  was  past.  A  Military  Dictatorship  had  been  tolerable  only 
because  the  Dictator  was  Oliver  Cromwell.  The  sole  possible  form  of  settled 
government  was  a  Stuart  restoration  under  guarantees  for  the  liberties  of 
parliament.  Monk  immediately  entered  on  negotiations  with  Charles  in 
Holland,  with  the  result  that  the  Declaration  of  Breda  was  issued.  Charles 
proclaimed  his  readiness  to  grant  a  free  pardon  to  every  one  not  specially 
excepted  by  parliament.  There  should  be  no  disturbance  of  the  conditions 
of  landownership  established  during  the  interregnum.  There  should  be  no 
penalties  for  religious  opinions  unless  they  were  subversive  of  public  order. 
Immediately  after  the  publication  of  the  Declaration  the  new  parliament  met. 
The  disabilities  imposed  on  the  Cavaliers  under  the  Commonwealth  were 
ignored,  and  there  were  present  a  substantial  Cavalier  element  and  a  still 
more  substantial  Presbyterian  element,  now  readily  converted  to  a  royalism 
which  seemed  to  have  promised  toleration,  and  at  least  guaranteed  deliverance 
from  the  rule  of  sectaries  and  men  of  the  sword.     The  soldiery  might  have 

2  G 


466  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

defied  them  if  there  had  been  any  chief  to  whom  they  could  rally  as  they 
had  rallied  in  the  past  to  Cromwell ;  but  they  were  as  sheep  having  no 
shepherd.  A  great  reactionary  wave  of  royalism  swept  over  the  country, 
and  parliament  and  people  with  a  strange  enthusiasm  summoned  the  unknown 
king  from  over  the  water  to  come  and  enjoy  his  own  again.  On  May  25 
applauding  crowds  Imiled  Charles  on  his  landing  at  Dover,  and  four  days 
later  he  made  his  entry  into  London. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

THE    RESTORATION 

I 

THE   KING'S   RETURN 

The  great  bulk  of  the  nation  hailed  the  restoration  of  Charles  H.  with  delight. 
The  Protectorate  had  been  in  effect  a  despotism,  resting  upon  the  support 
not  of  the  nation  but  of  the  army  which  had  itself  represented  the  sectaries. 
It  had  been  detested  alike  by  the  Cavaliers,  by  the  mass  of  the  Presbyterians, 
and  by  the  Constit«tionalists,  whose  cause  had  been  that  of  the  supremacy  of 
parliament.  Through  the  return  of  the  king  the  Cavaliers  hoped  to  obtain 
restitution  if  not  revenge.  The  Presbyterians,  while  they  knew  that 
Anglicanism  must  be  restored,  nevertheless  counted  upon  the  extension  of 
complete  toleration  to  themselves.  The  Constitutionalists  felt  assured  that 
there  would  be  no  attempts  to  resuscitate  the  claim  of  the  Crown  to  arbitrary 
powers  which  had  been  abolished  by  statute  before  the  actual  outbreak  of 
the  Civil  War.  Even  the  sectaries  acquiesced  in  view  of  the  promises  of 
toleration. 

No  one  knew  the  mind  of  the  new  king,  nor  did  he  intend  any  one  to 
know  it.  Throughout  his  reign  he  succeeded  in  completely  hoodwinking 
not  only  the  nation  at  large  but  his  own  ministers.  For  him  there  was  one 
consideration  which  controlled  all  others — he  did  not  intend  to  go  on  his 
travels  again  ;  therefore  he  would  not  set  public  opinion  at  defiance  until  he 
had  placed  his  own  power  on  a  footing  which  would  secure  him  against  all 
risks.  He  intended  to  secure  that  power,  and  had  no  moral  scruples  what- 
ever as  to  methods ;  but  it  was  imperative  that  his  purpose  should  not  be 
suspected,  and  he  concealed  his  deep  political  design  under  a  mask  of  reckless 
frivolity  which  at  once  gave  free  play  to  his  own  natural  inclinations  and 
disarmed  suspicion. 

It  was  the  business  of  the  Convention — so  called   because,  not  having 

been   summoned  by   the  royal   authority,  it  was  not   in   strictly  technical 

form  a  parliament — to  deal  only  with  the  immediate  settlement  of  the  most 

urgent  questions.     It  set  about  its  task  on  the  lines  of  compromise.     The 

lands   of   Cavaliers   which   had   been   sequestrated   by  the   Commonwealth 

Government  were  restored,  but  the  lands  which  had  passed  out  of  their 

possession  by  sale  remained  in  the  hands  of   the  purchasers.     An  Act  of 

Indemnity  and  Oblivion  was  passed,  though  it  was  denounced  by  the  Cavaliers 

as  one  of  indemnity  for  the  king's  enemies  and  oblivion  for  his  friends,     From 

467 


468  THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

the  general  pardon  regicides  were  formally  excluded,  though  vindictiveness 
added  to  their  number  Sir  Harry  Vane,  and  went  so  far  as  to  exhume  the 
bodies  of  Cromwell,  Ireton,  and  Bradshaw,  the  President  of  the  High  Court 
of  Justice,  in  order  to  inflict  upon  them  the  penalties  of  treason.  The  claims 
of  the  soldiers  to  arrears  of  pay  were  met,  and  the  Army  itself  was  disbanded, 
though    a   fanatical   outbreak   of    the   group   who    called    themselves    Fifth 

Monarchy  men  gave  a  warrant 
for  the  retention,  in  the  in- 
terests of  public  order,  of  the 
regiments  which  had  marched 
from  Scotland  with  Monk,  who 
were  formed  into  the  Cold- 
stream Guards.  It  was  not 
realised  at  the  time,  unless  by 
Charles  himself,  that  the  nuc- 
leus of  a  Standing  Army  was 
thus  provided. 

At  the  same  time  the  great 
question  of  taxation  was  de- 
finitely settled,  somewhat  on 
the  lines  of  the  "Great  Con- 
tract" proposed  by  Robert 
Cecil  fifty  years  before.  The 
Crown  was  granted  a  fixed 
revenue,  conferred  for  life,  in 
return  for  which  it  surrendered 
all  the  old  claims  for  feudal 
dues  and  for  the  imposition  of 
indirect  taxation — direct  taxa- 
tion was  admittedly  not  within 
the  power  of  the  Crown.  The 
revenue  thus  provided,  being 
insufficient  for  the  purposes  of 
administration,  required  to  be 
and  thus  the  suspension  of  parlia- 
least  it  seemed,  for  the  parliament 


Chailes  II. 
[Afier  the  engraving  by  Vande 


supplemented  by  parliamentary  grants, 
ment  was  rendered  impossible.  So  at 
had  not  reckoned  that  the  King  of  England  might  obtain  extraneous  supplies 
by  becoming  the  pensioner  of  the  King  of  France.  The  arbitrary  Courts  of 
Justice,  abolished  in  1641,  were  dead,  nor  was  there  any  attempt  made  to 
revive  the  claim  of  the  Crown  to  the  power  of  arbitrary  imprisonment.  The 
whole  of  the  settlement  by  the  Convention  Parliament  was  in  strict  accord- 
ance with  the  constitutional  principles  which  had  been  asserted  by  the  Long 
Parliament  while  it  was  still  a  practically  unanimous  body. 

The  convention  was  an   English  parliament.     The  Protectorate  had  in- 
corporated  the  legislatures  of  Scotland  and  Ireland  with  that  of  England. 


THE    RESTORATION  469 

The  Restoration  cancelled  the  Union ;  as  before,  Scotland  and  Ireland 
resumed  their  separate  legislatures.  They  had  acquiesced  in  the  Union,  not 
without  some  resentment,  since  in  Scotland  at  least  the  incorporation  was 
felt  to  be  subordination,  in  spite  of  the  commercial  advantages  accruing  from 
the  removal  of  commercial  disabilities.  The  Union  had  not  been  the  out- 
come of  a  national  demand  in  any  of  the  three  countries  ;  it  had  been  a  piece 
of  policy  on  the  part  of  the  Government  in  England.  Scotland  demanded 
its  dissolution,  and  Charles  was  well  aware  that  it  was  to  his  personal  advan- 
tage, to  the  advantage  of  the  Crown,  to  have  three  kingdoms  to  deal  with 
instead  of  one. 


II 

CLARENDON 

The  primary  business  of  the  Restoration  was  settled  by  the  Convention. 
The  acuteness  of  Charles  and  the  shrewdness  of  his  chief  counsellor  Edward 
Hyde,  who  was  shortly  afterwards  made  Earl  of  Clarendon,  prevented  it,  by 
means  of  the  amnesty  and  the  land  settlement,  from  being  converted  into  a 
partisan  triumph  for  the  Cavaliers,  while  the  disbanding  of  the  Army  removed 
all  danger  of  armed  insurrection.  On  the  other  hand,  the  revenue  settlement 
made  it  impossible,  for  the  time  at  least,  that  the  Crown  should  attempt  to 
dispense  with  parliaments.  But  Hyde  had  successfully  postponed  one  ques- 
tion of  vital  importance,  the  settlement  of  the  religious  problem.  This  was 
to  be  dealt  with  by  a  new  parliament  regularly  summoned  by  the  king,  not 
by  the  Convention.  The  Presbyterians  were  hardly  nervous.  They  were 
carefully  encouraged  to  believe  that  all  would  be  well  with  them.  There 
was  to  be  a  conference  of  divines  as  a  preliminary  to  settlement,  and  in  the 
meanwhile  the  king  nominated  leading  Presbyterians  among  his  private 
chaplains. 

But  bitter  disappointment  was  in  store.  The  Savoy  Conference,  the 
meeting  of  the  divines,  came  to  nothing.  The  Royalist  reaction  in  the  country 
resulted  in  the  return  of  a  Parliament  in  which  there  was  a  great  prepon- 
derance of  Cavaliers,  many  of  them  young  men  whose  sympathies  were 
vehemently  Anglican  and  anti-Puritan.  Clarendon  himself  was  intensely 
Anglican.  He  had  originally  been  prominent  among  the  moderate  Constitu- 
tionalists in  the  first  days  of  the  Long  Parliament,  and  had  led  the  resistance 
in  the  Commons  to  the  Puritan  attack  upon  the  Episcopate  and  to  the  Grand 
Remonstrance.  With  Falkland  he  had  joined  the  Royalists,  had  been  a 
leading  member  of  the  councils  of  Charles  L,  and  had  remained  the  Chief 
Minister,  if  that  term  may  be  used,  of  Charles  II.  during  his  exile.  Now,  at 
the  Restoration,  he  was  not  unfaithful  to  his  old  ideals.  He  was  no  advocate 
of  absolutism,  and  his  stiff  solemnity  made  him  distasteful  to  the  Cavaliers, 
and  especially  to  the  court,  which  soon  became  notorious  for  its  frivolity  and 


470  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

licentiousness.     But  he  was  at  one  with  the  Cavaliers  in  the  determination 
to  restore  the  supremacy  of  AngHcanifm. 

Clarendon's  ecclesiastical  policy  took  shape  in  the  series  of  enactments 
which  are  known  as  the  Clarendon  Code.  Already  the  spirit  of  the  new 
parliament  had  made  itself  manifest.  It  restored  the  bishops  to  the  House 
of  Lords,  and  ordered  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  to  be  publicly  burnt 
by  the  hangman,  besides  denouncing  all  levying  of  war  against  the  king. 
The  first  measure  of  the  Code,  which  came  at  the  end  of  the  year  1661,  was 
the  Corporation  Act,  which  required  every  member  of  a  corporation  to  re- 
nounce the  Covenant,  to  aftirm  that  it  was  unlawful  to  take  arms  against  the 
king,  and  to  take  the  Sacrament  according  to  the  rights  of  the  Anglican 

Church.  The  Corporation  Act  was  followed 
up  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  which  re- 
quired every  incumbent  who  had  not  already 
received  the  Anglican  ordination  to  do  so 
before  St.  Bartholomew's  Day.  Ordination 
was  to  be  in  future  the  condition  of  holding 
any  ecclesiastical  preferment.  The  clergy 
were  to  declare  their  complete  acceptance 
of  everything  laid  down  in  the  Prayer-book, 
and  not  only  the  clergy,  but  teachers  of  all 
sorts  were  to  take  the  oaths  required  under 
the  Corporation  Act.  An  immense  number 
of  livings  were  now  occupied  by  Presby- 
terians who  had  not  received  episcopal  or- 
dination. These  men  stood  loyal  to  their 
convictions  with  a  wonderful  unanimity. 
More  than  two  thousand  of  them  resigned 
their  livings,  and  the  great  Presbyterian  body  became  a  sect  outside  the 
established  Church  ;  that  is,  for  the  hrst  time,  the  Nonconformists  separated 
themselves  definitely  from  the  official  ecclesiastical  organisation. 

The  expulsion  of  the  Presbyterians  from  the  pulpits  which  they  had  so 
long  occupied  might  have  been  excused  as  a  warrantable  retaliation  for  the 
expulsion  of  the  Anglicans  under  the  Puritan  regime,  although  at  the  best  it 
was  a  manifestly  vindictive  measure.  It  was  a  severe  blow  to  Nonconformity  ; 
still  it  left  the  Nonconformists  free  to  worship  as  their  own  consciences  pre- 
scribed. But  two  years  after  the  Act  of  Uniformity  came  the  Conventicle 
Act,  which  forbade,  under  severe  penalties,  all  assemblies  for  public  worship, 
under  other  forms  than  those  of  the  Church,  at  which  there  were  gathered 
more  than  four  persons  besides  the  members  of  the  household. 

Still  more  outrageous  was  the  Five  Mile  Act,  which  followed  the  devasta- 
tions of  the  Great  Plague  which  fell  upon  London  in  1665.  During  that  year 
more  than  a  hundred  thousand  persons  died  beneath  that  fearful  scourge. 
Multitudes  fled  from  London  ;  those  who  remained  hardly  dared  to  leave 
their  houses  lest  tliey  should  come  in  contact  with  infection  ;  still  lc?s  would 


Edmund  Hyde,  Lord  Clarendon. 
[After  the  portrait  by  Loggan.] 


THE    RESTORATION  471 

they  dare  to  enter  the  house  of  their  neighbour.  In  those  terrible  months  the 
ejected  ministers  displayed  a  more  splendid  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  than  their 
Anglican  successors,  who  failed  in  their  dangerous  duty.  Fear  that  the  Non- 
conformists would  recover  their  ascendency  drove  the  parliament  to  pass  a 
measure  which  forbade  any  Nonconformist  minister  or  teacher  to  teach  in 
schools  or  to  com.e  within  live  miles  of  any  corporate  town  or  parliamentary 
borough  where  he  had  officiated,  under  penalties  of  fine  and  imprisonment, 
v.hile  substantial  rewards  were  given  to  informers  who  revealed  breaches  of 
the  law.  As  was  always  the  case  in  England  the  excuse  put  forward  was 
that  Nonconformity  was  used  as  a  cloak  for  sedition. 

Meanwhile  Charles  was  leading  the  nation  upon  a  course  of  foreign 
policy  which  he  himself  perfectly  understood,  though  the  nation  did  not. 
Charles  wanted  the  personal  friendship  and  support  for  himself  of  his  cousin 
Louis  XIV. ;  and  Louis  had  designs  not  for  the  formation  of  a  Protestant 
League,  but  for  establishing  a  French  domination  in  Europe.  The  Haps- 
burg  ascendency  was  to  give  place  to  that  of  the  Bourbon.  The  price  of 
Cromwell's  alliance  would  have  been  that  policy  of  toleration,  if  not  of 
aggressive  Protestantism,  which  had  not  been  unacceptable  to  France  while 
Oliver  ruled  in  England.  The  price  of  Charles's  alliance  was  not  the  pur- 
suit of  an  ideal;  it  could  be  calculated  in  terms  of  the  currency.  It  was 
necessary,  however,  to  persuade  the  people  of  England  to  believe  that  the 
alliance  was  in  their  interest,  and  to  conceal  from  them  the  terms  upon  which 
it  rested.  It  would  not  suit  Louis  to  see  England  closely  allied  with  either 
Holland  or  Spain,  and,  unlike  Louis,  neither  Holland  nor  Spain  would  give 
Charles  their  alliance  on  the  necessary  terms.  The  renewal  of  the  Naviga- 
tion Acts  in  a  still  stricter  form  repelled  Holland,  while  Spain  held  out  for 
the  restitution  of  Dunkirk  and  Jamaica.  But  over  and  above  alliance,  Louis 
wanted  from  Charles  merely  the  understanding  that  the  king  would  do  his 
best  to  reinstate  Roman  Catholicism,  which  Charles  was  quite  ready  to 
promise,  while  he  asked  in  return  the  money  which  Louis  did  not  grudge. 
Commercial  rivalry  weighed  more  than  religious  sentiment  with  popular 
opinion  in  England,  so  that  it  was  easy  to  cultivate  hostility  towards  the 
Dutch  Republic,  against  which  Charles  himself  bore  grudges,  not  the  least 
being  the  refusal  of  the  dominant  oligarchy  to  recognise  the  hereditary  title 
to  leadership  in  Charles's  young  nephew,  William  of  Orange.  All  tradition 
also  was  opposed  to  alliance  with  Spain  ;  and  Charles  played  into  the  hands 
of  Louis  by  choosing  for  his  bride  a  princess  of  the  house  of  Braganza,  a 
dynasty  still  insecurely  seated  on  the  throne  of  Portugal,  of  which  Spain 
claimed  the  crown. 

The  Portuguese  marriage  brought  with  the  dowry  of  Catherine  the 
possession  of  Bombay  in  India,  and  of  Tangier  on  the  coast  of  Africa  ; 
and  the  acquisition  of  Tangier  gave  Charles  an  additional  excuse  not  for 
restoring  Dunkirk  to  Spain,  but  for  selling  it  to  France.  The  transaction 
was  unpopular,  but  it  was  fully  sanctioned  by  Monk  (now  Duke  of  Albe- 
marle) and  the  military  authorities,  who  saw  that  its  practical  value  could 


472      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

be  maintained  only  at  an  intolerable  expense,  and  that  in  fact  Tangier  and 
Dunkirk  could  not  both  be  effectively  occupied. 

Dutch  and  English  were  in  a  state  of  perpetual  hostility  on  the  high  seas. 
The  Dutch  had  planted  in  North  America  the  colony  of  new  Amsterdam, 
which  formed  a  wedge  between  the  Northern  and  Southern  English  colonies, 
while  the  English  claimed  that  this  territory  was  already  theirs  in  right  of 
earlier  occupation.  In  the  Indian  Seas  and  in  the  Spice  Islands  the  East 
India  Companies  of  the  two  nations  were  perpetually  at  odds,  and  the  strained 
relations,  intensified  by  the  Navigation  Act,  brought  about  the  open  declara- 
tion of  war  in  1665. 

As  in  the  case  of  the  early  war  between  the  Commonwealth  and  the  Dutch, 
this  war  was  signalised  by  mighty  naval  battles,  in  which  both  sides  fought 
with  desperate  obstinacy,  and  hardly  inflicted  defeats  alternated  with  hardly 
won  victories,  which  left  it  almost  impossible  to  say  that  either  of  the  com- 
batants had  the  belter  of  the  other.  Of  these  engagements  the  most  famous 
were  the  first,  a  victory  of  the  English  led  by  the  king's  brother  James,  Duke 
of  York,  off  Lowestoft,  and  the  tremendous  four  days'  battle  of  the  Downs 
in  the  following  year  between  Ruyter  and  Van  Tromp  on  one  side  and 
Monk  and  Prince  Rupert  on  the  other,  in  which  both  sides  claimed  the 
victory,  though  the  English  losses  were  far  heavier  both  in  ships  and  in 
men.  Yet  six  weeks  after  that  great  fight  the  Dutch  were  fairly  defeated 
in  another  great  battle.  Nevertheless,  between  wanton  wastage  and  real 
expenses  the  cost  of  the  war  was  enormous.  It  came  at  the  moment  when 
London  was  devastated  by  the  Plague,  and  the  Plague  was  followed  in  1666 
by  the  tremendous  three  days'  fire,  which  made  of  old  London  a  heap  of 
charred  ruins.  By  way  of  economising,  the  authorities  elected  to  lay  up  a 
large  portion  of  the  fleet,  with  the  result  that  the  triumphant  Dutch  sailed 
up  the  Medway,  and  the  thunder  of  their  guns  was  heard  by  the  revellers 
of  King  Charles's  court.  How  conscious  the  Dutch  were  of  the  illusory 
character  of  their  triumph  and  of  the  shame  they  had  inflicted  upon 
England  was  shown  by  the  Treaty  of  Breda,  which  was  actually  in  course 
of  negotiation  at  the  time  and  was  ratified  a  few  weeks  later.  Both  sides 
retained  what  they  had  actually  won,  and  New  Amsterdam  was  converted 
into  New  York. 

Two  other  great  consequences  followed  upon  the  war.  The  first  was  con- 
stitutional. Popular  feeling  had  been  wholly  in  favour  of  the  war,  and  parlia- 
ment at  the  outset  voted  very  large  supplies.  The  indignation  was  all  the 
greater  when  it  became  apparent  that  the  money  was  being  scandalously 
squandered.  But  hitherto,  while  parliament  had  voted  or  refused  to  vote  the 
supplies  called  for  by  the  king  and  his  ministers,  it  had  hardly  attempted  to 
claim  control  over  the  actual  expenditure.  Now  it  insisted  that  the  supplies 
voted  for  the  war  should  be  expended  on  the  war.  The  principle  of  the 
"appropriation  of  supply"  was  for  the  first  time  laid  down  ;  that  is,  it  was 
claimed  that  parliament  could  vote  money  for  a  particular  object,  and  was 
cntillecl  to  see  that  that  money  should  be  spent  upon  that  object  and  not 


THE    RESTORATION  473 

upon   something  else,    a   claim   which  involved  parliamentary   control  over 
the  national  accounts. 

The  second  consequence  was  a  personal  one ;  it  led  to  the  fall  of 
Clarendon.  He  had  been  called  to  guide  the  affairs  of  state  at  a  moment 
when  the  first  necessity  was  the  establishment  of  an  equilibrium  between 
parties  still  smarting  and  sore  from  the  effects  of  a  great  civil  war  and  a 
series  of  revolutionary  governments,  and  of  an  equilibrium,  between  the 
Crown  and  the  parliament  when  Crown  and  parliament  each  was  seeking  so 
to  manipulate  affairs  as  to  procure  its  own  ascendency.  Partisanship  would 
have  won  the  minister  a  cheap  popularity  with  one  section  or  another  of 
the  opposing  forces.     Clarendon  had  given  way  to  partisanship  only  on  the 


A  view  of  London  at  the  time  of  the  Great  Fire    1666. 

[From  a  print  by  Visscher.] 

Church  question.  By  so  doing  he  had  alienated  the  Puritans,  but  had  not 
won  popularity  with  the  Cavaliers,  or  at  least  the  courtiers,  because  he  at 
the  same  time  assumed  the  attitude  of  a  censor  of  court  manners  and  morals. 
He  opposed  the  parliamentary  claim  to  appropriation  of  supplies  as  an  inter- 
ference with  the  royal  prerogative,  and  he  opposed  the  claim  put  forward  by 
Charles  that  the  Crown  could  suspend  the  operation  of  the  penal  laws  as 
unconstitutional.  He  was  not  responsible  for  the  war  or  for  its  mismanage- 
ment, but  popular  opinion  held  him  responsible  for  both.  When  the  Dutch 
sailed  up  the  Medway  popular  indignation  demanded  a  scapegoat,  and  all 
parties  found  the  most  convenient  scapegoat  in  Clarendon.  He  was 
threatened  with  impeachment,  which  he  was  prepared  himself  to  face  ;  but 
Charles,  who  was  afraid  of  awkward  revelations,  persuaded  him  to  flee  from 
the  popular  wrath  to  France.  He  was  impeached  and  condemned  in  his 
absence.     In  his  exile  he  wrote  his  stately,  and  in  some  respects  invaluable. 


474  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

History  of  the  Great  Rebellion.  The  king  was  released  from  the  hampering 
control  of  a  mentor,  who,  however  useful  he  might  be  on  occasion,  was 
exceedingly  tiresome  and  uncomfortably  exacting. 


THE   CABAL   AND    DANBY 

The  executive  government  in  the  past  had  been  in  the  hands  of  the 
Crown  and  the  Privy  Council.  The  character  of  the  Restoration  had  made 
it  necessary  that  both  the  old  Roundheads  and  the  Cavaliers  should  receive 
recognition  from  the  king ;  and  the  general  efTect  was  the  admission  to  the 
Privy  Council  of  so  many  members  from  both  groups'  that  the  body  itself 
became  too  unwieldy  to  conduct  the  business  of  the  State.  The  real  business 
passed  into  the  hands  of  a  small  informal  committee,  which  began  to  be 
known  as  the  Cabinet  or  Cabal.  The  name  of  the  Cabal  has  become 
permanently  associated  with  the  group  who  formed  this  inner  council  after 
the  fall  of  Clarendon,  popular  attention  having  fastened  on  the  fact  that 
their  initials — Clifford,  Ashley,  Buckingham,  Arlington,  Lauderdale— spell 
the  word  Cabal. 

Parliament  had  not  formed  into  definiff^  parties,  and  the  ministers  did  not 
represent  a  party.  They  were  the  men  with  whom  the  king  concocted  his 
designs  or  pretended  to  do  so,  and  through  whom  he  carried  them  to  execu- 
tion. Lauderdale  managed  Scotland.  Ashley,  who  afterwards  became  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  had  sat  in  the  Barebones  Assembly.  No  man  could  have  been 
less  of  a  Puritan,  nevertheless  he  associated  himself  politically  with  the 
Puritan  antagonism  to  Clarendon  and  to  Popery.  Buckingham,  the  most 
profligate  and  resplendent  member  of  a  profligate  and  brilliant  court,  elected 
paradoxically  enough  to  associate  himself  with  the  same  political  connec- 
tion. Clifford  and  Arlington,  like  the  king's  brother  James,  Duke  of  York, 
were  either  actually  Catholics  or  ready  to  become  so.  It  was  perhaps  almost 
the  strongest  desire  of  Charles  himself  to  reinstate  the  Roman  Catholic  re- 
ligion and  himself  openly  to  join  the  Roman  communion;  to  Louis  XIV.  he 
had  probably  already  pledged  himself  to  both  these  objects,  though  always 
with  the  proviso  that  he  was  not  to  be  expected  to  sacrifice  his  crown  for 
a  Mass.  The  facts,  if  known  to  Clifford  and  Arlington,  were  carefully  con- 
cealed from  Ashley  and  Buckingham  as  well  as  from  Lauderdale. 

Now  it  was  no  easy  matter  for  Charles  to  carry  out  his  private  designs. 
The  only  theory  on  which  the  French  alliance  could  be  made  to  appeal 
strongly  to  the  English  people  was  that  which  regarded  France  as  a  Protestant 
Power  for  political  purposes,  a  Power  opposed  to  aggressive  Catholicism,  a 
Power  which  held  Hapsburg  aggression  in  check.  This  was  the  theory  on 
which  Cromwell  had  undoubtedly  entered  upon  the  alliance.  Louis  had  not 
up  to  the  present  time  displayed  anim(5sity  to  Protestantism.  But  it  was 
already  clear  that  the  French  king  had  embarked  on  a  policy  of  French 


476      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

aggrandisement  which  was  a  menace  not  only  to  the  Hapsburgs  but  to 
Europe  at  large.  To  Holland  for  a  century  past  Spain  had  been  the  enemy, 
but  Holland  was  just  becoming  aware  that  Spain  was  no  longer  capable  of 
endangering  her  Hberties.  The  Spanish  Netherlands  lay  as  a  buffer  between 
France  and  Holland  ;  Louis  coveted  them,  and  if  they  passed  from  Spain  to 
P'rance,  Holland  would  be  in  much  more  danger  from  her  powerful  neighbour 
than  from  distant  Spain.  Again,  although  Louis  was  by  no  means  on  good 
terms  with  the  Papacy,  it  was  being  realised  in  some  quarters  that  the  centre 
of  aggressive  Catholicism  was  not  the  Papal  Curia,  but  the  Jesuit  order.  In 
fact  the  Papacy  and  the  Hapsburgs,  Austrian  and  Spanish,  had  completely 
departed  from  the  ancient  attitude  of  Philip  II.  and  the  Popes  of  Elizabeth's 
time.  But  the  Jesuits  had  not  departed  from  that  attitude,  and  the  Jesuits, 
now  in  disagreement  with  the  Papal  authority,  were  dominant  in  France. 
The  time  was  coming,  though  it  had  not  yet  come,  when  Catholic  and 
Protestant  Powers  would  have  to  unite  against  the  aggression  of  France, 
revealed  as  the  open  enemy  of  toleration.  The  position  was  not  as  yet 
generally  grasped  in  England ;  but  England  was  uneasy  and  restive  on 
political  more  than  on  religious  grounds.  Louis  had  recently  put  forward  a 
claim  to  provinces  of  the  Spanish  Netherlands  on  behalf  of  his  wife,  who 
was  the  elder  sister  of  the  infant  King  of  Spain,  the  basis  of  the  claim  being 
certain  local  customs  of  succession  which  could  not  in  the  eyes  of  any  one 
except  Louis  apply  to  the  sovereignty.  England  was  feeling  extremely 
suspicious  of  Louis's  ambitions. 

Hence  Charles  found  himself  constrained  to  give  open  assent  to  the 
formation,  through  the  diplomatic  agency  of  Sir  William  Temple,  of  the 
Triple  Alliance  between  England,  Holland,  and  Sweden,  with  the  ostensible 
object  of  inducing  France  and  Spain  to  come  to  terms.  That  object  was 
accomplished,  since  Louis  was  not  at  this  stage  prepared  to  defy  such  a 
coalition.  But  Charles  had  been  careful  to  explain  privately  to  his  cousin 
that  he  was  not  a  free  agent  in  the  matter.  The  Triple  Alliance  must  be 
looked  upon  merely  as  a  temporary  check.  The  two  kings  entered  on  a 
course  of  secret  negotiations  which  resulted  in  the  most  shameful  compact 
in  our  annals.  By  the  secret  Treaty  of  Dover,  of  which  the  true  details 
remained  unknown  until  revealed  by  modern  research,  Charles  undertook  to 
join  Louis  in  a  war  against  Holland.  In  return  for  his  alliance  Charles  was 
to  receive  substantial  subsidies  from  the  French  king.  This  portion  of  the 
compact  was  confirmed  by  a  treaty  made  in  the  following  year  to  which  all 
the  members  of  the  Cabal  were  privy ;  but  the  iniquity  of  the  secret  treaty 
lay  in  clauses  which  were  concealed  from  Ashley  and  Buckingham.  Charles 
pledged  himself  to  reinstate  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  and  himself  to  join 
the  Roman  communion,  as  his  brother  James  had  already  done,  as  well  as 
Clifford.  And  the  price  of  this  pledge  was  the  promise  of  a  substantial 
pension,  a  sum  down  when  the  king's  conversion  should  be  publicly 
announced,  and  a  guarantee  that  Charles  should  be  supported  by  French 
troops  if  his  subjects  revolted. 


THE    RESTORATION  477 

Charles  himself  and  all  the  members  of  the  Cabal  were  advocates  of 
toleration,  though  for  different  reasons.  For  the  principle  of  toleration 
Charles  cared  nothing ;  he  had  no  sympathy  with  Puritanism  or  the 
Puritans.  But  he  and  Clifford  and  Arlington  were  shrewd  enough  to 
perceive  that  it  was  hardly  possible  to  seek  for  a  relaxation  of  the  laws 
against  Roman  Catholics  without  also  relaxing  those  against  Protestant 
dissent.  Ashley  and  Buckingham,  on  the  other  hand,  were  allied  to  the 
dissenters.  But  the  Cavalier  parliament  was  hotly  intolerant  alike  of 
Romanism  and  of  Nonconformist  Puritanism.  Buckingham  and,  what 
was  infinitely  more  important,  Ashley  were  both  duped  by  Charles,  and, 
knowing  nothing  of  the  secret  treaty,  favoured  the  French  alliance  against 
the  Dutch  ;  relying  upon  the  commercial  advantages  which  would  accrue 
and  upon  the  sentiment  of  hostility  to  Holland,  the  desire  to  avenge  the 
disgrace  of  the  Medway  affair,  to  make  a  Dutch  war  popular.  To  keep  the 
hands  of  the  government  free  parliament  was  prorogued  from  1670  to 
1673.  In  the  interval  the  sham  second  treaty  with  France  was  negotiated; 
Charles,  instigated  by  Ashley,  who  was  made  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  and  Lord 
Chancellor,  issued  a  Declaration  of  Indulgence  suspending  the  operation  of 
the  penal  laws  ;  and  in  1672  war  was  declared  in  conjunction  with  France 
against  Holland.  "  No  clap  of  thunder  on  a  fair  frosty  day  could  more 
astonish  the  world,"  wrote  Temple  in  his  memoirs. 

The  approach  of  war  at  a  moment  when  it  would  have  been  dangerous 
to  meet  parliament  drove  the  Cabal  to  a  dangerous  expedient.  Government 
had,  according  to  custom,  obtained  a  temporary  loan  from  the  goldsmiths 
of  about  a  million  and  a  half,  which  was  to  be  paid  back  when  the  taxes  for 
the  year  were  collected.  The  money  in  the  treasury  and  the  taxes  for  its 
repayment  were  now  attached  for  the  purposes  of  the  war.  The  money 
which  the  goldsmiths  had  lent  was  to  a  great  extent  money  which  had  been 
deposited  with  them  by  merchants.  This  "Stop  of  the  Exchequer,"  as 
it  was  called,  deprived  them  of  the  means  of  repaying  the  deposits,  and 
widespread  financial  ruin  resulted. 

The  war  itself  went  ill.  The  Dutch,  fighting  single-handed  and 
threatened  with  utter  destruction  by  the  combined  attack  of  France  and 
England,  this  time  proved  themselves  a  match  for  the  united  forces  of  their 
enemies  on  the  sea  ;  and  when  they  were  in  danger  of  being  overwhelmed 
by  land  fell  back  on  their  last  defence — opened  the  dykes,  and  laid  the 
country  under  water.  A  revolution  swept  away  the  oligarchy  which  con- 
trolled the  State,  and  set  at  its  head  young  William  of  Orange,  who  thus 
began  his  career  as  the  implacable  foe  of  Louis  XIV. ;  but  this  same  change 
also  changed  the  attitude  of  Charles  towards  the  Dutch  Republic.  William, 
the  grandson  of  Charles  I.,  stood  next  in  succession  to  the  English  throne 
after  the  king's  brother  James  and  his  daughters,  for  Charles's  wife,  Catherine 
of  Braganza,  had  borne  him  no  children.  Charles  hated  the  Dutch  olig- 
archy ;  but  a  Holland  dominated  by  William  of  Orange  was  another  matter. 
In  1674  articles  of  peace  were  signed  between  Holland  and  England. 


478  THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

There  were  other  reasons,  too,  which  led  to  this  result.  In  1673  it  liad 
become  no  longer  possible  to  repeat  the  prorogation  of  parliament,  and 
parliament  met  in  resentful  mood.  The  royal  prerogative  had  been  asserted 
in  a  manner  not  to  its  liking.  Clarendon  of  old  had  checked  Charles's  first 
attempt  to  exercise  the  dispensing  power  and  to  relieve  individuals  from 
religious  penalties  and  disabilities.  Now  members  returned,  indignant,  to 
find  Roman  Catholics  in  high  favour.  Very  decisively  parliament  dispelled 
any  illusions  that  may  have  existed  in  Charles's  mind  with  regard  to  their 
hostility  to  Romanism  by  passing  the  Test  Act,  which  required  all  persons 

holding  public  office  to  receive 
the  Sacrament  according  to  the 
Anglican  rite  and  expressly  to 
deny  the  Roman  doctrine  of 
Transubstantiation.  The  most 
intolerantly  Anglican  of  parlia- 
ments was  as  bitterly  Anti- 
Romanist  as  if  it  had  been  com- 
posed of  Presbyterians.  Even 
the  Protestant  dissenters  made  it 
obvious  that  they  would  rather 
submit  to  Corporation  Acts  and 
Five  Mile  Acts  themselves  than 
be  relieved  at  the  price  of  tolera- 
tion for  Papists.  From  that 
moment  Charles,  however  re- 
luctantly, entirely  abandoned  his 
design  of  reinstating  Romanism, 
and  the  Declaration  of  Indul- 
gence was  formally  withdrawn. 
Louis  may  have  recognised  that  circumstances  were  too  strong  for  his 
cousin,  but  he  realised  at  the  same  time  that  the  purposes  of  the  secret 
treaty  were  for  the  time  being  out  of  reach  ;  he  could  not  gravely  resent 
the  withdrawal  of  England  from  the  Dutch  War. 

But  the  Test  Act  and  the  Peace  of  Westminster  were  not  the  only  results 
of  the  reassembling  of  Parliament.  The  Test  Act  itself  excluded  from  ofhce 
the  Duke  of  York  and  Clifford  with  other  Roman  Catholics.  Shaftesbury, 
more  than  suspicious  that  the  king  had  tricked  him,  went  into  opposition 
along  with  Buckingham.  The  Cabal  was  dissolved,  and  Charles  called  to 
his  counsels  the  High  Anglican  and  Cavalier,  Sir  Thomas  Osborne,  who  was 
made  Earl  of  Danby  and  Lord  Treasurer. 

From  the  Danby  Administration  may  be  dated  the  beginnings  of  the 
division  of  parliament  into  two  organised  parties,  though  they  cannot  as  yet 
be  defined  as  Ministerialists  and  Opposition,  because  some  time  was  still  to 
elapse  before  it  became  a  matter  of  course  that  all  the  ministers  of  the 
Crown  should  be  chosen  from  the  one  party.     But  although  the  principle  of 


An  English  ship  of  war,  te?7ip.  Charles  II. 
[From  a  medal.] 


THE    RESTORATION  479 

forming  a  united  ministry,  with  its  corollary  of  collective  responsibility,  had 
not  yet  come  into  play,  during  the  rest  of  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  parliament 
was  shaping  itself  into  the  two  divisions  which  became  known  as  the  Court 
Party  and  the  Country  Party,  and  ultimately  as  Tories  and  Whigs.  Now 
also  was  inaugurated  that  extensive  system  of  party  management,  by  the 
distribution  of  places  and  emoluments  and  still  more  flagrant  forms  of 
bribery,  which  so  corrupted  parliament  during  the  ensuing  century. 

Charles  chose  Danby  as  the  champion  of  Anglicanism  and  Royal 
Prerogative  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  minister  was  exceedingly  hostile  to 
France.  For  the  time  being  it  suited  Charles  very  well  to  make  a  show  of 
independence  of  Louis.  He  intended  to  make  his  bargain  with  the  French 
king,  but  he  could  get  improved  terms,  even  at  the  cost  of  a  temporary 
estrangement,  though  the  estrangement  must  not  go  too  far. 

Shaftesbury  was  determining  upon  his  line  of  policy,  of  which  the  primary 
aim  was  to  be  the  exclusion  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Duke  of  York  from  the 
succession  to  the  throne,  while  the  immediate  design  was  to  procure  a  dis- 
solution in  the  expectation  that  a  new  parliament  would  set  the  country 
party  decisively  in  the  ascendant  and  compel  the  dismissal  of  Danby.  But, 
when  parliament  met  after  an  extended  prorogation,  Shaftesbury  and 
Buckingham  over-reached  themselves  in  their  opposition  and  were  relegated 
to  the  Tower. 

By  this  time  Charles  was  in  fact  fencing  with  Louis.  Danby  was  allowed 
to  push  forward  his  anti-French  policy.  The  Piincess  Mary,  the  Protestant 
daughter  of  the  Duke  of  York,  and  heir-presumptive  to  the  throne  if  she 
should  outlive  her  father,  was  married  to  William  of  Orange,  Holland  being 
still  at  war  with  France  ;  and  Danby  joyfully  believed  that  England  would 
now  be  carried  into  the  war  on  the  side  of  Holland.  But  Danby  was  to  be 
disappointed.  Through  the  first  half  of  1678  elaborate  intrigues  were  going 
on.  Louis  wanted  to  bring  his  Dutch  war  to  an  end.  He  was  in  com- 
munication with  sundry  leaders  of  the  Opposition  in  England,  who,  while 
they  could  not  risk  the  unpopularity  of  openly  opposing  a  French  war,  were 
bent  on  the  overthrow  of  Danby,  who  was  conspicuously  identified  with  the 
war  policy.  On  the  other  hand,  Charles  merely  wanted  to  use  the  threat 
of  war  in  order  to  extract  better  terms  for  himself  from  the  French  king.  By 
Charles's  orders  and  very  much  against  his  own  will  Danby  was  compelled 
to  write  to  the  English  ambassador  at  Paris  offering  English  aid  in  bringing 
the  war  to  a  close  for  a  substantial  cash  consideration.  A  secret  treaty  was 
ultimately  framed,  under  which  Charles  was  to  get  his  money  and  was  to 
disband  the  troops  then  being  raised  for  the  war,  conditions  which  gave  to 
Charles  what  he  most  wanted  and  to  the  Opposition  leaders  what  they  most 
wanted,  while  Louis  made  his  terms  with  the  Dutch  without  English  inter- 
vention. But  the  letter  which  Danby  had  written  was  presently  to  be 
employed  as  an  instrument  in  procuring  his  fall. 


480 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 


IV 


THE   POPISH    PLOT   AND   THE    EXCLUSION    BILLS 

So  far  the  country  party  had  been  baffled.  They  had  been  unable  *o 
obtain  either  the  overthrow  of  Danby  or  the  dissolution  of  the  parliament 
which  had  been  sitting  for  seventeen  years.  Although  the  Triennial  Act  of 
the  Long  Parliament  was  in  force,  requiring  that  the  Houses  should  meet 
at  least  every  three  years,  there  was  no  statutory  provision  limiting  the  time 
during  which  a  parliament  once  summoned  might  remain  undissolved.  Nor 
were  the  Opposition  now  (1678)  provided  with  any 
really  effective  cry  for  attacking  the  Government. 
Failing  aid  from  the  High  Gods,  they  moved  the 
Powers  of  Acheron,  or  the  Powers  of  Acheron 
moved  on  their  behalf.  Charles  learnt  that  the 
ordinarily  sober  English  people  were  capable  of 
going  perfectly  mad  on  one  subject,  and  that 
subject  was  Popery.  With  singular  opportune- 
ness for  Shaftesbury,  the  No  Popery  frenzy 
laid  sudden  grip  upon  the  nation.  Titus  Gates 
invented,  and,  having  invented,  revealed  the  popish 
plot. 

Gates  was  an  unspeakable  knave  who,  being  the 
son  of  a  Baptist  minister,  had  himself  disgraced  the 
Anglican  Church  by  taking  Grders,  and  had  then 
joined  the  Church  of  Rome.  Among  the  Jesuits  he  had  gleaned  enough  to 
suggest  to  him  the  fabrication  of  a  portentous  and  elaborate  lie,  having  in  it 
a  leaven  of  truth,  just  sufficient  to  save  it  from  immediate  detection.  The 
Jesuits  had  given  up  hope  of  the  conversion  of  England  by  Charles,  and 
were  fondly  anticipating  the  accession  to  the  throne  of  his  brother  James, 
who  had  long  been  an  avowed  member  of  the  Roman  Church.  Incidentally, 
Gates  ascertained  that  a  Jesuit  meeting  had  been  held  on  April  24.  Gates 
proceeded  to  lay  information  before  the  king  of  the  Jesuit  plot  for  his  murder. 
The  city  of  London  was  to  be  provided  with  another  great  fire,  Ireland  was 
to  be  roused  to  insurrection,  French  troops  were  to  come  over,  and  there 
was  to  be  a  general  massacre  of  Protestants.  A  copy  of  this  declaration 
was  lodged  by  the  informers  with  a  magistrate  of  the  highest  character.  Sir 
Edmund  Berry  Godfrey.  Gates  was  summoned  before  the  Council,  and 
stuck  to  his  statements,  though  the  king  at  least  was  perfectly  satisfied  that 
he  was  lying.  Private  papers  were  seized  which  implicated  F'ather  Coleman, 
who  was  officially  the  secretary  of  the  Duke  of  York's  wife,  in  what  was 
certainly  treasonable  if  futile  plotting.  The  papers  confirmed  some  of  Gates's 
statements  and  were  consequently  regarded  as  proving  his  veracity. 

In  the  wild  panic  which  ensued, every  lie  produced  by  every  informer  was 


"  Dr.  Gates  discovereth  the  plot 

to  ye  King  and  Council." 
[From  .1  17th  century  playing  card.] 


THE    RESTORATION  481 

swallowed  with  avidity.  Godfrey  was  found  murdered  in  a  ditch,  and  though 
nothing  w^as  ever  proved,  the  frenzied  pubHc  assumed  that  he  had  been 
murdered  by  the  Jesuits.  CathoHcs  and  suspected  Cathohcs  were  swept  into 
prison  and  condemned  to  death  after  a  mockery  of  trial.  Nobody  dared 
to  raise  hand  or  voice  in  an  attempt  to  check  the  popular  rage.  A  bill  was 
carried  and  received  the  royal  assent  for  the  exclusion  of  Catholics  from  the 
House  of  Peers,  the  Duke  of  York  alone  being  excepted  by  a  bare  majority 
of  two  votes.  A  direct  attack  on  the  succession  of  James  was  only  evaded 
by  the  king's  assurance  that  he  would  accept  restrictions  of  the  prerogative 
for  a  successor  who  was  not  a  Protestant — for  which  James  never  forgave 
Danby.  Then  in  order  that  the  king  might  marry  again  a  wife  who  might 
bear  him  a  son  and  so  shut  James  out  of  the  succession,  Gates  brought  a 
charge  against  the  unlucky  queen  and  her  physician 
of  attempting  to  poison  Charles,  which  was  probably 
instigated  by  Shaftesbury.  But  Charles  drew  the 
line  at  this  monstrous  accusation  against  the  wife 
whom  he  so  shamelessly  wronged.  The  charge 
against  her  was  dropped,  and  the  Chief-Justice,  with 
the  help  of  a  conscientious  and  valiant  jury,  acquitted 
the  accused  physician. 

The  attack  on  James's  succession  had  failed,  and 
Danby  was  not  even  shaken  ;  but  at  this  stage  the 
vindictiveness  of  the  French  king  came  into  play. 
Danby's  letter,  before  referred  to,  was  produced  and 
read  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The  secret  bargaining  with  France  was 
revealed.  It  was  of  no  avail  that  the  letter  had  been  written  by  the  king's 
order,  as  attested  by  his  own  hand-writing.  The  doctrine  of  ministerial 
responsibility  was  definitely  laid  down.  The  king  could  do  no  wrong,  but 
the  minister  who  did  wrong  in  his  name  could  not  shelter  himself  from 
punishment  behind  the  king's  authority.     Danby  was  impeached. 

For  eighteen  years  the  king  had  abstained  from  dissolving  the  Cavalier 
Parliament,  although  it  had  never  been  subservient  to  the  royal  authority, 
and  had  been  increasingly  insistent  on  its  own  ;  Charles  had  always  been 
shrewd  enough  to  perceive  that  a  new  parliament  would  probably  be  more, 
not  less,  hostile.  But  the  only  chance  of  saving  Danby  now  was  that  a 
new  parliament  might  after  all  be  more  amenable.  The  CavaHer  parliament 
was  dissolved. 

The  new  parliament  was  not  more  amenable.  Shaftesbury  had  a  large 
majority  in  the  Commons,  and  Danby  was  again  impeached.  Thereupon  he 
produced  a  royal  pardon  which  stayed  the  proceedings  ;  but  the  threat  of  a 
Bill  of  Attainder  drove  Charles  to  dismiss  him  from  office,  and  to  lodge  him 
in  the  Tower  lest  worse  should  befall.  At  the  suggestion  of  Sir  WilHam 
Temple  an  academic  device  was  adopted  to  avoid  a  deadlock.  The  king 
dismissed  the  whole  of  his  Privy  Council  and  appointed  a  new  Council  of 
thirty  members,  fifteen  being  officers  of  State,  while  the  other  fifteen   were 

2  H 


Contemporary  Medal  of  the 
Godfrey  murder. 


482      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

non-official.  A  preponderance  was  given  to  Shaftesbury  and  his  followers  ; 
but  for  practical  purposes  the  new  scheme  was  still-born.  The  king  still  ruled 
through  ministers  of  his  own  selection.  On  the  other  hand,  a  new  Exclusion 
Bill  was  introduced  and  passed  by  the  House  of  Commons  ;  James  was  de- 
clared incapable  of  succeeding  to  the  Crown,  which,  in  the  event  of  the  king 
dying  without  male  issue,  was  to  pass  to  the  nearest  Protestant  heir.  Charles 
was  determined  not  to  allow  the  exclusion  of  his  brother,  and  he  prorogued 
the  parliament,  but  not  till  it  had  passed,  almost  if  not  quite  by  accident,  the 
Habeas  Corpus  Act.  In  principle  there  was  nothing  new  in  the  measure. 
Theoretically  an  accused  person  could  procure  a  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus 

THE   SUCCESSION   AFTER   CHARLES    II. 


James  I.  and  /  7. ,  1603. 


I 
Charles  I., 

1625, 

m.  Henrietta 

Maria. 


I 

Charles  II. 

1660, 


James  II.  and 
VII .,  1685, 


Mary, 

m.  William  II. 

of  Orange. 


Henrietta, 

m.  PhiUp  cf 

Orleans. 


(i)  Anne 
Hyde. 


(2)  Mary  of 

Modena. 

I 


Mary,  m. 

William  III. 

of  Orange, 

1689. 


Anne, 

It.  George  of 

Denmark, 

1702. 

O 


James  Edward. 

I 

Charles 

Edward. 


I 

William  III. 

of  Orange, 

m.  Mary  of 

England,  1689. 


Elizabeth, 

/.  Frederick, 

Elector 

Palatine. 


I 
Anna  Maria, 

vt.  Victor 

Anadeus  of 

Savov. 


I 
Charles  Louis. 


Rupert, 
o 


Elizabeth, 

tn.  Philip  of 

Orleans. 


Charles, 
Elector 
Palatine. 


Sophia, 
1.  Elector  of 
Hanover. 

George  I. , 


which  required  that  he  be  either  brought  up  for  trial  or  set  at  liberty.  But 
the  lawyers  had  discovered  devices  enough  by  which  the  issuing  of  the  writs 
could  be  deferred  almost  indefinitely.  The  new  Act  required  that  trial  or 
release  should  take  place  within  a  definite  time  after  application  for  the 
writ.  There  is  good  reason  for  believing  Burnet's  story  that  the  majority  of 
nine  which  passed  the  bill  in  the  House  of  Lords  was  really  a  minority,  the 
tellers  by  way  of  a  jest  having  counted  one  particularly  fat  lord  as  ten. 

But  the  Opposition  were  already  divided.  Shaftesbury,  bent  on  the 
exclusion  of  James,  had  determined  to  fix  the  succession  on  the  Duke  of 
Monmouth,  an  illegitimate  son  of  the  king,  who  enjoyed  high  favour  with 
his  father  and  general  popularity  in  the  country.  The  great  difficulty  in  the 
way  was  that  Charles  himself  could  not  be  induced  to  say  that  Monmouth's 


THE    RESTORATION    ^  483 

mother  had  actually  been  his  lawful  wife.  Another  section,  headed  by  Halifax 
and  Sunderland,  objected  to  the  Monmouth  candidature,  and  sought  rather  to 
impose  close  restrictions  on  the  royal  power  if  enjoyed  by  Roman  Catholics. 
The  ultimate  succession  was  by  their  plan  retained  for  the  Duke's  daughter 
Mary  and  her  husband  William  of  Orange.  The  Halifax  group  had  enraged 
Shaftesbury  by  supporting  the  prorogation  ;  they  now  urged  the  king  to  a 
dissolution,  and  the  king  acted  on  their  advice.  Fortune  had  just  favoured 
Charles  by  giving  him  a  new  lease  of  popularity.  He  was  seized  with  an 
illness  so  severe  that  his  life  was  despaired  of,  and  the  country  suddenly 
realised  that  there  was  every  prospect  that  his  death  would  plunge  it  into 
civil  war  over  the  succession  question.     Charles,  however,  recovered. 

A  new  parliament  met  in  October,  only  to  be  immediately  prorogued  to 
the  following  January  (1680),  and  then  prorogued  again.  The  prorogations 
broke  up  the  Halifax  group.  Petitions  poured  in,  demanding  that  the  Houses 
should  be  assembled,  and  were  met  by  counter-resolutions  from  the  king's 
supporters,  whence  for  a  time  the  two  parties  were  known  as  the  Peti- 
tioners and  Abhorrers,  since  the  counter-resolutions  expressed  "abhorrence'* 
of  the  petitions.  But  in  the  course  of  the  year  these  nicknames  were 
finally  displaced  by  the  appellations  of  "Whig"  and  Tory,"  the  names 
commonly  applied  to  Scottish  Covenanters  and  Irish  brigands.  When  the 
parliament  did  at  last  meet  in  October,  an  Exclusion  Bill  was  once  more 
passed  by  the  House  of  Commons,  but  the  debating  skill  of  Halifax  procured 
its  defeat  in  the  Lords.  The  Commons  were  furious,  turned  upon  Hahfax, 
and  threatened  to  refuse  supplies  unless  their  demands  were  satisfied. 

The  calculating  coolness  with  which  the  king  faced  the  crisis  cannot 
but  command  admiration.  The  belief  was  general  that  his  refusal  would 
bring  about  civil  war;  but  Charles  rightly  judged  that  Shaftesbury  was  not 
the  man  to  play  the  part  of  Pym  and  Hampden,  however  furiously  he 
might  threaten.  Moreover,  in  the  last  resort,  the  king  had  what  his  father 
had  never  possessed,  and  what  the  Whigs  did  not  possess  now,  a  standing 
army.  There  were  the  household  troops  in  England  and  a  large  force  in 
Scotland,  besides  the  troops  which  held  Tangier.  He  did  not  give  way,  but 
dissolved  parliament,  and  summoned  a  new  one  to  meet  at  Oxford  in 
March  1681. 

Charles  had  tried  to  counteract  popular  hostility  by  an  appearance  of 
antagonism  to  France.  It  was  now  apparent  that  he  could  not  win  upon 
those  lines.  The  moment  had  come  for  a  final  bargain  with  Louis.  The 
bargain  was  made.  Louis  would  give  him  an  adequate  pension  if  he  ruled 
without  parliament  at  all,  and  lent  himself  to  the  French  king's  policy. 

It  was  of  set  purpose  that  Charles  had  selected  Oxford  instead  of  London 
as  the  gathering  place  of  the  parliament.  No  parliament  sitting  at  West- 
minster could  escape  the  consciousness  of  pressure  from  the  force  of  public 
opinion  in  London.  Shaftesbury  had  systematically  organised  the  City ;  a 
hint  from  him  might  easily  raise  a  riot  of  a  very  dangerous  kind.  Oxford 
was  safe.     The  undergraduates  were  not  in  residence,  and  the  atmosphere  of 


484      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

the  place  was  extremely  royalist.  The  colleges  were  filled  with  the  members 
of  the  two  Houses,  and  the  town  swarmed  with  their  retainers,  flaunting  the 
Whig  and  Tory  colours.  The  Houses  were  met  with  a  final  proposal  for  a 
compromise.  The  king  would  not  assent  to  any  deviation  from  the  legiti- 
mate rule  of  hereditary  succession,  but  he  would  consider  anything  short 
of  exclusion.  A  definite  scheme  was  submitted  which  probably  originated 
with  Halifax.  James  was  to  become  king  of  England  if  he  survived  his 
brother,  but  his  kingship  was  to  be  merely  nominal.  He  himself  was  to  be 
banished  from  the  country,  and  the  royal  functions  were  to  be  discharged 
by  a  regent.  That  regent  was  to  be  his  elder  daughter  Mary,  and,  failing 
Mary,  his  younger  daughter  Anne.  The  two  princesses,  it  must  be  noted, 
were  the  daughters  of  James's  first  wife,  Anne  Hyde,  Clarendon's  daughter, 
and  both  adhered  to  the  Anglican  form  of  religion  in  which  they  had  been 
brought  up.  If  the  Duke's  second  wife,  the  Roman  Catholic  Mary  of 
Modena,  should  bear  him  a  son,  and  that  son  w^ere  brought  up  as  a  Protes- 
tant, the  regency  would  cease  when  he  came  of  age. 

Charles  knew  perfectly  well  that  Shaftesbury  and  his  following  would  not 
accept  that  compromise ;  had  it  not  been  so  he  would  probably  not  have 
made  the  offer.  Shaftesbury  imagined  it  to  be  a  last  desperate  attempt  to 
save  the  situation  ;  if  Charles  would  agree  to  those  terms  it  could  only  be 
because  he  felt  himself  beaten.  Shaftesbury  had  his  own  offer  ;  let  the 
king  put  an  end  to  the  discord  by  acknowledging  Monmouth.  The  king 
refused  to  acknowledge  Monmouth  ;  the  Commons  refused  to  adopt  the 
regency  scheme.  Once  more  Shaftesbury  brought  in  the  Exclusion  Bill. 
Charles,  urbane  as  usual,  interested  himself  in  the  arrangements  for  finding 
the  Commons  better  accommodation  for  their  debates  in  the  Sheldonian 
Theatre,  in  place  of  the  cramped  chamber  which  they  now  occupied.  Only 
the  inner  ring  of  the  king's  advisers  had  a  suspicion  of  his  intentions. 

On  the  Monday  morning  the  Lords  assembled  at  their  meeting  place 
in  the  Geometry  Schools.  Thither  the  king  betook  himself  privately,  his 
state  robes  being  conveyed  in  a  separate  sedan  chair.  All  suspicions  had 
been  lulled.  The  Whigs  had  no  fear  of  Louis  ;  he  had  kept  his  own  counsel, 
and  his  money  was  jingling  in  not  a  few  of  their  pockets.  A  summons  came 
to  the  Commons  to  attend  at  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Lords  ;  th^y  came  in 
gleeful  anticipation  that  Charles  was  about  to  announce  his  surrender.  They 
knew  nothing  of  those  robes  of  state  which  had  been  carried  so  secretly  to 
the  Geometry  School,  the  robes  he  must  wear  in  pronouncing  the  dissolution 
of  parliament,  the  robes  he  was  wearing  when  they  entered  the  chamber. 
The  king  spoke  ;  the  thunderbolt  fell.  When  he  ceased  speaking  there  wms 
no  longer  a  parliament.  And  no  other  parliament  was  called  until  his  suc- 
cessor was  on  the  throne.  Charles  had  sold  himself  to  the  French  king, 
and  it  mattered  nothing  to  him  that  the  constitutional  source  of  supply  was 
closed.  The  sword  upon  which  the  House  of  Commons  had  relied  was 
snapped  at  the  hilt.  Shaftesbury  saw  that  the  game  w.is  lost.  The  king 
would  not  have  dared  to  act  as  he  had  done  without  the  certaintv  that  he 


THE   RESTORATION  485 

held  the  winning  cards.  To  attempt  an  armed  rebellion  would  have  been 
madness.  In  impotent  rage  and  fear  the  discomfited  Whigs  scattered  to 
their  homes. 


SCOTLAND 

For  Scotland  the  era  of  the  Restoration  was  a  period  of  storm  and  stress. 
In  that  country  the  return  of  Charles  II.  was  to  the  full  as  popular  as  in 
England.  The  country  in  general  had  remained  loyal  to  the  theory  of  a 
monarchy,  and  clung  to  the  royal  house  which  had  inherited  the  English 
Crown,  although  the  sentiment  of  loyalty  was  combined  with  a  deep-rooted 
insistence  on  the  national  religion.  Republicanism 
and  incorporation  with  the  Commonwealth  had 
inevitably  been  accepted  after  the  battle  of  Wor- 
cester ;  but  the  return  of  the  Stuart  king  and  in- 
dependence of  England  were  generally  welcomed 
except  by  the  extreme  section  of  Covenanters,  who 
were  to  be  found  for  the  most  part  in  the  western 
Lowlands. 

But   Scotland  had  to  pay  a  heavy  price  for  the 
restoration    of    the    monarchy   and   of    national    in- 
dependence.     She  at  once  lost  the  commercial  ad-     ^'■''''^'^'^^^"lylf '  ^^^''^'''' 
vantages  of  the  Union.     Her  shippmg  had  enjoyed        [ivom  the  portrait  by  George 
all   the  advantages  of   the  Commonwealth    Naviga-  jamesone.] 

tion  Act ;  and  of  these  she  was  at  once  deprived  by  the  Navigation  Act  of 
tlie  Convention  Parliament  in  England,  which  confined  the  carrying  trade  to 
English  bottoms.  Moreover,  while  in  England  the  Restoration  ostensibly 
established  a  constitutional  government  under  parliamentary  control,  in 
Scotland  it  in  effect  established  despotism.  Further,  while  the  old  despotism 
had  been  checked  under  Charles  I.  by  the  alienation  of  the  magnates  from 
the  Crown  and  their  consequent  alliance  with  the  Kirk,  the  Kirk  had  now 
alienated  the  magnates,  who  had  gone  over  to  the  Crown.  Even  the  very 
large  body  among  the  clergy,  of  moderates  who  were  known  as  Resolutioners, 
failed  to  make  their  influence  practically  felt  with  the  Government. 

There  were  few  actual  victims  of  the  Restoration.  Argyle  was  naturally 
singled  out  for  vindictive  treatment ;  his  execution  was  legally  inexcusable, 
though  it  was  not  difficult  to  regard  it  in  the  light  of  a  just  retribution  for 
the  death  of  Montrose.  By  the  disappearance  of  Argyle  the  old  Covenanters 
were  left  without  a  leader  among  the  lay  magnates.  After  a  short  but  sharp 
rivalry  between  the  thorough-going  Cavalier  Middleton  and  the  ex-Cove- 
nanter Lauderdale,  the  former  was  defeated,  and  Lauderdale  secured  the 
virtual  control  of  the  Scottish  government,  which  he  retained  for  nearly 
twenty  years. 


486      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

Like  the  English  Puritans,  the  Scottish  Covenanters  had  used  their  power 
too  aggressively  ;  in  high  places  the  reaction  was  complete.  The  clergy  for 
the  most  part  held  to  their  principles,  though  some,  like  James  Sharp,  made 
haste  to  agree  with  the  enemy  while  they  were  in  the  way  with  him.  Sharp 
had  been  sent  to  London  in  the  interests  of  Presbyterianism  ;  he  returned  to 
Scotland  a  convert  to  Episcopalianism.  The  parliament  which  met  in  1661 
was,  after  the  manner  of  Scottish  parliaments,  an  instrument  which  worked 
the  will  of  the  effective  government,  and  the  effective  government  consisted 
of  the  king's  ministers  and  Privy  Council.  They  wiped  out  all  legislation 
subsequent  to  the  bishops'  wars,  and  left  the  religious  settlement  to  the  Crown. 
The  Crown,  which  at  the  moment  meant  Middleton  rather  than  Lauderdale, 
restored  Episcopacy,  and  Sharp  was  made  Archbishop  of  St.  Andrews. 
Office-holders  were  required  to  denounce  the  Covenant  and  to  affirm  the 
doctrine  of  non-resistance.  Broadly  speaking  the  constitution  of  Church  and 
State  stood  where  they  had  stood  thirty  years  before,  but  in  both  the  power 
of  the  Crown  was  less  assailable  than  it  had  been  at  the  earlier  date. 

Against  this  system  there  was  no  national  uprising  like  that  which  had 
produced  the  bishops'  war.  But  in  Scotland,  as  in  England,  the  ecclesiastical 
settlement  drove  a  large  number  of  ministers  to  resign  their  livings  for  con- 
science' sake  ;  though  the  liturgy  was  not  enforced,  the  principle  at  stake  was 
the  one  always  dominant  in  Scottish  ecclesiastical  politics,  spiritual  independ- 
ence. In  the  south-west  the  Covenanting  spirit  was  roused  to  a  stubborn 
defiance,  whilst  the  laws  against  Nonconformity  were  enforced  by  the 
government  even  more  rigorously  than  the  Clarendon  Code  was  applied  by 
Cavalier  magistrates  in  England. 

The  hostility  of  the  Galloway  Covenanters,  already  displayed  by  the  pro- 
cess of  ''rabbling  "  ministers  who  had  taken  the  places  of  those  who  had  given 
up  their  manses,  came  to  a  head  in  the  Pentland  rising  at  the  end  of  1666. 
Following  on  a  scuffle  with  the  soldiery  engaged  in  breaking  up  conventicles, 
a  band  of  insurgents  assembled  in  arms.  Thomas  Dalziel,  a  brutal  veteran 
whose  service  in  Russia  had  taught  him  an  exceptional  savagery,  was  placed 
in  command  of  the  government  troops.  The  insurgents  marched  to 
Edinburgh  under  the  delusion  that  the  capital  would  side  with  them.  They 
had  hardly  discovered  their  mistake  when  they  were  caught  and  routed  by 
Dalziel  at  the  fight  of  Rullion  Green. 

The  Pentland  rising  was  followed  by  a  sharp  persecution  directed  against 
those  who  were  supposed  to  have  fostered  the  rebellion.  Torture — the  boot 
and  the  thumbscrew — was  freely  used,  though  with  little  success,  as  a  means 
of  extracting  information,  and  some  scores  of  offenders  were  put  to  death. 
These  things  had  taken  place  in  the  absence  of  Lauderdale.  He  had  person- 
ally taken  the  line  of  rather  discouraging  persecution,  and  allowing  the 
odium  of  that  policy  to  be  borne  by  his  colleague  and  rival  Lord  Rothes  and 
Archbishop  Sharp.  The  practical  outcome  was  that  Lauderdale  now  became 
supreme.  He  at  once  procured  from  a  subservient  parliament  an  Act  de- 
(initely  establishing  the  ecclesiastical   supremacy  of  the  Crown,  a   measure 


THE    RESTORATION  487 

little  to  the  liking  of  the  bishops,  and  still  more  objectionable  to  the  Presby- 
terians with  their  doctrine  of  spiritual  independence.  But  the  Act  also 
affirmed  that  the  entire  administrative  control  was  a  prerogative  of  the 
Crown  ;  and  with  this  instrument  in  his  hands  Lauderdale  set  himself  to 
a  still  harsher  penal  legislation  enforced  by  an  increasing  standing  army 
virtually  controlled  by  himself.  Disaffection  developed  along  with  the 
severity  of  the  government,  especially  when  it  was  demanded  that  the  land- 
holders should  bind  themselves,  together  with  their  families,  servants,  and 
tenants,  not  to  attend  conventicles  or  to  harbour  unlicensed  preachers.  To 
suppress  the  disaffection  an  army  of  ten  thousand  men,  mainly  from  the 
Highlands,  was  quartered  upon  the  disturbed  districts,  where  the  "  High- 
land host"  treated  the  population  very  much  as  conquering  troops  were 
wont  to  treat  a  hostile  country  in  seventeenth-century  warfare. 

The  results  were  such  as  might  have  been  expected.  A  party  of  desper- 
adoes were  lying  in  wait  for  an  informer  on  Magus  Muir  near  St.  Andrews 
when  accident  threw  Archbishop  Sharp  into  their  hands.  They  murdered 
him  before  the  eyes  of  his  daughter.  Four  weeks  later  a  sympathising  band 
of  Covenanters  routed  at  Drumclog  a  party  of  soldiers  under  the  command 
of  James  Graham  of  Claverhouse,  who  had  been  actively  employed  by  the 
government  in  the  suppression  of  conventicles  and  the  dispersal  of  open-air 
gatherings. 

There  was  no  organised  rebellion.  The  victors  of  Drumclog  were  for  the 
most  part  zealots,  of  whom  a  large  proportion  applauded  the  murder  of  Sharp, 
while  probably  every  one  of  them  would  have  sheltered  the  murderers  as  a 
matter  of  course.  But  there  would  have  been  no  rebellion  at  all,  organised  or 
otherwise,  if  the  population  had  not  been  goaded  by  the  tyrannical  harshness 
of  the  law  and  the  brutalities  of  the  troops  in  government  employ.  The 
command  in  Scotland  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Duke  of  Monmouth, 
whose  role  it  was  to  seek  popularity.  Three  weeks  after  Drumclog  the 
insurgents  were  dispersed  at  the  battle  of  Bothwell  Brig,  where  four  hundred 
of  them  were  killed  and  more  than  a  thousand  prisoners  were  taken.  Very 
few  of  them  were  put  to  death,  but  most  of  them  were  kept  through  the 
winter  in  wooden  sheds  in  the  Greyfriars'  Churchyard,  where  they  suffered 
very  severely.  Then  the  majority  were  allowed  to  go  home  on  pledging 
themselves  to  keep  the  peace,  though  some  were  obstinate  enough  to  refuse 
the  promise. 

Monmouth  got  general  credit  for  his  leniency ;  but  immediately  after- 
wards he  was  removed  from  his  office,  and  his  place  was  taken  by  the  Duke 
of  York.  Practically  at  this  stage  (1680)  James  became  the  governor  of 
Scotland  instead  of  Lauderdale,  with  Dalziel  in  command  of  the  troops.  A 
steady  persecution  set  in  which  found  its  warrant  in  the  action  of  the  ex- 
treme leaders  of  the  Covenanters,  Cargill  and  Cameron,  from  whom  the 
zealots  soon  came  to  be  known  as  "  Cameronians."  This  section  issued  the 
Declaration  of  Sanquhar,  in  which  all  allegiance  to  Charles  Stuart  was 
renounced. 


488  THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

The  Cameronians  in  fact  elected  to  declare  themselves  rebels,  and  as 
such  the  government  treated  them.  A  rational  leniency  would  in  all  prob- 
ability have  resulted  in  effective  paciiication ;  but  the  government  chose 
to  enforce  the  law  with  the  utmost  rigour,  while  the  rebels  openly  declared 
their  own  intention  of  retaliation.  The  persecution  of  the  Covenanters 
throughout  the  ensuing  years  is  a  very  ugly  chapter  of  history,  luridly  de- 
picted thirty  years  afterwards  in  the  narratives  of  Wodrow  and  Walker.  But 
even  here  the  theory  of  the  government  was  that  the  victims  were  avowed 
rebels  ;  and  deeply  as  the  name  of  Graham  of  Claverhouse  has  been  exe- 
crated, no  instance  has  ever  been  brought  home  to  him  in  which  he  exceeded 
the  positive  instructions  under  which  he  was  acting,  or  executed  any  oiie  who 
had  not  refused  to  abjure  the  declaration  against  allegiance.  The  suppression 
of  conventicles  was  monstrous  ;  the  subjection  of  obviously  harmless  persons 
to  the  death  penalty  was  monstrous  ;  but  the  blame  lies  on  the  shoulders  of 
the  government,  and  to  some  extent  on  the  zealots  themselves,  rather  than 
on  the  officers  who  carried  out  their  orders. 


VI 

THE   VICTORY   OF   THE   CROWN 

The  rout  of  the  Whigs,  when  the  Oxford  parliament  was  dissolved,  was 
complete.  The  acute  Charles,  who,  when  he  gave  his  mind  to  business,  prob- 
ably had  a  keener  insight  than  any  man  in  England,  had  realised  that 
Shaftesbury  was  ruining  his  own  cause  by  claiming  too  much.  In  that 
course  Charles  deliberately  encouraged  him  by  his  professed  readiness  to 
make  such  concessions  as  had  been  offered  at  the  last  parliament.  The 
adoption  of  the  Monmouth  candidature  was  a  fatal  error,  since,  despite  the 
Duke's  popularity,  the  world  at  large  did  not  seriously  believe  that  he  was 
legitimate,  and  the  country  could  not  be  united  upon  a  proposal  to  set  a 
bastard  on  the  throne.  Moreover,  Charles  realised  that  a  reaction  against 
the  popish  terror  was  already  setting  in.  Men  were  awaking  with  shame  to 
the  consciousness  that  they  had  completely  lost  their  heads  and  had  been 
guilty  of  flagrant  and  unreasoning  injustice  ;  and  they  were  angry  with  the 
men  who  had  encouraged  the  panic.  Popular  opinion  had  swung  round, 
and  the  discomfiture  of  Shaftesbury's  party,  with  its  strong  majority  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  aroused  no  indignation. 

Had  the  country  known  either  of  the  old  Treaty  of  Dover  or  of  the  latest 
agreement  between  Charles  and  Louis,  matters  would  have  gone  very  differ- 
ently ;  but  there  were  not  half-a-dozen  men  in  the  country  who  were  in 
either  of  those  secrets.  Charles  had  indeed  a  difficult  task  in  keeping  faith 
with  France  without  arousing  suspicions  ;  but  it  was  one  to  which  his  con- 
summate powers  of  deception  were  quite  equal.  He  could  prove  to  his 
Dutch  nephew  that  he  could  not  join  a  league  against  Louis  without  appeal- 
ing to  parliament,  and  he  could  not  appeal  to  parliament  without  having  to 


THE   RESTORATION  489 

face  either  a  new  Exclusion  bill  or  at  best  a  bill  which  would  seriously  limit 
his  successor's  prerogative  ;  and  neither  of  those  alternatives  was  at  all  to 
the  taste  of  James's  son-in-law  and  prospective  heir.  At  home  the  safe 
policy  was  to  revive  the  sentiment  of  Anglican  royalism  which  had  been  so 
active  in  the  early  years  of  the  reign,  and  to  avoid  injudicious  movements  in 
the  direction  of  toleration  either  of  Puritan  dissenters  or  Romanists. 

Still  it  was  necessary  for  Charles  to  obtain  further  securities  for  the  royal 
power.  A  time  might  come  when,  in  spite  of  his  present  comfortable  rela- 
tions with  Louis,  he  might  be  obliged  to  face  the  parliament ;  and  in  the 
meanwhile  his  control  over  the  Courts  of  Justice  was  not  such  as  he  desired. 
The  judges  might  be  as  subservient  as  those  of  his  father,  but  his  father's 
arbitrary  Courts  had  been  abolished,  and  juries  might,  and  did,  prove  inde- 
pendent. When  Shaftesbury  was  charged  with  treason  a  London  Grand 
Jury  threw  out  the  bill  in  defiance  of  the  directions  they  received  from  the 
judge.  VVhiggery  was  inconveniently  prevalent  in  the  boroughs  ;  the  cor- 
porations would  be  only  too  likely  to  return  Whig  members  to  a  parliament 
if  summoned,  and  the  corporation  officers  w^ould  empanel  juries  disagreeably 
imbued  with  Whig  traditions. 

But  all  this  could  be  remedied.  When  the  government  procured  the  ap- 
pointment of  Tory  sheriffs  for  the  city,  Tory  juries  were  secure,  and  Shaftes- 
bury promptly  removed  himself  out  of  danger  to  Holland.  What  Charles 
required  was  to  obtain  control  of  the  corporations.  Writs  of  Quo  Warranto 
were  issued  to  inquire  into  the  authority  by  which  the  corporations,  begin- 
ing  with  the  City  of  London,  exercised  their  powers  and  privileges.  It  was 
not  difficult  to  shov/  that  the  actual  powers  conveyed  by  the  charters  had 
been  transgressed,  and  charter  after  charter  w^as  forfeited  or  surrendered  ; 
to  be  restored,  with  this  vital  change,  that  the  corporation  officers  were  ap- 
pointed either  by  direct  nomination  of  the  Crown  or  subject  to  the  Crown's 
control  instead  of  by  free  election  of  the  burgesses. 

While  the  boroughs  w^ere  being  robbed  of  their  independence  and  were 
in  effect  being  transformed  into  instruments  of  despotism,  Whig  mismanage- 
ment was  playing  into  the  king's  hands.  The  clear  policy  for  the  party  to 
follow  was  to  drop  Monmouth,  ally  itself  with  William  and  Mary,  and  trust 
to  the  indescretion  of  Louis  XIV.  or  of  the  Duke  of  York  to  provide  it  with 
the  certain  means  of  exciting  public  opinion  once  more  against  the  succession 
of  James  and  association  with  France.  Even  before  the  flight  of  Shaftesbury, 
which  was  shortly  followed  by  his  death,  the  Whig  leaders  were  taking  the 
opposite  course  of  encouraging  Monmouth  to  court  popular  favour.  The 
real  ruin  was  wrought,  however,  not  by  the  leaders,  but  by  the  irresponsible 
hot-heads  who  in  1683  concocted  the  Rye  House  Plot.  Charles  and  James 
were  to  be  seized  and  perhaps  to  be  assassinated  on  their  way  from  New- 
market to  London.  The  plot  was  betrayed,  and  although  it  had  been  care- 
fully concealed  from  the  Whig  leaders,  several  of  them  were  charged  with 
complicity. 

The  Earl  of  Essex  conimitted  suicide  in  the  Tower.     Enough  evidence 


490      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

of  Russell's  association  with  some  of  the  plotters  was  found  to  warrant  his 
condemnation  by  a  partisan  court.  The  great  scandal  was  in  connection 
with  the  doom  of  Algernon  Sidney,  against  whom  only  one  witness  could  be 
produced,  though  the  law  of  treason  required  two.  But  among  his  papers 
was  found  an  essay  in  favour  of  republicanism.  It  had  not  even  been 
published,  but  it  was  admitted  as  the  equivalent  for  the  necessary  second 
witness.  Sidney  was  condemned  and  executed.  The  subsequent  indignation 
at  this  travesty  of  justice  was  for  the  time  being  suppressed  by  the  present 
indignation  at  an  assassination  plot. 

The  Court  became  more  popular  than  it  had  been  at  any  period  of  the 
reign  ;  repeated  breaches  of  the  Test  Act  and  Corporation  Acts  were  allowed 
to  pass  unchallenged  ;  high  Anglican  doctrines  of  non-resistance  to  the  royal 
authority  predominated  on  all  sides,  and  Tory  magistrates  applied  the 
persecuting  Acts  against  dissenters  with  renewed  energy.  In  the  spring  of 
1684  Charles  felt  himself  strong  enough  to  refuse  to  summon  a  parliament, 
in  defiance  of  the  Triennial  Act,  and  even  although  the  boroughs  were  now 
so  completely  in  his  hands  that  he  would  have  been  sure  of  a  subservient 
House  of  Commons.  Danby  and  certain  Roman  Catholic  lords  who  had 
been  confined  in  the  Tower  at  the  time  of  the  Popish  plot  were  set  at  liberty, 
although  they  had  hitherto  been  detained  on  the  ground  that  they  had  been 
committed  to  prison  by  parliament,  and  that  only  the  authority  of  parliament 
could  release  them.  In  defiance  of  the  Test  Act,  James  was  restored  to 
his  old  office  at  the  head  of  the  Admiralty.  In  the  general  paralysis  it 
mattered  little  that  the  voice  of  England  was  silent  on  continental  affairs, 
and  that  Tangier  was  finally  abandoned. 

Charles  had  won  the  game  ;  but  no  time  was  given  to  him  to  follow  up  his 
victory.  In  February  1685  he  was  seized  with  apoplexy.  On  his  deathbed 
he  received  the  last  Sacraments  as  a  member  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 
Monmouth  was  out  of  the  country,  and  James  II.  succeeded  to  the  crown 
unchallenged.  The  "merry  monarch"  preserved  to  the  last  his  reputation 
with  the  nation  as  a  good-natured T^/wm/^/ 

"Who  never  said  a  foolish  thing 
And  never  did  a  wise  one — " 

a  popular  reputation  which  survived  for  a  century  and  a  half,  an  unparalleled 
example  of  triumphant  dissimulation. 


CHAPTER    XIX 

NEMESIS 
I 


QUEM    DEUS   VULT   PERDERE— 

The  position  created  by  the  accession  of  James  1 1,  was  decidedly  paradoxical, 
England,  Ireland,  and  Scotland  were  officially  Protestant  States,  in  v/hich 
Roman  Catholics  were  not  only 
barred  by  the  law  from  holding 
any  public  office,  whether  in 
the  service  of  the  State  or  of  the 
municipality,  but  were  further 
penalised  for  participating  in 
their  own  religious  rites,  and 
for  abstaining  from  participa- 
tion in  the  rites  of  a  Church 
which  they  accounted  heretical. 
Yet  at  the  head  of  these  Pro- 
testant States  was  a  zealous 
Roman  Catholic,  who,  long  after 
reaching  maturity,  had  deliber- 
ately chosen  to  separate  him- 
self from  the  official  established 
religion  and  to  join  the  pro- 
scribed body.  In  Ireland  it  is 
true  that  he  shared  the  faith  of 
the  great  bulk  of  the  population, 
but  in  England  and  in  Scotland 
Protestantism  was  not  merely 
official ;  to  the  bulk  of  the 
population  the  papacy  was  the 
Scarlet  Woman  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse. It  was  tolerably  manifest  that  the  king  was  bound  to  demand  at 
least  some  relaxation  in  the  stringency  of  the  laws  against  his  own  co- 
religionists ;  but  it  was  no  less  manifest  that  concessions  could  be  procured 
only  by  tact  and  maintained  or  extended  only  bv  the  exercise  of  conspicuous 
moderation. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  masterly  dissimulation  of  Charles  II.  had  enabled 
him  to  leave  the  Crown   stronger  than  it   had  been  at  any  time  since  the 

49 1 


^Jl 


James  II. 
[Afier  the  engraved  portrait  by  Giffart.] 


492       THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

death  of  Elizabeth.  A  standing  army  had  been  created  which,  if  not  large, 
was  still  large  enough,  so  long  as  it  remained  loyal,  to  secure  the  king  against 
any  serious  danger  from  armed  insurrection.  For  supplies  it  was  true  that, 
unless  the  king  held  fast  to  a  policy  of  extreme  economy,  he  was  dependent 
on  the  goodwill  either  of  the  King  of  France  or  of  parliament.  But  the 
Commons  at  least  were  no  longer  an  independent  body.  County  representa- 
tion was  controlled  by  the  country  gentlemen  who  were  mainly  Tories,  and 
the  reconstruction  of  the  corporations  had  given  the  Crown  the  practical 
control  over  the  boroughs  where  otherwise  Whiggery  would  have  pre- 
dominated. The  clergy  of  the  established  religion,  moreover,  were  for  the 
most  part  committed  to  doctrines  of  divine  right  and  of  non-resistance.  An 
unobtrusive  extension  of  the  principles  of  toleration  ought  not  to  have  been 
out  of  reach. 

Unfortunately  for  himself  and  for  his  cause,  James  was  personally  wholly 
unfitted  for  his  task.  He  was  of  all  men  the  most  tactless,  in  a  position 
where  tactfulness  was  a  supreme  necessity.  His  incapacity  for  successful 
dissimulation  had  procured  him  a  somewhat  spurious  reputation  for  straight- 
forward honesty,  but  that  extremely  useful  reputation  he  failed  to  maintain. 
As  a  young  man  he  had  been  conspicuously  fearless  in  the  battle-field,  but 
while  he  had  all  the  obstinacy  which  tends  to  produce  crises,  he  lacked  the 
nerve  to  face  a  crisis  when  it  arrived.  Within  three  years  of  his  accession 
he  had  successfully  alienated  all  that  loyalty  which  Whig  blundering,  the 
crafty  duplicity  of  Charles,  and  some  fortunate  accidents  had  combined  to 
place  at  his  disposal.  The  revolution  of  1688  was  a  Whig  triumph,  but  it 
was  brought  about  by  royalist  Tories  and  Anglicans  not  less  than  by  the 
Whigs.  And  for  that  fact  the  blundering  of  James  himself  was  chiefiy 
responsible. 

Nevertheless  the  king's  first  acts  had  an  encouraging  aspect.  His  first 
declarations  affirmed  his  intention  of  proving  his  loyalty  to  the  existing 
order.  The  ministers  most  employed  by  Charles  in  his  last  years  had  been 
Rochester,  Sunderland,  and  Godolphin.  Although  the  two  latter  had  both 
supported  the  Exclusion  Bill  they  were  retained  in  high  office.  Rochester 
had  opposed  exclusion,  like  Halifax,  but,  being  Clarendon's  son,  he  repre- 
sented the  tradition  of  political  Anglicanism  ;  he  too  was  retained  as  Lord 
Treasurer.  It  was  true  that  James  paraded  his  own  personal  adherence  to 
Romanism,  but  as  yet  the  public  at  large  were  content  to  attribute  this  not 
to  sinister  intentions  but  to  an  open  honesty.  The  merciless  punishment 
inflicted  upon  Titus  Gates  and  his  principal  accomplice  was  generally 
accepted  as  a  mere  act  of  justice  ;  nor  was  any  active  resentment  aroused 
when  James  proceeded  to  order  by  royal  proclamation  the  collection  of  the 
Customs  which  had  been  accorded  to  Charles  for  life  but  had  not  yet  been 
conferred  by  parliament  on  his  successor. 

Within  five  months  of  James's  accession  the  strength  of  his  position  had 
been  completely  demonstrated.  In  Scotland  the  Scottish  Estates  were  con- 
vened ;  and  although  they  emphatically  confirmed  all  the  existing  statutes 


NEMESIS  493 

for  the  security  of  Protestantism,  they  increased  the  severity  of  the  laws 
against  conventicles,  extending  the  application  of  the  death  penalty,  and  in- 
troducing that  worst  period  of  the  persecution  known  to  Scottish  tradition 
as  the  "Killing  Time."  In  May  an  English  parliament  assembled,  and  the 
House  of  Commons  showed  an  overwhelming  Tory  preponderance.  An 
emphatic  declaration  on  the  king's  part  that  he  would  defend  the  Church 
sufficed  to  secure  the  enthusiastic  loyalty  of  the  Commons.  The  revenue 
granted  to  Charles  was  renevv^ed  to  James,  and  a  further  large  grant  was  made 
for  naval  purposes. 

Meanwhile  the  extreme  Whigs,  the  Exclusionists,  who  had  taken  flight 
from  the  country  after  their  final  rout,  made  their  own  desperate  attempt. 
Argyle  landed  in  Scotland  and  sought  to  raise  an  insurrection  which  was 
promptly  crushed  with  complete  ease  ; 
Argyle  himself  was  captured  and  exe- 
cuted. While  the  insurrection  in  the 
North  was  collapsing  Monmouth  landed 
at  Lyme  Regis,  the  south-western  corner 
of  Dorsetshire.  He  asserted  his  own 
legitimacy,  while  professedly  leaving  his 
title  to  the  Crown  to  be  decided  by 
parliament.  His  pose  was  that  of  the 
champion  of  Protestantism  and  generally 
of  the  constitutional  principles  advocated 
by  the  Whigs.  The  appeal  to  Pro- 
testantism was  effective  among  the  rural 
population  of  Somerset  and  Devon,  who  flocked  to  his  standard,  ill  enough 
armed  but  full  of  enthusiasm.  But  the  Whig  magnates  did  not  join  him,  and 
he  destroyed  such  chance  as  he  had  by  deserting  his  first  position  and  pro- 
claiming himself  king.  Monmouth's  valiant  rustic  levies  met  the  king's 
troops  at  Sedgemoor,  where  they  were  completely  routed  in  spite  of  the 
stubborn  valour  of  their  resistance.  Monmouth  himself  was  caught  and 
carried  prisoner  to  London,  where  an  Act  of  Attainder  had  already  been 
passed  against  him,  and  he  was  as  a  matter  of  course  executed  after  un- 
edifying  appeals  for  mercy,  which  were  rejected  by  the  king  with  equally 
unedifying  harshness. 

The  king's  lack  of  nerve  was  shown  not  only  by  his  alarm  on  the  occasion 
of  Monmouth's  rising  but  by  his  encouragement  of  a  vile  vindictiveness  in 
the  punishment  of  the  West  Country  which  followed  its  very  easy  suppres- 
sion. The  savageries  of  "  Kirke's  Lambs,"  the  troops  just  returned  from 
Tangier,  were  only  the  precursors  of  the  brutalities  of  Jeffreys,  who  was  sent 
to  conduct  the  judicial  campaign.  Foul-mouthed  abuse  of  accused  persons 
and  bullying  of  witnesses  smoothed  the  way  for  the  scandalous  sentences 
which  have  stamped  the  memory  of  Judge  Jeffreys  with  indelible  infamy, 
and  have  given  to  his  proceedings  the  name  of  the  Bloody  Assize.  The 
number   of    persons    put    to    death    exceeded    three    hundred,   and    nearly 


The  Sedgemoor  Campaign,  1685. 


494  THE' SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

three  times  as  many  were  transported  to  convict  slavery  in  the  West 
Indies. 

Unwittingly,  however,  Monmouth  had  done  almost  the  worst  possible 
disservice  to  James  and  the  best  service  to  Protestantism  and  constitutionalism 
that  he  could  possibly  have  rendered,  by  getting  himself  executed.  Mon- 
mouth was  the  rock  on  which  the  Whigs  had  split.  The  moment  Monmouth 
was  out  of  the  way  every  one  who  was  ill  content  turned  his  thoughts  to 
the  Dutch  Stadtholder  and  his  Stuart  wife,  the  heiress-presumptive  of  the 
English  throne.  Neither  nobles  nor  gentry  nor  commons  in  England  would 
take  up  arms  to  set  the  crown  of  England  on  the  head  of  the  son  of  Lucy 
Waters  merely  because  a  number  of  Whig  leaders  had  chosen  to  pretend  to 
believe  in  his  legitimacy.  If  James  had  had  the  wit  to  spare  Monmouth,  as 
his  brother  would  have  done  in  the  like  case,  James's  antagonist  would  have 
found  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  procure  the  intervention  of  the  Prince  of 
Orange.  But  vindictiveness  blinded  James  to  the  more  subtle  policy,  and 
by  his  own  act  he  smoothed  the  way  for  his  supplanter. 

Before  parliament,  which  was  prorogued  in  the  summer,  met  again  in  the 
winter,  other  events  had  taken  place  which  materially  influenced  the  situation. 
For  some  time  past  Louis  XIV.  had  been  pressing  heavily  upon  his  Pro- 
testant subjects,  who  had  already  begun  to  seek  safety  in  emigration.  In 
September  he  revoked  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  the  charter  of  Huguenot  liberties, 
which  for  a  hundred  years  past  had  secured  at  least  a  degree  of  toleration 
for  French  Protestants.  The  revocation  let  loose  a  storm  of  persecution, 
and  Huguenot  refugees  began  crowding  to  Brandenburg,  Holland,  and  Eng- 
land. The  antagonism  to  popery  which  had  been  quieting  down  was  roused 
anew,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Pope  and  the  Hapsburgs,  Austrian  and 
Spanish,  both  denounced  the  methods  of  the  French  king. 

James  could  have  selected  no  worse  moment  for  championing  the  cause 
of  his  co-religionists  in  his  own  country.  The  French  king  was  employing 
his  soldiery  for  the  persecution,  and  that  fact  roused  anew  the  general 
English  hostility  to  a  standing  army,  the  more  so  when  Englishmen  who 
turned  their  eyes  northwards  saw  what  the  king's  troops  were  doing  in  the 
south-west  of  Scotland.  Nevertheless,  James  met  his  parliament  with  a 
demand  for  the  increase  of  the  standing  army,  the  need  of  which  he  thought 
had  been  proved  by  the  Monmouth  rebellion,  and  with  the  announcement 
that  he  had  nominated  as  ofiicers  men  in  whom  he  had  personal  confidence, 
but  who  also  happened  to  be  barred  from  all  such  appointments  by  the  Test 
Act.  The  change  in  the  sentiment  of  parliament  was  at  once  apparent, 
though  it  was  by  a  majority  of  only  one  that  the  House  of  Commons  insisted 
on  giving  the  question  of  the  Roman  Catholic  officers  precedence  over  that  of 
supply.  The  victory  over  the  Opposition  brought  waverers  over  to  their  side. 
In  the  result  a  resolution  was  presented,  in  which  the  House  engaged  to 
release  the  officers  from  the  penaltici  to  which  they  had  rendered  themselves 
liable  by  taking  office  in  defiance  of  the  Test  Act,  but  which  in  effect  invited 
the  king  to  cancel  their  appointment.    The  House  of  Lords  followed  suit.    The 


NEMESIS  495 

angry  king  denounced  the  conduct  of  both  Houses  and  prorogued  the 
parliament,  which  was  not  again  assembled,  though  it  was  not  actually 
dissolved  till  the  midsummer  of  1687. 


— PRIUS    DEMENTAT 

Never  did  monarch  quite  so  deliberately  seek  his  own  ruin  as  James  II. 
The  strength  of  the  monarchy  in  England  rested  upon  the  support  of  the 
Church,  and  the  loyalty  of  the  gentry  in  intimate  alliance  with  the  Church. 
The  clergy  and  the  squires  might,  not  without  reluctance  but  without  violent 
opposition,  have  been  induced  to  accept  a  gradual  relaxation  of  the  penalties 
attaching  to  Romanism  constitutionally  conceded  by  themselves  ;  but  James 
fell  back  on  the  old  plan  of  forcing  his  will  on  the  country  by  the  exercise 
of  the  royal  prerogative,  and  of  doing  so  in  direct  defiance  of  Anglican  senti- 
ment. Moreover,  by  recklessly  reviving  a  parliamentary  opposition  in  a 
House  of  Commons  which  had  met  filled  with  a  loyalty  which  was  prepared 
to  run  quite  considerable  risks,  James  had  lost  his  international  independence. 
At  the  moment  of  his  accession  he  could  have  carried  England  into  the 
general  combination  of  European  Powers,  Protestant  and  Catholic,  which 
was  shaping  for  resistance  to  the  aggressive  policy  of  the  French  king.  After 
his  quarrel  with  parliament,  which  he  prorogued  without  obtaining  the 
supplies  for  which  he  had  asked,  James  was  forced  to  appeal  to  Louis  for 
the  fianancial  aid  which  was  not  forthcoming  from  elsewhere ;  practically 
he  had  to  come  to  Louis  as  a  suppliant  not  as  a  bargainer,  and  even  Charles's 
ingenuity  had  found  it  hard  work  to  reconcile  England  to  his  own  covert  union 
with  his  cousin  of  France. 

James  then  set  himself  to  widen  the  breach  with  the  Anglican  Church  and 
those  who,  having  at  the  outset  been  prepared  to  support  him  loyally,  had 
swelled  the  ranks  of  the  Opposition  at  the  end  of  1685.  Every  one  who  had 
helped  in  his  defeat  was  dismissed  from  office,  and  a  direct  attack  was  made 
on  Compton,  the  Bishop  of  London.  James  created  a  new  Court  of  Ecclesi- 
astical Commission  on  the  lines  of  the  old  Court  of  High  Commission  ;  and 
on  it  there  were  only  two  bishops,  with  five  laymen,  the  President  being 
Jeffreys.  Compton  was  immediately  suspended  for  refusing  to  suppress  a 
preacher  who  had  taken  up  his  parable  against  popery. 

The  king's  next  step  was  to  procure  a  judicial  decision  in  favour  of  the 
dispensing  power.  Before  a  select  couit  a  test  case  was  collusively  brought 
against  the  Roman  Catholic  Colonel  Hales  for  holding  his  commission  with- 
out obeying  the  requirements  of  the  Test  Act.  Hales  pleaded  dispensation 
from  the  Crown,  and  the  court,  with  one  dissentient,  gave  judgment  in  his 
favour.  A  batch  of  Romanist  peers  was  admitted  to  the  Privy  Council,  a 
Romanist  was  made  Dean  of  Christchurch  at  Oxford,  and  it  was  commonly 
believed  that  the  Archbishopric  of  York  was  being  held  open  while  the  king 


496  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

tried  to  obtain  leave  of  the  Pope  to  appoint  to  it  the  Jesuit  Petre.  A  "No 
Popery"  riot  in  London  gave  James  an  excuse  for  concentrating  a  force  of 
sixteen  thousand  men  on  Hounslow  Heath.  While  Sunderland  was  only 
waiting  to  avow  himself  a  Roman  Catholic,  Rochester,  at  the  beginning  of 
1687,  resigned  the  Treasurership  when  he  found  that  dismissal  was  the  only 
alternative  to  changing  his  religion.  At  the  same  time  Rochester's  brother, 
Clarendon,  was  recalled  from  Ireland,  where  he  held  the  deputyship,  which 
was  now  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Romanist  Richard  Talbot,  Earl  of 
Tyrconnell. 

By  this  time  it  was  sufficiently  manifest  that  James  was  aiming  at  estab- 
lishing a  complete  Romanist  ascendency  by  the  use  of  the  royal  prerogative. 
It  was  also  clear  that  he  had  completely  broken  with  Anglican  Toryism.  But 
the  English  Roman  Catholics  provided  a  foundation  far  too  narrow  for  the 
throne  to  rest  upon  with  safety.  James  and  his  Jesuit  advisers — for  it  must 
be  remembered  that  he,  like  Louis,  had  allied  himself  not  with  the  Pope 
but  with  the  Jesuits — resolved  to  seek  the  alliance  of  the  Protestant  dissenters. 
The  issue  of  this  resolve  was  a  Declaration  of  Indulgence,  put  forth  by  the 
royal  authority  alone,  which  granted  liberty  of  public  worship  to  all  Non- 
conformists, Protestant  or  Romanist,  and  suspended  the  application  of  all 
religious  tests  to  holders  of  public  offices.  Anglicanism  was  scarcely  re- 
assured by  the  accompanying  declaration  that  the  established  church  was  to 
be  maintained  and  the  lay  holders  of  what  had  once  been  ecclesiastical 
property  were  not  to  be  disturbed. 

Toleration  then  had  been  granted  at  a  stroke,  and  for  the  moment  James 
felt  that  he  had  won,  since  grateful  addresses  poured  in  from  the  Non- 
conformist bodies.  But  the  surprised  delight  of  the  dissenters  soon  gave 
place  to  alarm.  It  was  true  that  they  at  once  began  to  find  themselves  dis- 
placing in  the  corporations  the  Tories  who  had  for  so  long  held  the  monopoly, 
but  it  very  soon  became  apparent  that  the  higher  offices  of  State  were  not  to 
be  open  to  all,  but  were  to  be  made  a  preserve  for  Roman  Catholics,  and  that 
all  the  more  important  administrative  offices  were  to  be  filled  after  the  same 
fashion.  Oxford  itself,  the  headquarters  of  Anglicanism,  was  attacked  ;  and 
Magdalen  College  was  cleared  of  its  Anglican  Fellows,  whose  places  were 
taken  by  Roman  Catholics. 

These  proceedings  had  the  double  effect  of  goading  the  Anglicans  out  of 
their  attitude  of  non-resistance  and  passive  obedience,  and  of  alarming  the 
Nonconformists.  Toleration  in  itself  was  good ;  toleration  by  royal  decree 
was  questionable;  toleration  as  exercised  by  the  Crown  might  very  soon  be 
translated  into  a  Romanist  tyranny.  The  first  Nonconformist  enthusiasm 
was  rapidly  changing  to  a  suspicious  antagonism.  James  made  another  bid 
for  the  support  of  the  dissenters  by  issuing  a  second  Declaration  of  In- 
dulgence, followed  by  an  order  that  the  clergy  should  read  it  from  their 
pulpits  on  two  appointed  Sundays. 

By  that  order  passive  obedience  was  strained  to  the  utmost.  A  meeting 
of  London  clergy  resolved  on  the  exceedingly  moderate  course  of  presenting 


NEMESIS  497 

a  respectful  petition  to  the  king  praying  that  the  order  might  be  withdrawn, 
and  challenging  the  legahty  of  the  suspension  of  statutes  by  royal  prerogative. 
The  petition  was  presented  in  the  name  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
Sancroft,  and  six  more  bishops  ;  the  saintly  Ken,  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells, 
Trelawney  of  Bristol,  White  of  Peterborough,  Lloyd  of  St.  Asaph,  Lake  of 
Chichester,  and  Turner  of  Ely.  This  was  two  days  before  the  Declaration 
was  to  be  read.  Next  day  the  petition  was  printed  and  circulated.  On  the 
Sunday  the  churches  were  filled  with  anxious  congregations,  but  only  in 
four  places  was  the  Declaration  read  ;  to  the  joy  of  dissenters  as  well  as  of 
Anglicans.  The  king  plunged  forward  along  the  fatal  path  which  he  had 
chosen.  He  resolved  to  prosecute  the 
bishops  for  publishing  a  "seditious  libel." 
Three  weeks  after  the  presentation  of  the 
petition  the  seven  bishops  were  lodged  in 
the  Tower  to  await  trial,  their  passage 
thither  being  accompanied  by  the  svm- 
pathising  applause  of  the  populace. 

Public  excitement  was  already  at  fever 
heat ;  two  days  later  it  was  roused  to  a  still 
higher  pitch  by  the  announcement  that  at 
last  a  son  had  been  born  to  James.  With 
that  strange  infatuation  which  clung  to  every 
act  of  the  king,  the  strict  ceremonial  attend- 
ing the  birth  of  a  royal  infant  was  ne- 
glected. Nine-tenths  of  the  public  believed, 
as  might  have  been  expected  in  the  circum- 
stances, that  the  story  was  a  fiction  ;  that  the  babe  was  supposititious,  not 
the  offspring  of  the  queen  at  all.  There  were  several  details  which  gave 
colour  to  the  rumour.  The  birth  provided  an  heir-apparent  to  the  throne 
who  would  certainly  be  brought  up  as  a  Roman  Catholic.  The  child  would 
exclude  Mary  of  Orange  and  her  husband,  unless,  as  the  Princess  Anne 
remarked,  it  "became  an  angel  in  heaven."  Hitherto  Protestants  had 
reckoned  with  confidence  that,  whatever  James  himself  might  do,  it  was 
at  least  certain  that  his  successor  would  be  a  Protestant.  The  certainty 
vanished  with  the  birth  of  the  boy.  Excited  Romanists,  including  the  king, 
discovered  that  a  miracle  had  been  wrought ;  excited  Protestants  discovered 
not  a  miracle  but  a  monstrous  fraud. 

Again  three  weeks  passed  and  the  day  of  the  trial  of  the  bishops  arrived. 
At  first  it  was  hoped  that  the  charge  would  collapse  upon  technical  points, 
but  the  Crown  surmounted  the  technical  difficulties.  The  case  was  fought 
out  on  its  merits.  Of  the  four  judges,  two  summed  up  in  favour  of  the 
Crown,  two  in  favour  of  the  bishops.  The  jury  at  first  declared  themselves 
unable  to  agree.  They  were  shut  up  for  the  night  to  argue  it  out.  In 
the  morning  it  was  announced,  to  the  frenzied  joy  of  the  populace,  that 
t!ie    seven    bishops    were    acquitted.       Ominously    enough    for    the    king, 

2    I 


The  Seven  Bishops. 
[From  a  medal  contemporary  with  the  trial.] 


498       THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

even    "  Kirke's   Lambs"    on    Hounslow    Heath    shouted    their    Protestant 
satisfaction. 

James  had  urged  on  the  prosecution,  fanatically  credulous  that  the  birth 
of  his  son  had  been  a  signal  mark  of  Heaven's  favour  for  the  course  which 
he  was  pursuing.  On  the  night  after  the  seven  bishops  were  acquitted, 
Admiral  Herbert,  disguised  as  a  common  seaman,  was  carrying  to  The  Hague 
a  letter  inviting  the  intervention  of  William  of  Orange  ;  it  bore  the  signatures 
of  the  Tories  Danby  and  Lumley,  of  the  Whig  Earls  of  Devonshire  and 
Shrewsbury,  of  Henry  Sidney  and  Edward  Russell,  brothers  of  the  two  chief 
victims  of  the  Rye  House  Plot,  and  of  Compton,  the  Bishop  of  London. 

Ill 
FULFILMENT 

William  of  Orange  was  primarily  a  Dutch  patriot  whose  ruling  passion 
was  the  desire  to  curb  the  aggression  of  Louis  XIV.  If  he  wanted  the  crown 
of  England,  which,  until  the  birth  of  King  James's  son,  had  seemed  likely  to 
descend  to  his  own  wife  in  the  natural  course  of  events,  it  was  not  from 
motives  of  personal  ambition,  but  because  it  would  secure  England  as  the 
ally  of  Holland  against  France.  As  matters  stood,  while  James  reigned  in 
England  the  king,  if  left  to  his  own  devices,  was  very  unlikely  to  join  an 
anti-French  coalition,  although  English  sentiment  was  notoriously  hostile  to 
France.  William  had  no  idea  of  coming  forward  as  the  champion  of  an 
English  party  to  eject  James  from  his  throne  and  seat  himself  on  it  as  an 
obvious  usurper.  The  defence  of  Holland  against  Louis  was  much  more  to 
him  than  the  acquisition  of  an  exceedingly  unstable  throne  which  would  pre- 
vent him  from  throwing  all  his  energies  into  European  politics.  But  it  would 
be  a  very  different  thing  if  he  reinforced  English  public  opinion  so  as  to 
enable  it  to  compel  James  to  act  as  it  directed.  To  do  so,  however,  it  was 
imperative  for  him  to  be  quite  certain  that  his  intervention  would  be  accept- 
able to  public  opinion,  and  that  the  policy  he  advocated  would  be  endorsed 
by  it.  The  birth  of  the  prince  gave  him  a  fresh  incentive.  There  was  no 
longer  any  reason  to  expect  that  sooner  or  later  his  wife  would  succeed  to 
the  throne  without  any  intervention  on  his  part.  Already  in  spring  he  had 
gone  so  far  as  to  promise  that  he  would  intervene  in  arms  if  a  request  that 
he  should  do  so  came  from  sufficiently  influential  quarters.  That  request 
had  now  come,  backed  by  the  urgent  advice  that  he  should  cancel  his  first 
formal  recognition  of  the  birth  of  an  heir  to  the  throne,  and  should  assert  his 
wife's  title  to  the  succession,  repudiating  the  legitimacy  of  the  lately  born 
infant. 

Louis  XIV.,  unfortunately  for  himself,  played  into  the  hands  of  his  adver- 
sary. In  order  that  William  might  take  active  steps  in  England  it  was 
in  the  first  place  necessary  for  him  to  have  an  effective  force  of  Dutch  troops 
at  his  disposal  to  take  part  in  the  enterprise,  since  it  would  by  no  means 


NEMESIS  499 

have  satisfied  him  to  depend  upon  insurrectionary  levies  in  face  of  the  king's 
troops.  In  the  second  place  William  could  not  move  if  Holland  itself  were 
being  immediately  threatened  by  Louis  ;  in  such  circumstances  Dutch  troops, 
the  Dutch  navy,  and  the  Dutch  Stadtholder  could  not  absent  themselves.  In 
the  third  place  it  was  desirable  to  avoid  giving  the  enterprise  the  appearance 
of  an  anti-Catholic  crusade  lest  William's  Catholic  allies  on  the  continent 
should  be  offended. 

Now  Louis,  by  the  great  persecution  of  his  own  Protestant  subjects,  had 
secured  the  predominance  of  the  anti-French  party  in  Protestant  Holland  ; 
suspicions  of  an  alliance  between  James  and  Louis  fostered  there  the  senti- 
ment which  favoured  William's  plan.  The  Stadtholder  found  no  great  difB- 
culty  in  procuring  means  for  substantial  armament,  nominally  for  the  defence 
of  Holland.  Again,  if  Louis  had  realised  what  would  be  the  outcome  of 
W^illiam's  intervention  in  England,  he  might  have  secured  himself  against 
future  woes  by  merely  keeping  the  Dutch  in  fear  of  invasion.  But  he  grasped 
at  the  prospect  of  an  immediate  gain  instead  of  warding  off  the  future 
danger.  The  office  of  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  whose  holder  was  one  of  the 
seven  electoral  princes  of  the  Empire,  was  vacant.  Louis's  candidate  for  the 
electorship  was  defeated  by  the  Imperial  and  Papal  candidate,  through  the 
action  of  the  Pope,  and  Louis  resolved  to  enforce  his  claim  at  the  sword's 
point.  French  troops  entered  the  Palatinate.  Louis,  if  the  phrase  may  be 
permitted,  killed  two  of  William's  birds  for  him  with  one  stone.  He  had  in 
effect  made  an  aggressive  attack  at  once  on  the  two  heads,  ecclesiastical  and 
secular,  of  Roman  Catholic  Christendom,  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor.  There 
was  no  fear  that  those  powers  would  now  quarrel  with  William  for  an  enter- 
prise to  restrain  James  from  associating  himself  with  Louis.  And  further,  by 
invading  the  Palatinate,  Louis  had  committed  himself  to  a  campaign  which 
precluded  him  from  making  any  immediate  attack  upon  Holland,  and  had 
thereby  set  William  and  the  Dutch  troops  and  fleet  free  for  independent  action. 

No  one  except  Louis  and  James  had  any  ostensible  ground  for  opposing 
WiUiam's  policy.  More  than  twelve  months  ago,  in  response  to  James's 
attempt  to  procure  his  endorsement  of  the  policy  of  "toleration,"  he  had 
very  expressly  made  known  his  own  view — that  freedom  of  worship  was 
desirable,  but  that  the  religious  tests,  as  conditions  of  holding  public  office, 
ought  not  to  be  withdrawn.  That  satisfied  nine-tenths  of  the  people  of 
England,  and  satisfied  also  the  Catholic  Powers. 

Meanwhile,  for  nearly  three  months  after  the  acquittal  of  the  bishops 
James  continued  to  blunder  along  the  old  line,  dismissed  the  two  judges 
who  had  been  in  favour  of  the  bishops,  threatened  the  clergy  who  had 
abstained  from  reading  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence,  and  shut  his  eyes  to 
William's  preparations.  Then  he  took  sudden  alarm.  Troops  were  hurried 
over  from  Ireland  and  summoned  from  Scotland.  Despairing  of  vigorous 
support  from  the  dissenters,  the  king  executed  a  volte  face,  and  made  a 
series  of  concessions  to  the  Anglicans.  Officials  who  had  been  dismissed 
for  adhering  to  the  Test  Act  were  reinstated.      And  yet  although  he  had 


500 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 


announced  his  intention  of  summoning  a  parliament — in  which  the  Commons, 
for  reasons  already  explained,  would  have  been  in  efifect  a  packed  assembly, 
and  the  Lords  could  have  been  controlled  by  the  creation  of  peers  and  the 
readmission  of  Roman  Catholics — he  feared  the  risks  ;  parliament  was  not 
summoned.  Louis  had  tried  to  save  him  by  warning  the  United  Provinces 
that  any  movement  on  their  part  against  James  would  be  treated  as  an  act  of 
hostility  to  himself.  To  conciliate  the  Dutch  James  made  overtures  to  them, 
accompanied  by  declarations  that  there  was  no  ti'eaty  between  himself  and 
Louis.  The  Dutch  took  the  overtures  for  a  trap,  and  declined  to  be  en- 
snared ;  but  Louis  was  extremely  irritated,  and  at  once  cancelled  the  pre- 


^,^,^MM-kM 


The  Embarkation  of  William  of  Orange  for  England,  1688. 
[After  a  contemporary  print.  ] 

parations  which  he  had  just  resolved  upon  for  direct  measures  against 
Holland. 

At  the  end  of  October  all  that  William  needed  was  a  favourable  wind  ; 
until  then  westerly  gales  had  defeated  all  attempts  to  set  sail.  But  on 
November  ist  a  "Protestant  wind"  from  the  east  carried  William's  ships 
to  sea,  w^hile  it  held  James's  fleet  wind-locked  in  the  estuary  of  the  Thames. 
William  passed  down  channel  unmolested  and  landed  at  Tor  Bay  on 
November  5th. 

William's  arrival  aroused  no  enthusiasm.  He  was  not  naturally  endowed 
with  the  superficial  qualities  which  make  for  an  easy  if  insecure  popularity, 
nor  did  he  ever  condescend  to  cultivate  them.  He  had  none  of  the  winning 
graces  on  which  Shaftesbury  had  relied  when  he  chose  Monmouth  to  be 
the  rival  of  James.  Moreover  he  was  a  foreigner,  and  Englishmen  are 
seldom  ready  to  take  a  foreigner  on  trust.  Also  the  nation  was  not  in  love 
with  revolutions,  and  was  doubting  whether  a  revolution  would   be  really 


NEMESIS  501 

necessary  to  secure  its  present  aims.  The  king  had  conceded  so  much 
during  the  last  weeks  that  there  was  reasonable  hope  of  extracting  the  rest 
of  the  national  demands  without  proceeding  to  the  last  extremities.  Had  a 
Tudor  been  upon  the  throne  of  England  William  would  not  have  been  long 
in  the  country  unless  as  a  prisoner. 

But  James,  as  usual,  carefully  threw  away  all  his  chances.  The  obviously 
politic  course  he  could  hardly  have  been  expected  to  follow.  That  course 
would  have  been  the  immediate  summoning  of  a  parliament  and  the  dismissal 
of  Romanist  officials.  James,  in  plain  terms,  could  have  secured  his  throne  if 
he  could  have  brought  himself  frankly  to  accept  the  principle  which  William 
had  publicly  recommended — of  toleration  for  all  forms  of  worship  accom- 
panied by  religious  tests  for  public  office.  His  son-in-law  would  have  been 
left  with  no  justification  for  remaining  in  the  country,  except  the  demand 
that  James  should  deny  the  legitimacy  of  the  infant  prince,  a  demand  which 
it  would  have  been  quite  impossible  to  make  good. 

With  this  James  would  not  be  content ;  but  he  still  had  an  alternative. 
If  he  had  appealed  to  the  nation  as  the  national  king,  declining  to  accept  the 
dictation  of  English  affairs  by  a  foreign  prince  backed  by  a  foreign  army,  the 
probabilities  were  that  his  appeal  would  have  been  successful.  That  chance 
he  spoilt  by  his  conspicuous  mistrust  of  Englishmen.  Even  his  own 
English  troops  were  already  disgusted  by  the  arrival  of  the  Irish  regiments  ; 
instead  of  assuming  that  all  true  patriots  must  be  on  his  side,  and  would  join 
him  in  teaching  the  foreign  invader  a  severe  lesson,  he  made  it  obvious  that 
he  was  afraid  to  fight  William.  By  behaving  as  if  his  cause  was  already  lost, 
he  ruined  a  more  than  respectable  chance  of  victory.  A  rapid  march  to  the 
west  would  have  created  a  conviction  of  confidence  which  would  have 
secured  the  waverers  on  his  own  side  ;  vacillation  and  the  display  of  his 
desire  to  remove  the  infant  prince  out  of  the  country  to  safe  quarters  in 
France  had  the  precisely  contrary  effect.  With  every  day's  delay  the 
certainty  increased  that  the  malcontents  would  declare  for  William,  and 
when  once  they  began  to  do  so  openly  a  steady  stream  of  desertions  was 
assured.  And  meanwhile  William  was  carefully  abstaining  from  any  action 
which  might  arouse  hostility,  and  was  maintaining  the  theory  that  he  was 
in  England  not  to  claim  the  crown,  but  to  secure  a  free  parliament  and  a 
constitutional  government. 

Ten  days  after  William's  landing  men  began  to  declare  themselves, 
many  of  the  gentry  of  the  west  joining  William's  standard.  Danby  in 
Yorkshire  and  the  Earl  of  Devonshire  in  the  Midlands  began  to  raise  troops 
in  those  regions.  James  had  given  the  command  of  his  troops  to  the 
incompetent  Lord  Feversham,  who  w-as  a  Frenchman  born.  When  it  was 
decided  that  the  forces,  which  were  assembled  at  Salisbury,  should  fall 
back  to  cover  London  instead  of  taking  the  offensive,  John  Churchill  and 
the  Duke  of  Grafton  went  over  to  William  ;  they  were  followed  immediately 
by  George  of  Denmark,  the  husband  of  the  Princess  Anne,  and  then  by 
Anne  herself. 


502  THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

Before  the  end  of  the  month  James  had  made  up  his  mind  that  the 
game  was  lost  and  that  flight  was  the  only  course  left  for  him,  although  in 
the  meantime  he  had  agreed  to  a  course  which  might  have  saved  his  throne. 
The  Tories  who  had  remained  loyal  to  him,  reinforced  by  Halifax,  extracted 
from  him  the  promise  to  summon  a  parliament  in  January,  dismiss  the 
popish  officers,  break  off  alliance  with  France,  issue  a  general  amnesty,  and 
send  three  of  their  own  number — Halifax,  Nottingham,  and  Godolphin — as 
commissioners  to  treat  with  William.  But  even  when  the  commissioners 
were  treating  he  succeeded  in  despatching  his  wife  and  child  out  of  the 
country  ;  and  on  the  same  night  he  himself  took  flight,  dropping  the  great 
seal  into  the  Thames  by  way  of  embarrassing  any  possible  administration, 
after  having,  with  the  same  object,  destroyed  the  writs  for  the  assembling  of 
parliament. 

The  king's  flight  cleared  the  way,  or  seemed  to  do  so,  for  William  to  estab- 
lish a  provisional  government.  Some  of  the  most  unpopular  of  James's 
adherents  attempted  to  follow  his  example  ;  Judge  Jeffreys,  amongst  others, 
was  caught  and  hardly  saved  from  the  fury  of  the  mob,  to  die  soon  after- 
wards in  the  Tower.  And  yet  James  was  given  another  chance.  By  sheer 
accident  the  fugitive  was  caught  by  some  fishermen  and  detained  at  Sheer- 
ness.  The  Council  of  Peers,  who  had  temporarily  assumed  the  functions 
of  a  government,  brought  him  back  to  London,  where,  in  the  curiously 
oscillating  state  of  public  opinion,  his  return  was  received  with  bonfires,  bell- 
ringing,  and  general  acclamation. 

Nevertheless  the  flight  itself  had  really  sealed  James's  fate.  It  had  seemed 
for  the  moment  to  give  William  what  he  could  not  venture  to  claim  ;  for  it 
was  one  thing  to  eject  James  by  force,  and  quite  another  to  act  on  the 
assumption  that  his  voluntary  flight  was  equivalent  to  an  abdication.  It  had 
carried  over  Halifax  and  others  of  James's  ablest  supporters  to  William's 
camp,  and  it  was  now  William's  object  to  frighten  James  into  a  repetition 
of  the  performance,  and  to  take  care  that  this  time  his  escape  should  be  un- 
hindered. Some  display  of  coercion  was  all  that  was  needed  to  give  effect 
to  William's  design.  On  December  22  James  fled  for  the  second  time,  to  be 
hospitably  received  by  the  king  of  France,  who  established  him  in  the  palace 
of  St.  Germain. 

The  disappearance  of  the  king  left  no  legal  government  in  England.  There 
was  no  parliament,  and  no  existing  council  which  could  claim  authority. 
William  was  the  only  person  who  could  deal  with  the  emergency,  and  he  did 
so  characteristically.  He  summoned  an  assembly  consisting  of  all  those  who 
had  sat  in  any  of  the  parliaments  of  Charles  II.;  not  members  of  James's  parlia- 
ment, because  elections  since  the  suspension  of  the  charters  were  held  not  to 
have  been  free.  To  these  were  added  fifty  members  of  the  corporation  of 
London.  This  assembly  promptly  resolved  that  a  free  Convention  should  be 
summoned,  a  parliament  in  all  but  name,  like  the  Convention  which  recalled 
Charles  II.  Till  this  body  should  be  assembled  William  was  requested  to 
exercise    the    executive    functions   of   government,    and  to  this    request  he 


NEMESIS 


503 


acceded.     The  boroughs  elected  their  representatives  under  the  old  charters 
which  had  been  cancelled  in  the  last  years  of  Charles  II. 

The  Convention's  first  step  was  to  pass  two  resolutions — that  James  by 
his  flight  had  abdicated  the  throne,  which  was  therefore  vacant ;  and  that  it 
was  against  public  policy  that  it  should  be  occupied  by  a  prince  of  the  popish 
religion.  By  the  Lords,  however,  the  first  resolution  was  so  far  changed  that 
it  did  not  assert  the  throne  to  be  vacant.  The  Commons,  among  whom  there 
was  a  great  Whig  preponderance,  in  effect  declared  that  a  monarch  was  to 
be  elected  ;  the  Lords  implied  that  some  one  or  other  was  already  dejure 
monarch.  The  settlement  was  not  a  very  simple  matter.  Many  Tories  clung 
to  the  old  plan  of  a  regency.  Danby  and  others,  supported  by  some  of 
the  Whigs,  desired 
to  claim  the  crown 
for  Mary  herself. 
According  to  the 
strict  law  of  heredi- 
tary succession,  if 
the  infant  prince 
were  excluded,  Mary 
stood  first,  Anne  and 
her  children  next, 
and  after  them 
William.  These 
three  came  to  the 
rescue.  Mary  de- 
clined to  accept  the  crown  unless  it  was  shared  by  her  husband.  Anne 
recognised  that  it  would  be  to  the  public  advantage  that  William  should 
reign,  and  that  her  own  succession  should  be  deferred  till  after  his  death 
as  well  as  Mary's.  William  recognised  that  this  was  a  personal  arrange- 
ment, and  that  in  the  event  of  his  having  children  by  another  wife  than 
Mary,  Anne  and  her  offspring  should  have  precedence  of  those  children. 
It  merely  remained  for  William  to  remark  that  he  did  not  claim  the  throne 
for  himself,  but  that  he  had  no  intention  of  remaining  in  England  in  any 
capacity  except  that  of  king.  If  the  crown  were  offered  him  he  would 
accept  it ;  if  it  were  not  he  would  return  to  Holland.  Both  Houses  were 
now  ready  to  accept  the  solution  which  placed  William  and  Mary  on  the 
throne  as  joint  sovereigns,  the  sovereignty  being  continued  to  the  survivor. 
If  they  had  children,  those  children  would  succeed  their  parents  in  due 
course ;  if  not,  Anne  and  her  children  would  succeed.  W^illiam  being 
the  next  heir,  his  children  by  any  subsequent  marriage  would  stand  next  in 
the  succession,  and  after  them  the  Protestant  who  stood  nearest  to  the 
throne,  whoever  that  might  be. 

It  was  further  resolved  that,  before  the  throne  should  be  actually  filled, 
securities  should  be  obtained  for  the  national  laws,  liberties,  and  religion. 
But  it  was  clearly  impossible  to  wait  for  the  preparation  of  a  detailed  written 


A  medal  commemorating  tlie  flight  of  James  II. :  the  breaking  of  the 
oak  and  the  flourishing  of  the  orange  tree. 


504      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

constitution  ;  and  the  Houses  satisfied  themselves  by  drawing  up  the  Declara- 
tion of  Right.  The  practices  of  the  last  two  reigns  which  were  regarded  as 
subversive  of  the  constitution  were  precisely  set  forth.  Thus  once  more  the 
exaction  of  money  without  a  direct  parliamentary  grant  was  expressly  pro- 
hibited ;  the  suspending  and  dispensing  powers — the  right,  that  is,  of  sus- 
pending the  general  operation  of  a  statute,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Declaration 
of  Indulgence,  or  of  granting  dispensations  from  its  operation  in  particular 
cases,  as  in  the  appointment  of  Romanist  officials — was  pronounced  con- 
trary to  the  law  ;  so  was  the  maintenance  of  a  standing  army  without 
consent  of  parliament ;  so  was  the  establishment  of  arbitrary  courts,  such  as 
that  of  Ecclesiastical  Commission.  Popular  rights  were  further  definitely 
asserted  ;  the  right  of  presenting  petitions  to  the  king,  violated  by  the  treat- 
ment of  the  seven  bishops ;  the  right  of  free  election  and  free  debate  in 
parliament  ;  and  the  right  to  the  frequent  assembly  of  parliament.  The 
crown  was  offered  to  William  and  Mary  conditionally  on  their  acceptance  of 
this  latest  charter  of  national  hberties.  Their  acceptance  was  accompanied 
by  the  Act  of  Settlement  fixing  the  succession  on  the  lines  laid  down  ;  and 
William  and  Mary  were  proclaimed  king  and  queen  of  England  and  Ireland 
on  February  13,  1689.  Thus  was  the  Glorious  Revolution  of  Whig  tradi- 
tion carried  to  completion  ;  and  since  the  official  New  Year  was  still  dated 
not  from  the  January  i  but  from  March  25,  t68S  remained  the  titular  date 
year  of  the  new  order. 


CHAPTER    XX 

THE    REVOLUTION 
I 

THE    REVOLUTION    SETTLEMENT 

King  William  HI.  had  neither  sought  nor  accepted  the  crown  of  England 
as  a  nommee  of  a  poHtical  party.  He  was  king  because  if  James  and  his 
son  were  excluded  from  the  throne 
Mary  and  her  husband  were  in  effect 
the  only  possible  occupants.  Being 
king,  he  was  resolved  to  rule  con- 
scientiously and  impartially,  but  the 
government  of  the  new  kingdoms  was 
in  his  eyes  secondary  to  his  aims  as 
the  leader  of  European  resistance  to 
French  aggression.  So  long  as  he 
could  best  serve  those  aims  by  retaining 
the  English  crown,  that  crown  was  of 
use  to  him,  but  if  he  found  himself 
hampered  in  his  foreign  policy  by  the 
action  of  English  parties,  England 
would  be  merely  an  incubus.  His 
strength  lay  in  the  fact  that  England 
could  not  afford  to  let  him  go. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  was  accepted 
without  enthusiasm  by  any  party. 
Of  the  Tories  many  were  wedded  to 
the  doctrine  of  passive  obedience,  and 

only  acquiesced  in  the  new  order  because  of  their  fears  of  a  Romanist 
domination,  with  doubt  in  their  hearts  if  not  on  their  lips  whether  their 
allegiance  to  James  could  be  discarded  on  any  pretext  whatever.  Half  the 
Whigs,  on  the  other  hand,  wanted  in  effect  to  have  a  republic  with  a  royal 
figurehead,  not  a  monarch  with  a  will  of  his  own.  One  party,  in  short,  was 
inclined,  if  provoked,  to  challenge  his  title,  and  the  other  to  curtail  his  prero- 
gative, but  neither  was  prepared  to  go  so  far  as  to  drive  him  to  resign  his 
crown.  And  William  did  not  himself  wish  to  resign  his  crown  so  long  as 
the  possession  of  it  served  the  purposes  of  his  continental  policy. 

Now,  unlike   William  himself,   the   English   people   were   more  keenly 

505 


William  III, 


5o6  THE-  SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

interested  in  their  domestic  concerns  than  in  the  problem  of  bridhng  the 
ambitions  of  Louis  XIV.  They  were  unfriendly  to  Louis  mainly  perhaps 
on  account  of  his  persecution  of  the  Protestants.  They  were  quite  willing 
to  see  him  bridled,  and  they  were  very  unwilling  indeed  to  support  him 
actively  ;  but  foreign  affairs  were  in  their  eyes  secondary  to  domestic  con- 
cerns. William  chafed,  while  the  Convention,  transformed  into  a  parlia- 
ment by  his  establishment  on  the  throne,  insisted  on  giving  precedence  to 

the  affairs  which  in  its  eyes  were  of 
primary  interest. 

One  of  the  first  Acts  of  the 
parliament  incidentally  solved  a  prob- 
lem which  had  been  left  unsettled 
by  the  Declaration  of  Right.  A 
regiment  on  the  point  of  embarkation 
for  Holland  mutinied  and  declared 
for  King  James.  A  Mutiny  Act  was 
consequently  passed  W'hich,  while  it 
provided  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
army  for  six  months,  afterwards  ex- 
tended to  twelve,  subjected  deserters 
to  punishment  by  martial  law.  In 
effect  it  followed  that  at  theconclusion 
Ive  months  the  standing 
lid  cease  to  exist  unless  the 
renewed.  By  making  twelve 
months  the  period  of  the  Act,  the 
parliament  also  made  it  necessary 
that  the  Houses  should  be  summoned 
annually  ;  that  is,  that  twelve  months 
should  not  pass  without  their  being 
assembled.  The  duration  of  parlia- 
ment was  not  touched,  nor  was  there  any  formal  Act  requiring  that  parliament 
should  meet ;  but  its  annual  assembly  was  from  thenceforth  an  administra- 
tive necessity.  Like  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  this  measure,  of  great  consti- 
tutional importance,  was  unpremeditated,  and  became  law  almost  by 
accident. 

The  first  obviously  necessary  step  was  the  imposition  of  an  oath  of 
allegiance  to  the  new  Government,  the  penalty  for  its  refusal  being  dis- 
ability to  hold  office.  Apart  from  the  clergy  there  were  not  many  refusals  ; 
even  those  who  held  that  James  was  still  king  de  jure  accepted  William's 
de  facto  sovereignty.  Among  the  clergy,  however,  there  was  a  less  ready 
acquiescence.  Many  of  them  were  thoroughly  committed  to  the  doctrine 
of  non-resistance,  and  felt  unable  to  transfer  their  allegiance.  Five  of 
"  the  seven  bishops "  demonstrated  their  loyalty  to  principle  by  refusing 
the  oath,  and  their  example  was  followed  by  some  hundreds  of  the  clergy. 


Queen  Mary  II. 


THE    REVOLUTION  507 

who,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  resigned  their  preferments.  No  further 
penalty  however  was  exacted,  and  the  '*  Non-Jurors,"  as  they  were  called, 
for  the  most  part  continued  to  find  congregations  or  patrons  who  approved 
of  their  principles  and  provided  them  with  a  livelihood. 

The  Declaration  of  Right  left  unsettled  sundry  constitutional  questions 
which  still  required  to  be  dealt  with  by  statute  ;  but  before  these  came  up 
for  consideration  it  was  necessary  to  arrange  religious  affairs.  William 
himself  was  a  Calvinist,  while  his  wife  was  an  Anglican  ;  sentiment  and 
policy  caused  both  of  them  to  favour  toleration.  But  the  events  preceding 
the  Revolution  had  hardened  popular  feeling  against  Romanists,  while  they 
had  clearly  given  to  the  Protestant  dissenters  a  very  strong  claim  for  con- 
sideration. The  latter,  in  spite  of  strong  temptation,  had  declined  the 
benefits  conceded  to  them  by  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence,  when  they 
found  that  the  price  to  be  paid  for  them  involved  absolutist  innovations 
and  Romanist  ascendency.  Churchmen,  in  consequence,  had  gone  far 
towards  committing  themselves  at  least  to  a  relaxation  of  the  laws  which 
pressed  upon  dissenters.  The  Revolution  itself  and  its  stability  were  in  so 
great  a  degree  due  to  the  attitude  of  the  Nonconformists  that  the  Revolu- 
tion Government  could  not  have  left  their  position  unaltered. 

The  first  method  of  dealing  with  the  situation  proposed  was  a  Compre- 
hension Bill,  which  was  intended  to  admit  within  the  pale  of  the  Church  a 
large  number  of  the  Nonconformists,  a  measure  on  the  lines  which  had 
been  anticipated  by  the  Presbyterians  on  the  Restoration  of  Charles  II. 
But  during  the  years  intervening  the  barrier  between  Nonconformity  and 
orthodox  Churchmanship  had  hardened.  While  the  theory  of  comprehen- 
sion was  perhaps  generally  approved,  the  practical  difficulties  were  not 
easy  to  overcome,  and  the  bill  was  dropped  before  reaching  the  final  stage. 
A  substitute  was  found  in  a  Toleration  Act,  which  virtually  conceded 
freedom  of  public  worship  and  cancelled  the  whole  effects  of  the  Con- 
venticle and  Five  Mile  Acts.  But  there  was  no  relaxation  of  the  laws  as 
applied  to  Papists,  or  to  those  whose  rejection  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  excluded  them  from  recognition  as  Christians.  Put  if  freedom  of 
public  worship  was  granted,  the  retention  of  the  Test  uiid  Corporation 
Acts  still  shut  out  Nonconformists  as  well  as  Papists  from  the  official 
service  of  the  State  or  the  municipality,  military  and  naval  as  well  as  civil, 
and  they  continued  to  be  debarred  from  the  education  of  the  universities. 
Not  till  the  nineteenth  century  were  these  disabilities  removed,  although 
their  effect  was  minimised  partly  by  technical  devices,  and  partly  in  course 
of  time  by  annual  Acts  of  Indemnity  for  breaches  of  the  law.  In  effect 
what  the  Toleration  Act  did  was  to  leave  the  position  of  Romanists 
unchanged  and  to  retain  the  disabling  Acts  against  Protestant  dissenters, 
while  relieving  them  from  the  penal  portions  of  the  Clarendon  Code. 

William,  in  accordance  with  the  principle  upon  which  he  always  desired 
to  act,  selected  his  ministers  from  both  parties,  while  his  real  confidence 
continued  to  be  given  to  his  own  compatriots.     Danby  and  Nottingham 


5o8      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

came  from  the  Tory  side,  Shrewsbury  was  a  Whig,  Hahfax  had  acted  inde- 
pendently of  party,  and  had  at  one  time  or  another  led  and  opposed  both 
sections.  Churchill's  services  procured  him  the  earldom  of  Marlborough. 
Danby,  with  a  painful  disregard  for  the  convenience  of  future  generations, 
was  made  Marquis  of  Caermarthen  ;  five  years  later  the  confusion  was 
made  worse  by  his  elevation  to  the  dukedom  of  Leeds.  Having  noted  the 
fact,  it  may  be  found  simplest  to  refer  to  him  throughout  by  the  first  and 
most  familiar  of  his  titles.  This  recognition  of  Tories  was  displeasing  to 
the  Whigs  with  their  substantial  majority  in  the  Commons,  since  they  had 
intended  to  make  the  victory  their  own,  to  appropriate  the  spoils,  and  to 
punish  vindictively  all  those  who  had  aided  and  abetted  the  Crown  in  ex- 
cluding them  from  power.  Danby  and  Halifax  were  the  special  objects  of 
their  hostility.  William,  on  the  other  hand,  was  convinced  that  he  needed 
the  support  of  the  Tories  as  a  body,  and  was  strongly  opposed  to  taking 
measures  which  would  inevitably  alienate  them.  The  Whig  proposal  to  re- 
taliate on  the  Tories,  by  disabling  every  one  concerned  in  the  upsetting  of 
the  old  corporations  from  holding  municipal  office,  brought  about  the  dis- 
solution of  the  Convention  Parliament  and  the  summoning  of  a  new  one 
in  March  1690. 

Before  the  dissolution  the  Declaration  of  Right  received  statutory  con- 
firmation as  the  Bill  of  Rights.  The  bill  was  not  precisely  identical  with 
the  Declaration,  since  it  was  more  precise  and  complete  in  the  abolition  of 
the  dispensing  as  distinct  from  the  suspending  power.  Hitherto  it  had 
been  generally  assumed  that  the  former  might  legitimately  be  exercised 
upon  occasion  ;  but  the  abuse  of  it  which  had  converted  an  exceptional 
privilege  into  a  normal  procedure  caused  it  to  be  done  away  with  altogether. 
There  was  also  much  discussion  as  to  distinguishing  the  next  Protestant 
heir  by  name.  This  was  in  fact  Sophia,  the  wife  of  the  Elector  of  Hanover 
and  sister  of  Prince  Rupert.  But  there  were  various  possibilities  that  other 
persons  with  a  prior  legitimist  title  might  become  entitled  to  precedence  by 
adopting  Protestantism  before  the  succession  became  an  immediate  ques- 
tion, and  her  nomination  was  rejected.  The  Protestant  succession  was 
secured,  however,  by  the  requirement  that  every  future  sovereign  should 
make  the  Declaration  laid  down  in  the  Test  Act,  and  that  marriage  with  a 
Papist  should  be  a  bar. 

When  the  new  parliament  met  Halifax  was  driven  to  resign  office  by 
the  violence  of  the  attacks  upon  him.  The  general  result  was  that  the 
Whigs  lost  their  majority  in  the  Commons,  while  Danby  became  the  pre- 
dominant figure  in  Council.  There  was  not,  of  course,  a  formal  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  ministry  on  party  lines,  but  practically  the  Whigs  in  parliament 
assumed  the  character  of  an  Opposition.  The  king,  however,  checked  the 
attempt  at  reprisals  for  the  past  by  proposing  an  Act  of  Grace,  from  the 
benefits  of  which  only  a  few  persons  were  excluded,  chief  among  whom 
was  Sunderland.  When  the  parliament  had  bestowed  upon  William  and 
Mary  for  life  the  permanent  revenue  which  had  been  conferred  upon  Charles 


THE    REVOLUTION  509 

and  James,  the  most  pressing  parliamentary  questions  were  settled,  and 
William  left  Mary  in  England  associated  with  a  group  of  "  Lords  Justices  " 
in  control  of  the  Administration,  while  he  himself  went  over  to  Ireland 
where  danger  was  threatening. 


II 

IRELAND 

In  England,  and,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  in  Scotland,  the  strength  of 
Protestantism  ensured  the  rule  of  William  and  Mary  against  anything  like 
a  national  insurrection.  Nothing  of  the  kind  was  attempted  in  the  one 
country ;  in  the  other,  though  Dundee  raised  the  standard  of  King  James, 
it  was  with  the  knowledge  that  the  Jacobite  cause  could  not  succeed  with- 
out reinforcements,  and  when  Dundee  himself  fell  in  battle  the  victory  of 
the  government  was  assured.  With  Ireland,  however,  the  case  was  very 
different.  There  the  great  .hulk  of  the  population  was  Roman  Catholic. 
That  population  had  its  particular  grievances,  besides  the  general  grievance 
of  subjection  to  England  ;  but  it  had  every  reason  to  favour  a  Stuart  regime 
with  its  promise  of  a  Catholic  ascendency,  in  preference  to  that  of  a  govern- 
ment pledged  to  Protestant  principles  and  the  repression  of  Romanists. 

In  Ireland,  then,  while  there  was  no  particular  sentiment  of  loyalty  to 
the  House  of  Stuart,  personal  interest  drew  the  majority  of  the  population 
to  favour  the  Jacobite  cause.  In  Ireland,  moreover,  the  rule  of  Tyrconnell 
under  James  II.  had  in  effect  transferred  political  power  to  the  Romanists. 
In  Ireland,  as  in  England,  the  corporations  had  been  manipulated,  but  in 
Ireland  there  was  no  Test  Act  to  preserve  their  Protestantism.  And  for 
Ireland  the  restoration  of  James  would  mean  a  revolution  and  the  upsetting 
of  the  Land  Settlement,  made  on  the  restoration  of  Charles,  which  had 
kept  the  proprietorship  of  the  soil  in  the  hands  of  the  Protestant  minority. 

Now,  England  had  not  forgotten  the  Irish  insurrection  of  1641,  nor 
the  fears  of  an  Irish  army  being  employed  for  the  coercion  of  England 
when  Strafford  was  Deputy.  James  looked  to  Ireland  as  the  base  from 
which  he  would  be  able  to  recover  the  crown  of  England.  But  to  William 
that  country  appeared  to  be  of  minor  importance  ;  he  had  no  inclination 
to  withdraw  troops  from  England  to  serve  in  Ireland,  especially  as  Tyr- 
connell, who  had  the  whole  Irish  administration  in  his  own  hands,  appeared 
willing  to  negotiate.  The  king  sent  over  Tyrconnell's  brother-in-law  to 
arrange  terms,  but  the  agent  promptly  associated  himself  with  the  Earl,  who, 
after  a  very  brief  delay,  threw  off  the  mask.  The  Protestant  settlers  outside 
Ulster  were  quickly  overpowered,  and,  in  Ulster,  were  swept  into  London- 
derry and  Enniskillen.  Before  the  end  of  March,  1689,  James  himself  had 
landed  at  Cork  without  any  attempt  having  been  made  to  obstruct  his 
passage,  and  proceeded  to  Dublin,  where  he  summoned  a  parliament. 


5IO      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

The  action  of  that  parHament  showed  the  use  which  the  long  depressed 
majority  intended  to  make  of  the  advantage  which  they  beheved  themselves 
to  have  won.  Their  declaration  in  favour  of  James  was  a  matter  of  course ; 
so  was  their  announcement  of  toleration  for  all  religions.  Next  came  a 
series  of  acts  oversetting  the  claims  of  the  English  parliament  and  English 
authorities  to  override  the  parliament  of  Ireland.  Landowners  were  in 
future  to  pay  the  tithe  to  their  own  Church  ;  but,  as  the  overturning  of  the 
Land  Settlement  practically  displaced  all  Protestant  landowners  in  favour 
of  Catholics,  this  meant  that  the  tithe  would  go  to  the  Roman  Catholic 
clergy,  who  were  no  longer  to  be  barred  from  holding  ecclesiastical 
appointments.  But  the  most  subversive  measures  referred  to  the  land. 
All  forfeitures  and  settlements  since  1641  were  cancelled  ;  the  land  was  to 
be  restored  in  possession  to  the  representatives  of  those  who  had  possessed 


,.^  ^-,^.^.-.--7^V^i&&^^ 


-^^mmm&imms&f^ 


Londonderry  about  1680. 
[From  a  contemporary  drawing  in  the  British  Museum.] 


it  at  that  date.  The  lands  of  persons  now  in  "rebellion"  against  James 
n.  were  to  be  appropriated  to  the  Crown,  and  from  them  compensation 
was  to  be  provided  for  those  persons  who  had  bought  land  since  the  Settle- 
ment and  were  displaced  by  the  restoration  of  such  land  to  its  former 
owners.  How  the  land  of  these  rebels  could  be  at  the  same  time  appro- 
priated to  the  Crown  and  restored  to  the  original  owners  the  legislators  did 
not  pause  to  inquire.  Parliament  went  on  to  pass  an  Act  of  Attainder 
containing  the  names  of  some  sixty  peers  and  more  than  two  thousand 
commoners.  Their  property  was  forfeited,  but  they  were  to  have  the 
opportunity  of  taking  their  trial,  and  recovering  it  if  they  proved  themselves 
innocent.  The  amazing  proceedings  of  this  parliament  may  perhaps 
account  for  the  extreme  vindictiveness  displayed  when  a  Protestant  parlia- 
ment recovered  the  mastery. 

During  the  summer  months  it  appeared  quite  possible  that  the  Pro- 
testants might  be  wiped  out  altogether.      Enniskillen  was  hard  pressed,  and 


THE    REVOLUTION  511 

Londonderry  was  subjected  to  a  rigorous  siege  and  close  investment. 
Within  those  towns,  however,  there  was  a  fine  spirit  of  stubborn  resistance. 
The  Derry  garrison  was  resolved  to  hold  out  to  the  last  gasp.  After  long 
delay  English  troops,  under  the  command  of  the  notorious  Colonel  Kirke, 
reached  Lough  Foyle,  only  to  declare  themselves  unable  to  force  the  boom 
which  guarded  the  river.  But  when  the  garrison  was  on  the  verge 
of  sheer  starvation  urgent  advices  from  England  put  an  end  to  Kirke's  in- 
action. The  boom  was  forced,  Londonderry  was  relieved,  and  when  once 
the  blockade  was  broken  the  siege  was  useless.  On  the  same  day  the 
garrison  of  Enniskillen  met  and  routed  at  Newton  Butler  a  superior 
force  which  had  been  sent  against  them. 

In  William's  own  view  the  sound  course  of  action  was  not  to  divert 
forces  to  Ireland,  but  to  employ  them  in  a  direct  attack  on  France,  since 
the  French  were  assisting  King  James  with  men,  money,  and  stores.  But 
he  could  not  resist  the  pressure  of  public  opinion,  and  his  principal  marshal, 
Schomberg,  once  a  Huguenot  officer  in  the  armies  of  King  Louis,  was 
despatched  to  Ulster.  But  his  force  was  attacked  by  sickness,  and  he  was 
unable  to  adopt  an  offensive  strategy.  As  the  spring  of  1690  advanced 
William  resolved  to  bring  the  Irish  War  to  a  conclusion — to  throw  a  large 
force  into  the  country,  and  to  take  command  of  it  himself. 

It  is  not  easy  to  understand  why  so  little  had  hitherto  been  done  by 
the  fleets  either  of  France  or  of  England.  To  either,  the  effective  command 
of  the  seas  should  have  secured  effective  mastery  in  Ireland.  Apparently 
each  was  afraid  to  challenge  the  other.  Under  the  influence  of  Colbert 
France  had  acquired  a  powerful  fleet  even  in  the  time  of  the  last  Anglo- 
Dutch  War.  But  while  England  had  only  made  one  abortive  attempt  to 
sever  the  communications  between  France  and  Ireland,  when  Admiral 
Herbert  was  defeated  at  Bantry  Bay,  France  now  made  no  attempt  to 
interfere  with  the  passage  of  William,  his  troops  and  his  supplies,  to  Ireland. 
When  the  thing  was  done  the  able  French  Admiral  Tourville  took  the  seas 
and  inflicted  a  disastrous  defeat  on  the  combined  English  and  Dutch 
squadrons  off  Beachy  Head,  thereby  creating  a  panic  in  England.  But  for 
the  purposes  of  the  Irish  War  his  victory  was  perfectly  futile.  The  engage- 
ment at  Beachy  Head  took  place  on  June  30th  ;  on  July  ist  William  routed 
James's  army  at  the  Boyne  Water.  James  hastily  concluded  that  his  cause 
was  lost  and  fled  to  Waterford,  whence  he  found  his  way  by  sea  to  France. 

Apart  from  the  fact  that  William  had  to  effect  the  difficult  operation  of 
forcing  a  ford  in  the  face  of  the  enemy,  no  great  interest  would  have 
attached  to  the  battle  of  the  Boyne  if  it  had  not  moved  James  to  take  flight. 
As  it  was,  Ulster  and  Leinster  were  lost  to  the  Jacobites,  but  their  hold  on 
Connaught  and  Munster  was  not  relaxed.  The  French  were  predominant  on 
the  sea,  and  four  important  Irish  harbours  were  open  to  them.  England 
for  the  moment  was  almost  denuded  of  troops,  and  probably  the  invasion 
of  England  was  more  immediately  practicable  than  at  any  time  before  or 
since.      But  Louis  declined  to  make  the  attempt,  and  the  next  time  that  the 


512  THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

French  and  English  fleets  met  the  balance  was  to  be  turned  decisively  and 
permanently  in  favour  of  England. 

The  panic  caused  by  the  battle  of  Beachy  Head  was  somewhat  allayed 
by  the  news  of  the  Boyne,  and  by  the  discovery  that  the  French  fleet 
intended  to  make  no  further  use  of  its  victory.  William's  own  return  to 
England  was  delayed  by  his  desire  to  capture  Limerick,  into  which  a 
valiant  band  of  Irish  Jacobites  threw  themselves  when  both  Tyrconnell  and 
the  French  General  Lauzun  had  lost  heart.  But  William  was  eager  to 
leave  Ireland  and  take  the  command  of  the  armies  in  Holland,  and  when 
his  first  approach  was  repulsed  by  Patrick  Sarsfield  he  withdrew.  Marl- 
borough, however,  undertook  a  campaign  in  the  south,  which  at  once  de- 
prived the  Jacobites  of  the  valuable  harbours  of  Cork  and  Kinsale.  In  June 
and  July  of  the  following  year  Ginckel,  to  whom  William  had  now  en- 
trusted the  Irish  command,  defeated  the  French  commander  St.  Ruth  at 


A  medal  of  1C90  commemorative  of  the  Battle  of  the  Bontic. 

Athlone  and  Aghrim,  and  only  Limerick  remained  to  offer  a  desperate  re- 
sistance. When  Ginckel  brought  up  the  siege  guns  which  had  hitherto  been 
wanting,  Sarsfield  saw  that  the  defence  could  not  be  maintained.  He 
succeeded  in  obtaining  terms  which  were  the  well-deserved  reward  of  a 
heroic  defence.  The  garrisons  were  given  free  leave  to  depart  and  enroll 
themselves  in  the  Irish  regiments,  which  were  to  render  splendid  service  to 
France  in  her  wars  for  many  a  year  to  come.  But  beyond  this,  pledges 
were  given  that  the  Irish  Roman  Catholics  were  to  have  the  same  religious 
freedom  as  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  Practically  the  terms  of  the  capi- 
tulation of  Limerick  itself  were  to  be  applied  to  all  the  remaining  Jacobite 
garrisons,  who  had  the  choice  of  free  withdrawal  or  of  remaining  as  the 
liege  subjects  of  King  W^illiam  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  complete  amnesty. 
The  capitulation  was  in  eiTect  a  general  treaty  to  which  the  alternative 
would  have  been  a  prolonged  guerilla  war  which  it  was  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance to  William  that  lie  should  avoid. 

The   disastrous   breach  of   faith   which    followed    the    capitulation    and 
the    self-chosen    exile   of    Ireland's    most    enterprising    sons   was  the   most 


THE    REVOLUTION  513 

shameful  episode  in  the  history  of  the  relations  between  Ireland  and  Eng- 
land. The  English  parliament  at  Westminster  passed  a  law  for  Ireland 
which  was,  broadly  speaking,  an  application  of  the  Test  Act  to  all  office- 
holders and  members  of  parliament  in  Ireland.  The  result  was  the  assembly  of 
an  exclusively  Protestant  parliament  in  Dublin,  and  that  parliament  made 
haste  to  tear  up  the  Treaty  of  Limerick,  The  proceedings  of  James's  Irish 
parliament  were  annulled,  and  a  series  of  penal  laws  against  the  Catholics 
were  enacted.  Papists  were  forbidden  to  teach  in  schools,  to  carry  arms, 
or  to  send  their  children  abroad  to  be  educated.  The  Romanist  clergy 
were  exiled.  The  estates  of  Roman  Catholics  descended  not  to  the  oldest 
son  but  to  all  the  sons  ;  if  one  of  them  elected  to  turn  Protestant  the 
whole  estate  passed  to  him  ;  and  if  a  Protestant  heiress  married  a  Papist 
she  forfeited  her  title.  In  a  country  where  four-fifths  of  the  population 
were  Romanists  every  Romanist  was  cut  off  from  participation  in  public  affairs, 
from  military  service,  from  educating  his  children,  from  acquiring  land,  or 
from  handing  down  a  consolidated  estate  to  later  generations.  The  utter 
helplessness  to  which  the  Catholics  were  reduced  is  shown  by  the  paralysis 
which  fell  upon  them.  Jacobitism  never  again  hfted  its  head  in  Ireland, 
not  because  the  Irish  would  not  have  been  Jacobites  if  they  could,  but 
because  they  could  not  if  they  would. 


Ill 

SCOTLAND 

The  reign  of  James  11.  or  James  VII.  had  opened  in  Scotland  that 
period  of  cruel  persecution  known  as  the  "  Killing  Time."  To  this  era 
belong  the  most  famous  of  the  martyrdoms,  the  shooting  of  the  carrier 
John  Brown  before  the  eyes  of  his  wife,  and  the  drowning  of  Margaret 
Wilson  and  Margaret  M'Lauchlan  in  the  Solway,  with  the  latter  of  which, 
it  may  be  remarked,  Claverhouse  was  in  no  way  concerned.  But  the 
persecuting  policy  was  no  more  possible  for  James  in  Scotland  than  in 
England  ;  it  inevitably  gave  place  in  the  Northern  as  well  as  in  the  Southern 
country  to  the  policy  of  theoretical  toleration.  In  Scotland,  as  in  England, 
it  was  not  possible  to  aim  at  the  advancement  of  Roman  Catholics,  or  even 
at  their  general  relief,  without  conceding  a  like  freedom  to  the  Noncon- 
formist Protestants.  In  proportion  as  the  law  bore  more  hardly  on  a 
larger  portion  of  the  population,  the  Scottish  Presbyterians  were  more 
ready  than  their  English  brethren  to  accept  the  Indulgence  decreed  by  the 
king  in  both  countries  in  1687. 

It  must  further  be  observed  that  there  was  not  in  Scotland  the  same 
constitutional  ground  as  in  England  for  rejecting  as  dangerous  gifts  bestowed 
by  the  arbitrary  power  of  the  Crown,  because  the  constitutional  powers  of 
the  Crown  were  not  limited  either  by  custom  or  by  statute  as  they  were  in 

Z  K 


514      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

England.  Yet  the  fact  that  the  king's  real  purpose  was  the  advancement  of 
Papists  was  sufficiently  manifest,  and  caused  uneasiness  and  resentment  on 
all  sides.  Opposition,  however,  was  much  more  difficult  to  organise  effec- 
tively, while  the  forces  of  the  Crown  were  not  merely,  as  in  England,  a 
coercive  power  which  the  Crown  held  in  reserve,  but  a  normally  active 
instrument  for  the  repression  of  opposition. 

Thus  the  position  in  Scotland  presented  itself  to  James  as  perfectly 
secure,  and  he  had  no  qualms  in  summoning  Claverhouse,  who  had  now 
become  Viscount  Dundee,  to  lead  the  bulk  of  the  Scottish  troops  over  the 
border  in  the  autumn  of  1688.  But  by  so  doing  his  government  lost  the 
control  of  Scotland.  A  stream  of  malcontents  hurried  to  the  South  with  the 
obvious  intention  of  adapting  their  own  further  action  to  the  course  of  events 
in  England.  The  flight  of  James  to  France  paralysed  his  supporters,  and 
immediately  after  the  formal  acceptance  of  the  crown  of  England  by 
William  and  Mary,  a  Convention  Parliament  assembled  in  Scotland. 

In  that  Convention  it  became  at  once  apparent  that  the  majority  were 
opposed  to  the  return  of  King  James.  That  disposition  was  enormously 
strengthened  by  a  letter  from  James  in  which,  with  his  usual  blundering 
impolicy,  he  adopted  a  high-handed  and  threatening  tone  instead  of  re- 
cognising the  necessity  for  conciliation.  Dundee  and  the  Jacobites  withdrew 
from  the  Convention,  which  proceeded  to  appoint  a  committee  on  the  analogy 
of  the  Lords  of  the  Articles,  consisting  of  eight  of  the  nobility,  eight  bur- 
gesses, and  eight  of  the  barons  or  gentry  of  the  shires.  This  committee 
directed  and  formulated  the  further  proceedings  of  the  Convention. 

The  Convention  in  England,  while  it  transferred  the  Crown  from  James 
to  William,  did  not  in  theory  effect  a  revolution  of  the  constitution.  Osten- 
sibly it  reaffirmed  and  safeguarded  constitutional  doctrines  which  had  been 
set  at  nought  by  absolutist  innovations.  It  was  not  so  with  the  Scottish 
Convention,  which  went  a  long  way  towards  asserting  for  Scotland  these 
same  English  constitutional  claims  which  in  Scotland  had  never  subsisted 
either  in  theory  or  in  practice  ;  and  in  some  respects  it  went  beyond  the 
English  formulary.  It  drew  up  a  Claim  of  Right  corresponding  to  the 
English  Declaration  of  Right  ;  but  instead  of  claiming  that  James  had 
abdicated  the  throne  by  his  flight  it  affirmed  that  James  had  forfeited 
the  Crown,  and,  further,  it  asserted  that  prelacy,  being  opposed  to  the 
will  of  the  people,  ought  to  be  suppressed.  Its  determination  to  claim 
a  constitution  approximating  to  the  English  model  was  expressed  by  the 
denunciation  of  the  system  of  appointing  the  Lords  of  the  Articles  by  any 
other  process  than  the  free  election  of  the  members  by  the  Estates,  where- 
as the  Stuart  system  required  first  the  nomination  by  the  peers  of  eight 
bishops  who  were  inevitably  king's  men,  the  nomination  by  the  eight  bishops 
of  eight  peers  who,  in  the  circumstances,  would  also  obviously  be  king's  men, 
and  the  selection  of  the  rest  of  the  Lords  of  the  Articles  by  this  united 
group  of  king's  men.  Thus  the  Stuart  system  had  in  effect  given  entire 
control   of  legislation   to  the  king  and  the  Privy  Council  ;  the  new  system 


THE    REVOLUTION  515 

would  practically  give  it  to  the  Estates.  On  these  terms  the  crown  was 
offered  to  and  accepted  by  William,  and  the  Convention  was  converted  into 
a  parliament. 

Dundee  escaped  from  the  South  and  raised  the  Jacobite  standard  in  the 
Highlands,  while  William  appointed  to  the  command  in  Scotland  General 
M'Kay,  an  efficient  though  not  brilliant  officer  who  had  served  under  him 
in  Holland.  Five  and  forty  years  earlier  Montrose  had  shown  what 
could  be  done  and  had  learnt  what  could  not  be  done  by  an  army 
composed  of  the  clansmen.  Among  the  mountains  especially  such 
an  army  could  move  with  extraordinary  speed  which  regular  troops 
could    not   hope   to    match.      In    the   shock    of    onset    the    charge   of    the 


The  Parliament  House,  Edinburgh,  in  the  17th  century. 
[From  an  engraving  by  Gordon  of  Rothiemay  about  1650.] 

Highlanders  was  apt  to  be  irresistible.  But  the  commander  of  the  mixed 
force  was  certain  to  find  himself  hampered  if  not  paralysed  by  clan  feuds 
and  rivalries  which  even  at  the  most  critical  moments  it  was  almost  impos- 
sible to  repress,  especially  as  the  clans  formed  separate  contingents,  each  led 
by  its  own  chief.  But,  further,  the  Highlander  conceived  of  war  not  as 
campaigning  but  as  raiding  ;  after  a  fight  or  two  he  was  disposed  to  con- 
sider himself  at  liberty  to  return  to  his  glens  with  his  booty.  With  such 
forces  much  damage  might  be  inflicted  on  an  enemy,  but  with  such  forces 
alone  an  organised  campaign  of  conquest  was  not  practicable.  Dundee's 
hope  was  that  he  would  be  able  to  keep  the  Lowlands  in  a  state  of  per- 
petual alarm  and  to  demoralise  the  government  troops  until  he  should 
receive  reinforcements  from  France  or  from  Ireland  which  would  enable 
him  to  conduct  an  effective  campaign. 


5i6  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

The  failure  of  this  hope  when  the  summer  was  already  far  advanced  made 
it  imperative  that  Dundee  should  effect  some  striking  achievement  in  order 
to  keep  his  forces  from  dissolving.  Accordingly  he  enticed  M'Kay  into  the 
Highlands,  drew  his  force  into  an  ambush  at  the  Pass  of  KiUiecrankie,  and 
put  it  completely  and  overwhelmingly  to  rout.  Nevertheless  his  brilliant 
victory  proved  a  fatal  disaster  to  the  Jacobite  cause.  Dundee  himself  fell 
while  leading  a  triumphant  charge.  There  was  no  man  to  take  his  place. 
The  victorious  clansmen  attacked  Dunkeld  ;  but  being  there  repulsed  by 
the  resolute  resistance  of  a  regiment  of  Cameronians,  they  lost  heart  and 
interest  and  dispersed  to  their  own  homes.  The  civil  war  was  practically 
at  an  end. 

The  war  being  disposed  of,  there  remained  three  problems  for  the 
government — the  settlement  of  the  Highlands,  the  settlement  of  the  powers 
of  parliament,  and  the  settlement  of  the  ecclesiastical  question.  All  of  them 
were  thorny.  The  parliament  demanded  that  the  Committee  of  the  Articles 
should  be  entirely  elected  by  the  Estates.  The  Crown,  through  its  ministers 
and  its  own  representative  or  commissioner,  the  Duke  of  Hamilton,  claimed 
that  the  ministers  should  themselves  form  one  of  the  groups  in  the  com- 
mittee ;  and  neither  party  would  give  way.  On  the  Church  question  the 
parliament  wanted  to  restore  the  independent  government  of  the  Church 
on  the  Presbyterian  system.  The  Crown,  on  the  other  hand,  was  determined 
to  uphold  the  supremacy  of  the  State  over  the  Church,  and  also,  not  without 
reason,  feared  that  Presbyterian  supremacy  would  be  intolerant  and  retalia- 
tory. All  that  was  accomplished  in  1689  was  the  passing  of  an  Act 
abolishing  Episcopacy.  During  the  winter,  however,  some  of  the  leaders  of 
the  opposition  to  the  Crown  discredited  themselves  by  entering  upon  in- 
trigues with  the  Jacobites,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  William  resolved  to  make 
substantial  concessions.  Accordingly  in  the  following  year  the  old  Com- 
mittees of  the  Articles  were  finally  abolished.  Future  committees  were  to 
be  appointed  by  the  Estates,  but  their  appointment  was  not  to  be  a  con- 
dition precedent  on  legislation  ;  and  while  ministers  of  the  Crown  had  the 
right  of  attending  such  committees,  they  had  no  right  as  ministers  to  vote. 
Another  Act  established  the  Presbyterian  system  of  Church  government 
with  the  Kirk  Sessions  as  its  base  and  the  General  Assembly  as  the  apex. 
William's  concessions  secured  his  position  as  against  Jacobitism,  but  practic- 
ally the  Scottish  parliament  and  the  Scottish  Church  had  won  their  demands 
at  the  expense  of  w-hat  had  hitherto  been  the  royal  prerogative. 

For  the  settlement  of  the  Highlands  the  policy  adopted  combined  con- 
ciliation with  compulsion.  The  advocates  of  military  control  were  allowed 
to  establish  a  government  fort  and  garrison  at  Fort  William  ;  but  although 
for  some  time  many  of  the  Highland  chiefs  refused  to  take  the  oath  of 
allegiance,  the  disappearance  of  all  chance  of  help  either  from  Ireland  or 
from  France  disposed  them  to  come  to  terms.  Some  accepted  a  solatium, 
and  when  in  August  169 1  amnesty  was  promised  to  all  who  should  take 
the  oath   of  allegiance   by  the  first  of  January  ensuing,  all  of  them  took 


THE    REVOLUTION  517 

advantage  of  the  promise,  although  many  deferred  doing  so  till  the  last 
moment. 

Nevertheless  in  one  case  the  submission  came  too  late.  Sir  John 
Dairy mple,  the  Master  of  Stair  (that  is  the  heir-apparent  of  the  Earl  of 
Stair),  one  of  William's  principal  advisers  with  regard  to  Scottish  affairs, 
found  an  opportunity  for  destroying  the  small  clan  of  the  Macdonalds  of 
Glencoe.  The  chief  had  presented  himself,  on  the  last  day  allowed  by  the 
law  for  taking  the  oath,  at  Fort  William,  where  there  was  no  authority  em- 
powered to  receive  it.  Hence  he  did  not  actually  take  the  oath  before  a 
duly  constituted  authority  till  a  week  too  late.  The  Edinburgh  authorities 
refused  to  accept  the  oath  thus  tendered,  and  Macdonald's  name  was  re- 
turned to  London  as  a  recalcitrant.  Of  these  circumstances  William  and 
possibly  Dalrymple  were  unaware  ;  and  Dalrymple  procured  from  the  king 
an  order  that  "  this  set  of  thieves  "  should  be  "  extirpated."  To  carry  out  the 
order  a  party  of  soldiers  was  sent  to  Glencoe,  whose  commander  was  con- 
nected by  marriage  with  the  chief's  family.  Their  hostile  intentions  were 
carefully  concealed  ;  they  were  received  and  entertained  hospitably  by  the 
clan  for  a  fortnight.  Then  in  the  night  they  rose  upon  their  entertainers 
and  massacred  them,  though  some  few  of  the  intended  victims  succeeded  in 
making  their  escape. 

The  act  deservedly  aroused  furious  resentment ;  the  punishment  of  the 
perpetrators  was  demanded  on  all  hands ;  and  the  inadequacy  of  the 
penalties  inflicted  after  the  whole  story  of  the  crime  was  revealed  left  a 
rankling  sentiment  of  bitterness  in  Scotland  against  the  system  which  kept 
the  king  of  Scotland  at  a  distance  from  the  realm  and  out  of  touch  with 
the  Scottish  people.  William's  ignorance  of  the  facts  connected  with  the 
tendering  of  the  oath,  an  ignorance  which  may  or  may  not  have  been 
shared  by  the  Master  of  Stair,  might  have  been  held  to  excuse  him  if  his 
subsequent  conduct  had  not  endorsed  the  whole  of  the  proceedings.  Stair 
had  to  resign  his  office,  but  William  did  not  withdraw  from  him  his  personal 
favour.  The  memory  of  the  massacre  of  Glencoe  remained  among  the 
Scottish  people  as  one  of  the  incentives  to  Jacobitism  and  to  the  popular 
dislike  at  least  of  any  closer  connection  with  England. 


IV 

WILLIAM'S   WAR 

During  the  four  summer  months  of  1690  when  William  was  in  Ireland, 
signalised  by  the  defeat  of  Beachy  Head  and  the  victory  of  the  Boyne,  the 
queen  was  left  to  conduct  the  administration  in  England.  The  period 
was  critical,  but  Mary  passed  through  the  ordeal  successfully.  The  king, 
on  his  return,  was  eager  to  hasten  to  Holland  to  concert  plans  for  the 
future  with  his  continental  allies,  for  which  it  was  of  the  utmost  importance 


5i8  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

that  he  should  be  able  to  rely  on  the  support  of  England.  Parliament, 
meeting  for  an  autumn  session,  voted  large  supplies  with  a  readiness  which 
augured  well  for  the  future,  and  William  was  able  to  leave  for  Holland  in 
January,  undeterred  by  the  discovery  of  a  Jacobite  plot,  the  investigation 
of  which  was  left  to  his  wife.  It  was  not  an  assassination  plot,  but  aimed 
at  the  restoration  of  James  on  conditions  which  would  probably  have 
proved  acceptable  neither  to  James  himself  nor  to  the  French  king.  Lord 
Preston,  an  ex-minister  of  James  who  gave  his  name  to  the  conspiracy,  was 
condemned  to  death,  but  was  ultimately  pardoned.  Only  one  of  the  plotters 
was  actually  executed,  and  some  were  never  brought  to  trial.  For  this 
leniency  William  himself  was  responsible,  as  he  reappeared  in  England  for 
three  weeks. 

The  campaigning  in  the  Netherlands  with  which  he  was  largely  occu- 
pied during  the  ensuing  period  was  of  a  dreary  and  unprofitable  descrip- 
tion, neither  the  French  nor  the  allies  gaining  any  material  advantages. 
But  the  fact  of  primary  importance  to  England,  so  far  as  the  war  was 
concerned,  was  that  France  was  wholly  absorbed  in  the  military  operations, 
and  was  thereby  prevented  from  adopting  the  energetic  naval  policy  which 
might  have  been  anticipated  after  Beachy  Head.  England,  on  the  other 
hand,  concentrated  her  efforts  mainly  on  naval  reorganisation.  Never- 
theless Louis  and  James  devised  a  scheme  of  invading  England  in 
1692. 

So  many  of  the  leading  men  in  England,  including  Admiral  Russell 
who  was  now  at  the  head  of  the  English  Navy,  were  in  correspondence 
with  the  Jacobites,  that  James  suffered  from  an  illusory  conviction  that 
the  majority  of  Englishmen  were  in  favour  of  his  restoration.  He  issued 
a  proclamation  granting  a  general  pardon,  from  which  certain  prominent 
persons  were  specially  excluded,  which  only  made  it  the  more  imperative 
that  the  men  whose  names  were  not  excluded  should  emphatically  demon- 
strate their  loyalty  to  William.  This  document  was  so  obviously  useful 
to  the  government  that  instead  of  endeavouring  to  suppress  it  they  pub- 
lished it  broadcast.  Nothing  could  have  served  better  to  bring  the  whole 
nation  into  line,  and,  above  all,  the  fleet  was  put  on  its  mettle. 

A  large  army  of  invasion  was  collected  in  Normandy,  and  Tourville, 
the  victor  of  Beachy  Head,  took  the  seas  to  clear  the  Channel,  with  posi- 
tive orders  to  fight  the  English  fieet  on  the  first  opportunity.  In  obedience 
to  those  orders  he  fought  the  battle  of  La  Hogue.  His  fleet  was  scattered 
after  hard  fighting,  and  a  dozen  men-of-war  which  ran  themselves  aground 
under  the  guns  of  La  Hogue  itself  were  cut  out  by  boats  under  the  com- 
mand of  Sir  George  Rooke,  and  were  burnt  down  to  the  water  under 
the  eyes  of  James  himself,  who  was  an  impotent  witness  of  the  catastrophe. 
This  great  victory  virtually  annihilated  the  French  sea-power,  which  two 
years  before  had  threatened  the  ascendency  of  Enghnd.  From  that  hour 
England  remained  decisively  the  mistress  of  the  seas  ;  for  her  only  rivals 
were  the  Dutch,  and   with  them  she  was  in   constant   alliance   until   the 


THE   REVOLUTION  519 

smaller  country  had  fallen  gradually  but  completely  behind  her  in  the 
maritime  race. 

The  triumph  of  La  Hogue  was  somewhat  obscured  by  the  failure  to 
follow  it  up  with  effective  blows  and  also  by  the  defeat  of  William  at 
Steinkirk.  William  was  one  of  those  commanders  who  rarely  won  a 
victory  in  the  field,  yet  possessed  a  marvellous  skill  in  preventing  the  enemy 
from  turning  a  defeat  to  account.  The  French  General  Luxemburg 
gained  little  by  Steinkirk,  but  English  public  opinion  was  irritated  because 
the  English  troops  which  had  borne  the  brunt  of  the  fight  were  badly  cut 
up,  and  for  this  some  of  William's  Dutch  officers  were  held  to  blame. 

So  when  William  returned  to  England  for  the  winter  he  found  a 
parliament  ill  content  and  murmuring  of  grievances.  Nevertheless  the 
necessity  for  continuing  the  war  was  paramount  ;  the  attacks  on  the 
government  were  defeated,  and  William  obtained  the  required  supplies. 
The  two  exceedingly  important  measures  by  which  this  end  was  achieved 
will  be  discussed  in  the  ensuing  chapter.  Here  it  will  suffice  to  explain 
that  the  first  was  a  new  assessment  of  the  Land-tax,  which  became  the 
principal  source  of  revenue,  and  the  second  was  the  creation  of  the 
National  Debt,  a  system  of  borrowing  for  national  purposes,  and  (in  the 
first  instance)  spreading  the  repayment  over  a  term  of  years  in  the  form  of 
annuities  to  the  lenders. 

Again,  in  1693,  the  war  went  unsatisfactorily.  William  was  again  defeated 
at  Neerwinden  or  Landen,  though  again  the  French  victory  was  barely  won 
and  was  of  little  immediate  service.  England,  however,  suffered  a  serious 
blow.  A  great  merchant  fleet,  English  and  Dutch,  known  as  the  Smyrna 
Fleet,  assembled  to  sail  for  Smyrna  and  the  Levant.  In  spite  of  the  great 
naval  preponderance  won  at  La  Hogue,  an  insufficient  escort  was  provided. 
Off  the  Spanish  coast  the  Smyrna  fleet  was  assailed  by  the  French  Navy, 
which  had  concentrated  in  the  Mediterranean.  The  odds  were  so  over- 
whelming that  the  escort  had  no  choice  but  to  take  refuge  in  flight,  and 
the  entire  merchant  fleet  of  four  hundred  vessels  was  either  captured  or 
wrecked. 

This  disaster  had  a  somewhat  curious  consequence.  Hitherto  William 
had  held  fast  to  his  principle  of  employing  ministers  from  both  parties, 
being  extremely  anxious  not  to  identify  himself  either  with  Whigs  or  with 
Tories,  although  in  many  respects  the  Whig  interests  were  more  closely 
allied  with  his  own.  He  had  been  particularly  anxious  not  to  part  with 
Nottingham,  a  Tory  in  whose  honesty  he  had  great  confidence.  Anta- 
gonism between  Nottingham  and  Russell  had  made  it  impossible  to  retain 
both  in  the  ministry,  and  Russell  had  been  removed  from  the  Admiralty. 
The  failure  of  the  Admiralty  produced  an  insistent  demand  for  Russell's 
reinstatement,  which  necessitated  the  retirement  of  Nottingham  ;  and 
William  at  last  made  up  his  mind  to  form  a  Whig  ministry  and  thus  to 
initiate  the  system  of  party  government.  This  device  is  attributed  to  the 
counsels  of  Sunderland,  who,  although  he  had  been  excluded  from  the  Act 


520  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

of  Grace,  had  been  allowed  to  return  to  England  and  had  been  received  to 
some  extent  into  William's  favour,  although  not  admitted  to  office.  The 
division  of  parliament  into  two  great  parties  was,  as  we  saw,  a  product  of 
the  latter  years  of  Charles  II.,  but  it  caused  no  immediate  change  in  the 
old  system  by  which  the  king  chose  his  ministers  as  he  thought  fit,  without 
reference  to  the  Legislature.  To  no  one  was  it  obvious  that  if  the  adminis- 
tration and  the  parliament  were  to  be  in  agreement  the  ministers  them- 
selves must  be  in  harmony  with  the  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons^ 
and  must  therefore  be  members  of  the  party  which  held  the  majority  in 
that  Chamber.  For  it  was  still  the  theory  that  policy  was  directed  by  the 
king  and  that  the  ministers  were  the  men  chosen  by  him  to  carry  out  not 
their  ideas  but  his.  They  were  counsellors  no  doubt  by  whose  advice  his 
ideas  might  be  modified,  but  it  was  their  business  to  do  what  the  king 
wished  them  to  do.  If  they  disagreed  they  were  none  the  less  supposed 
not  to  resign  but  to  obey  ;  if  they  failed  they  were  dismissed.  There  was 
no  collective  responsibility  ;  each  man  was  directly  responsible  to  the  king 
for  his  own  doings.  It  was  only  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  that  it  had  been 
claimed  that  the  minister  was  responsible  not  only  to  the  king  but  to 
parliament.  The  fact  that  a  Whig  majority  in  one  parliament  gave  way  to 
a  Tory  majority  in  the  next  was  no  reason,  on  these  principles,  why  the 
king  should  change  his  ministers,  though  he  might  find  it  necessary  to 
modify  his  policy  in  order  to  avoid  a  deadlock. 

Now  at  this  early  stage  the  rule  of  selecting  ministers  from  one  party 
presented  itself  merely  as  a  matter  of  practical  convenience,  the  outcome 
of  the  division  of  parliament  on  party  lines  which  itself  was  hardly  twenty 
years  old.  In  course  of  time  it  came  to  mean  that  the  policy  of  the 
Crown  must  be  the  policy  advocated  by  ministers  as  a  body,  and  that  must 
be  a  policy  supported  by  the  party  as  a  whole  from  which  the  ministerial 
body  was  selected  ;  ministers  became  the  medium  for  imposing  upon  the 
Crown  the  policy  approved  by  the  majority  in  parliament.  But  at  the 
outset  ministers  appeared  to  be  the  medium  through  which  the  majority  in 
parliament  was  to  be  induced  to  support  the  poHcy  of  the  Crown.  So 
much  was  this  felt  to  be  the  case  that  for  a  long  time  to  come  there  was 
a  strong  sentiment  in  favour  of  excluding  office-holders  under  the  Crown 
from  the  House  of  Commons  in  order  that  the  Crown  might  not  exercise 
undue  influence  on  that  body.  To  this  now  antiquated  sentiment  is  due 
the  rule  that  a  member  of  parliament  being  appointed  to  office  under  the 
Crown  must  seek  re-election. 

The  plain  fact  was  that  at  the  end  of  1693,  William,  though  he  very 
much  disliked  the  idea  of  placing  himself  in  the  hands  of  the  chiefs  of  one 
party,  still  saw  the  necessity  for  having  on  his  Council  a  body  of  men  who 
would  work  in  harmony  together,  and  of  having  the  solid  support  of  one 
great  party  in  the  face  of  the  great  war  on  the  continent.  Later,  when 
the  war  was  over,  he  sought  to  revert  to  the  principle  of  taking  ministers 
from  both  sides.      But  now  he  had  to  chose  one  party  or  the  other,  and  the 


The  Fleet,  Prison  in  the  17th  century. 
[From  .1  print  of  1691.] 


522  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

balance  was  definitely  in  favour  of  the  Whigs.  Both  Whigs  and  Tories,  as  he 
knew,  were  intriguing  with  the  Court  of  St.  Germain  ;  but  while  many  of  the 
Tories  were  Jacobites  at  heart,  the  Whigs  intrigued  mainly  as  an  insurance 
against  accidents  ;  they  did  not  want  to  see  James  back,  but  they  wanted  to 
secure  a  locus  standi  in  case  he  should  chance  to  come  back.  The  Whigs 
were  more  definitely  in  favour  of  the  war ;  and  this  was  what  William  had 
most  of  all  at  heart.  The  Admiral  in  whom  the  country  had  most  confi- 
dence was  a  Whig,  If  Marlborough,  who  was  reckoned  as  a  Tory,  had 
been  trusted  by  the  king,  he  might  have  counterbalanced  Russell  ;  but 
William  knew  too  well  that  the  brilliant  soldier  was  not  to  be  trusted.  The 
result  was  that  in  the  ministry  of  1693  the  only  Tories  retained  in  office  were 
Danby  and  Godolphin.  The  changes  had  a  beneficial  effect  on  the  temper 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  which  granted  adequate  supplies,  and  the 
financial  reforms  of  the  reign  were  crowned  by  the  creation  of  the  Bank 
of  England. 

The  campaigning  in  the  Netherlands  in  this  year  was  uneventful.  With 
the  combatants  so  equally  matched  as  they  were,  it  was  becoming  more 
and  more  obvious  that  the  victory  in  the  long  run  would  fall  to  the  side 
whose  treasury  held  out  longest ;  and  the  strain  was  already  becoming  too 
severe  for  Louis.  A  joint  naval  and  military  expedition  against  Brest  met 
with  disaster,  attributed  almost  with  certainty  to  the  treachery  of  Marl- 
borough, though  information  of  the  design  had  reached  the  French  from 
other  sources  as  well.  The  military  command  was  given  to  Talmash,  the 
only  English  soldier  with  a  reputation  which  at  that  time  rivalled  Marl- 
borough's ;  and  jealousy  of  Talmash  is  generally  supposed  to  have  been  the 
motive  of  Marlborough's  treachery.  Talmash  was  killed  before  Brest,  but 
Russell  was  despatched  with  a  fleet  to  the  Mediterranean  where  the  French 
fleet  took  shelter  at  Toulon.  In  spite  of  his  own  protests,  the  English  admiral 
was  ordered  to  winter  in  the  Mediterranean,  with  the  result  that  naval 
action  on  the  part  of  the  French  was  completely  paralysed,  and  the  control 
of  the  inland  sea  became  a  permanent  feature  of  English  naval  policy. 

Altogether,  when  William  met  parliament  at  the  end  of  the  year,  the 
progress  of  the  war  was  more  satisfactory  than  at  any  of  the  earlier  stages 
except  immediately  after  La  Hogue.  King  and  parliament  found  them- 
selves harmoniously  disposed,  and  William  was  at  last  persuaded  to  accede 
to  the  favourite  demand  of  the  Whigs,  a  Triennial  Act,  which  required  not 
only  that  parliament  should  meet  at  least  once  in  three  years,  but  that  the 
life  of  a  parliament  should  not  extend  beyond  three  years.  The  Whigs 
gained  too  by  the  retirement  of  Danby,  now  Duke  of  Leeds,  consequent 
upon  charges  of  corruption  in  connection  with  the  East  India  Company. 
The  charges  could  not  be  actually  proved,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  Danby 
was  not  able  to  clear  himself ;  too  much  suspicion  attached  to  him  to 
allow  of  his  continuing  to  take  an  active  part  in  politics. 

Before  Danby's  fall  William  had  suffered  a  very  serious  blow  both 
politically  and  personally  by  the  death  of  Mary.      Tories  who  had  been  able 


THE    REVOLUTION  523 

to  reconcile  themselves  to  the  joint  rule  of  King  James's  eldest  daughter  and 
her  husband  found  it  less  easy  to  reconcile  their  consciences  to  the  solitary 
rule  of  William.  She,  moreover,  had  been  personally  popular.  William 
might  inspire  admiration  and  respect,  but  he  had  no  hold  on  the  affections  of 
the  English  people.  Moreover,  he  had  always  been  able  to  trust  the  control 
of  affairs  to  the  queen  during  his  own  absence  on  the  continent ;  there  was 
now  no  one  in  whom  he  could  repose  a  like  confidence. 

Again,  however,  it  was  fortunate  that  the  campaigns  of  the  following 
summer  told  heavily  in  William's  favour.  The  value  of  the  English  control 
of  the  Mediterranean  was  manifested,  since  practically  the  whole  of  the 
French  fleet  was  shut  up  at  Toulon  ;  and  William  himself,  as  well  as  the 
English  troops  with  him,  won  a  new  prestige  by  the  recapture  of  the 
important  town  of  Namur,  which  the  French  had  taken  in  the  first  year 
of  the  war. 

As  a  natural  consequence  the  dissolution  of  parhament  and  a  general 
election  brought  a  considerable  accession  of  strength  to  W^illiam  and  the 
Whigs.  But  though  the  king's  hands  were  strengthened  for  the  purposes 
of  the  war,  the  Whigs  themselves  became  more  insistent  upon  party 
demands  which  were  not  to  the  king's  liking.  William  was  obliged  to 
cancel  large  grants  which  he  had  made  to  his  most  intimate  friend  and 
adviser,  the  Dutchman  Bentinck,  now  Duke  of  Portland,  who,  like  all 
William's  Dutch  companions  and  servants,  was  the  object  of  English 
jealousy.  Somewhat  reluctantly  also  he  had  to  accept  a  Treasons  Bill, 
which  required  not  only  that  there  should  be  two  witnesses  to  some  kind  of 
treason,  but  two  witnesses  to  any  specific  charge  ;  while  in  other  respects  it 
secured  to  the  accused  rights  which  we  should  now  regard  as  elementary, 
but  which  had  hitherto  been  denied  ;  so  that  there  could  be  no  repetition  of 
the  old  scandals  in  connection  with  the  Rye  House  Plot. 

A  reaction  in  William's  favour,  however,  was  caused  by  the  discovery  of 
Barclay's  plot  for  the  assassination  of  the  king,  which  had  been  tacked  on  to 
a  plot  for  a  French  invasion.  William  was  never  vindictive,  and  indeed 
carefully  avoided  too  close  enquiry  and  too  much  knowledge  of  the  persons 
concerned  in  plots  against  his  person ;  on  this  occasion  he  displayed  his 
usual  half-contemptuous  leniency,  but  parliament  and  the  public  were 
stirred  to  an  unwonted  loyalty.  As  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  plots  had 
recoiled  upon  the  head  of  Mary  Stuart,  so  now  plots  recoiled  upon  the 
head  of  James  II.  ;  and  again,  as  in  Elizabeth's  reign,  a  National  Association 
was  formed  for  the  defence  of  the  king.  The  war  however  suffered,  for  the 
panic  created  by  the  alarm  of  invasion  led  to  the  recall  of  the  Mediterranean 
fleet  and  the  recovery  of  French  ascendency  in  those  waters.  Savoy  with- 
drew from  the  coalition,  and  France  was  relieved  from  any  further  fighting 
in  Italy. 

Two  other  consequences  of  the  plot  are  to  be  noted  in  England.  One 
of  the  prisoners.  Sir  John  Fenwick,  revealed  intrigues  with  the  Jacobites, 
already   known   to  and  ignored  by  William,    on  the   part  of  Shrewsbury, 


524      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

Marlborough,  and  Godolphin.  Marlborough  had  already  been  removed 
from  public  employment,  although  his  intriguing  ceased  with  the  death  of 
Mary,  which  ensured  the  succession  of  Anne,  whom  he  could  count  upon 
controlling  through  his  wife.  Shrewsbury  and  Godolphin  both  resigned, 
Godolphin  being  the  only  member  of  the  Tory  party  who  had  continued 
till  this  time  to  retain  high  office.  A  purely  Whig  ministry  was  thus 
brought  to  completion.  The  second  consequence  was  that  the  Whigs 
themselves  resorted  to  an  Act  of  Attainder  to  prevent  the  escape  of  Fen- 
wick  himself,  since  one  of  the  two  witnesses  required  by  the  law  which  they 
themselves  had  passed  to  bring  about  his  condemnation  had  been  bribed 
to  leave  the  country.  Although  the  Whigs  were  as  loyal  as  ever  in  pro- 
viding supplies  for  the  war,  it  dragged  on  ineffectively  through  1696. 
Both  sides  in  fact  were  exhausted  and  anxious  for  peace.  Negotiations 
through  the  winter  and  the  following  spring  bore  fruit  in  the  Treaty  of 
Ryswick.  For  William  the  chief  gain  was  his  definite  recognition  as  King 
of  England  by  Louis  XIV.,  who  pledged  himself  to  give  no  active  support 
to  the  Jacobite  cause,  though  he  refused  to  deny  his  hospitality  to  the 
exiles.  The  treaty  altogether  was  a  demonstration  that  France  could  do 
no  more  than  hold  her  own  against  a  coalition  which  included  England  ; 
whereas,  before  the  Revolution,  when  she  could  practically  count  upon 
the  neutrality  if  not  the  support  of  England,  every  treaty  had  brought  her 
a  fresh  accession  of  territory  and  strength. 

But  the  war  had  served  as  a  binding  force  in  English  politics,  and  dis- 
integration followed  upon  the  peace. 


V 

THE   GRAND  ALLIANCE 

William  himself  had  no  illusions  on  the  subject  of  the  peace.  He 
regarded  it  as  nothing  more  than  a  truce,  certain  to  be  followed  before  long 
by  a  renewal  of  the  struggle  with  Louis.  In  spite  of  the  treaty,  therefore, 
he  urged  upon  the  parliament  the  necessity  not  only  for  a  large  naval 
expenditure,  but  also  for  the  maintenance  of  a  standing  army  of  not  less 
than  thirty  thousand  men. 

There  was  no  difficulty  about  the  fleet  ;  the  nation  was  thoroughly  alive 
to  the  importance  of  maintaining  naval  supremacy.  But  Tories  and  Whigs 
alike  regarded  the  standing  army  as  being  at  the  best  a  necessary  evil  in 
time  of  war,  intolerable  in  time  of  peace.  William,  being  his  own  Foreign 
Minister  and  relying  for  the  conduct  of  foreign  business  on  Portland  and 
his  Dutch  associates  rather  than  upon  English  statesmen,  had  failed  to 
educate  Englishmen  up  to  his  own  views  of  continental  affairs  ;  and  the 
Whigs  regarded  the  peace  as  a  satisfactory  opportunity  for  cutting  down 
the  army  to  a  standard  far  below  that  which  was  needed  to  satisfy  William. 


THE    REVOLUTION  525 

They  were,  moreover,  irritated  by  the  fact  that  the  king  had  at  last  openly 
admitted  Sunderland  to  his  counsels,  and  obviously  gave  more  confidence  to 
him  than  to  the  Whig  leaders  themselves.  Even  the  retirement  of  Sunder- 
land only  induced  them  so  far  to  modify  the  proposals  for  disbandment  as 
to  allow  the  retention  of  a  force  of  ten  thousand  men  apart  from  the  troops 
in  Scotland  and  Ireland. 

But  the  Triennial  Act  now  demanded  a  dissolution,  while  William's 
own  continental  plans  called  for  his  presence  at  The  Hague.  The  king's 
constant  absences  from  the  country  were  inevitably  unpopular,  and  his 
departure  at  this  time  had  an  unfavourable  effect  on  the  elections.  The 
result  was  that  ministers  found  thenu  Ives  faced  by  what  was  practically 
a  Tory  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons.  To  William's  intense  disgust 
parliament  resolved  to  reduce  the  army  to  seven  thousand  men,  all  of 
them  English-born  troops,  which  at  once  involved  the  withdrawal  of  the 
Dutch  troops  on  whom  William  himself  relied,  and  the  exclusion  of  his 
favourite  officers  from  military  posts.  So  sore  was  the  king  that  he  was 
on  the  verge  of  resigning  the  crown  of  England.  But  he  could  not  afford 
to  sever  the  ties  between  England  and  Holland,  though  the  only  modifica- 
tion he  could  obtain  was  the  admission  to  the  army  of  naturalised  English 
subjects  as  well  as  those  who  were  English  born. 

The  Tories  pushed  their  victory  further  by  demanding  and  obtaining 
an  enquiry  into  the  distribution  of  the  forfeited  lands  in  Ireland.  The 
Whig  ministers  no  longer  found  themselves  leading  the  House,  and 
William  began  to  replace  some  of  them  by  Tories.  The  Irish  Lands  Bill 
is  notable  as  the  first  instance  of  a  device  of  the  Commons  for  evading 
opposition  on  the  part  of  the  Lords,  which  came  to  be  known  as  "  tacking." 
The  bill  was  made  part  of  the  bill  granting  the  Land  Tax.  This  being 
treated  as  a  money  bill,  the  Lords  could  not  amend,  though  they  might 
reject  it ;  and  they  could  not  afford  to  reject  it,  because  to  do  so  in  effect 
meant  the  refusal  of  supplies. 

The  attitude  of  the  parliament  remained  continuously  adverse.  In  the 
winter  of  1699-1700  there  were  direct  attacks  upon  Whig  ministers;  and 
the  general  principles  of  toleration,  to  which  William  and  the  Whigs 
were  committed,  were  assaulted  by  new  measures  directed  against  Roman 
Catholics,  to  which  reference  has  been  made  in  an  earlier  section.  In  effect 
the  penal  code  against  Catholics  was  applied  in  its  main  features  in  England 
as  well  as  in  Ireland.  Its  iniquity  was  only  less  apparent,  because  in 
England  the  papists  were  only  a  small  minority,  whereas  in  Ireland  they 
formed  four-fifths  of  the  population.  The  enquiry  into  the  Irish  lands 
gave  the  Tories  another  handle  against  the  king,  since  the  distribution  of 
the  forfeited  estates  had  been  made  in  clear  violation  of  the  king's  promises 
and  in  the  interest  of  personal  favourites.  Again  the  method  of  tacking 
was  employed  to  force  through  the  House  of  Lords  a  bill  for  the  resump- 
tion of  the  lands  granted  since  the  king's  accession.  The  Lords  attempted 
amendments,  but   the    Commons  took  their  stand  on  a  resolution  of  the 


526  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

Commons  in  1678,  which  declared  that  the  Lords  had  no  power  to  amend 
a  money  bill.  The  Lords  were  now  obliged  to  give  way.  A  still  more 
vigorous  attack  upon  the  Lord  Chancellor  Somers  and  the  king's  foreign 
advisers  was  stopped  only  by  the  prorogation  of  parliament.  At  the  end 
of  the  year  instead  of  being  reassembled  it  was  dissolved  ;  for  a  crisis  had 
arrived  in  foreign  affairs  which  made  William  prefer  the  chances  of  a  new 
parliament  to  another  meeting  with  the  assembly  which  had  proved  so 
hostile. 

England  in  general  cared  little  and  knew  less  about  the  European  prob- 
lem which  absorbed  the  king  of  England.  In  a  vague  fashion  the  people 
were  antagonistic  to  France  ;  also  in  a  vague  fashion  they  suspected  their 
Dutch  monarch  of  caring  more  for  Dutch  than  for  English  interests, 
whereby  there  was  bred  in  them  a  sort  of  reaction  against  the  anti-French 

THE    SPANISH    SUCCESSION 


Anne  of  Austria, 
m.  Louis  XIII. 


Louis  XIV.  =  Maria  Teresa. 


Dauphi 


Burgundy.  Philip  V 

I 
Louis  XV. 


Philip  III. 
I 


I 
Philip  IV. 


I 

Maria, 

m.  Emperor 

Ferdinand  III. 

I 


Charles  II. 
O 


Margaret  =  Emperor  =  (2)  Eleanor 
I  Leopold      of  Neuberg. 


I 

Maria, 

•t.  Maximilian 

of  Bavaria. 

I 

Electoral 

Prince 

Joseph. 


I  I 

Emperor  ArchJuke 

Joseph.  (Emperor) 

Charles  VI, 


sentiment,  which  had  become  active  during  the  peace  following  the  Treaty 
of  Ryswick.  Until  that  treaty  William  had  consistently  pursued  the  single 
policy  of  antagonism  to  France,  but  since  that  date  he  had  rather  taken  the 
line  of  seeking  an  accommodation  with  Louis.  The  European  problem 
was  in  truth  one  with  which  England  had  less  direct  concern  than  any 
other  Power  ;  but  it  was  on  the  point  of  plunging  the  world  into  a  tre- 
mendous struggle,  in  which,  as  it  happened,  England  played  a  very  leading 
part.  England  as  a  matter  of  fact  ultimately  flung  herself  into  the  war 
with  zeal,  not  because  the  country  was  passionately  moved  by  any  abstract 
political  theories  or  any  obvious  interests  at  stake,  but  because  Louis  de- 
liberately stirred  it  to  a  frenzy  of  wrath  against  himself.  Nevertheless  it  is 
necessary  to  seek  to  understand  the  complication  of  dynastic  and  other 
interests  which  brought  the  war  upon  Europe  at  large. 

The  central  question,  then,  was  that  of  the  inheritance  of  the  Spanish 
dominion.  The  senior  branch  of  the  house  of  Hapsburg  ruled  over  that 
dominion,   while   the   junior   branch    was   identified    with   Austria  and  the 


THE    REVOLUTION  527 

headship  of  the  German  Empire.  Spain  and  the  Empire  had  ceased  to  be 
united  under  one  crown  when  Charles  V.  abdicated  in  1556.  Now,  for 
the  past  century,  the  Spanish  crown  had  descended  in  direct  male  Una, 
but  outside  that  actual  hne  the  claim  to  succession  passed  through  the 
daughters  of  the  kings  of  Spain.  For  generations  the  Austrian  Hapsburgs 
had  taken  the  eldest  of  the  Spanish  infantas  as  their  brides.  As  there  was 
no '' Salic  law"  in  Spain,  this  course  would  obviously  secure  the  Spanish 
succession  to  an  Austrian  Hapsburg  whenever  a  king  of  Spain  should  fail 
to  leave  a  male  heir  of  his  body.  But  twice  the  rule  had  been  broken. 
Both  Louis  XIII.  and  Louis  XIV.  had  in  their  day  married  the  eldest 
infanta,  while  the  second  infanta  had  been  the  bride  of  the  Hapsburg. 
But  in  both  cases,  again,  the  Bourbon  marriage,  but  not  the  Hapsburg 
marriage,  had  been  accompanied  by  a  renunciation  of  the  Spanish  suc- 
cession on  the  bride's  part.  Hence  Leopold  of  Austria,  emperor  at  the 
end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  son  of  one  infanta  and  husband  of  another, 
seemed  entitled  to  claim  the  Spanish  succession  whether  for  himself  or  for 
the  offspring  of  his  marriage  if  the  king  of  Spain,  Charles  II.,  should  die 
without  issue. 

But  the  complication  did  not  end  here.  Louis,  on  the  one  hand,  was 
able  to  put  in  a  strong  plea  that  his  own  wife's  renunciation  (though  not 
his  mother's)  was  legally  invalid.  Again,  the  offspring  of  Leopold's 
marriage  had  been  a  daughter,  who  married  the  Elector  of  Bavaria.  But 
Leopold  wanted  the  Spanish  succession  to  pass  to  his  own  second  son  by 
a  later  marriage,  and  therefore  his  daughter  renounced  her  own  claim  on 
condition  that  the  Netherlands  should  be  handed  over  to  her  husband  and 
their  offspring.  This,  again,  was  a  renunciation  which  had  no  legal  validity 
at  all ;  but  it  will  be  seen  that  there  were  thus  three  possible  claimants 
to  the  succession,  since  there  was  no  possibihty  whatever  that  the  king  of 
Spain,  Charles  II.,  would  leave  an  heir  of  his  body.  These  were  Leopold's 
grandson,  the  Electoral  Prince  of  Bavaria — a  child  born  in  1792  ;  Leopold 
himself  or  the  son  whom  he  had  nominated  in  his  own  place,  the  Archduke 
Charles  ;  and  a  grandson  of  Louis  XIV.  Nor  could  the  question  be  settled 
among  them  by  merely  legal  arguments,  technicalities  as  to  the  more  or  less 
questionable  validity  of  particular  renunciations.  The  Spanish  dominion  in- 
cluded not  only  Spain  itself  and  the  American  Empire,  but  also  the  Nether- 
lands, the  kingdom  of  Naples,  and  certain  Italian  duchies.  Europe  could  not 
allow  this  great  dominion  to  become  a  mere  appendage  either  of  France  or 
of  Austria,  although  Spain  itself  would  certainly  be  fiercely  opposed  to  any 
disruption  of  the  Spanish  Empire. 

It  appeared  then  that  here  was  a  matter  for  settlement  by  treaty.  The 
European  balance  would  be  best  served  by  the  accession  of  the  Electoral 
Prince  of  Bavaria  to  the  Spanish  dominion,  and  this  had  the  advantage 
also  that  his  title  seemed  on  the  whole  the  strongest.  But  the  other 
claimants  would  not  withdraw  without  receiving  a  substantial  solatium.  On 
this  basis,  William  and  Louis  on  their  own  account  made  the  first  Partition 


528      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

Treaty.  Austria  and  France  were  to  get  their  solatium  in  Italy,  and  other- 
wise the  Spanish  Empire  was  to  go  to  the  Electoral  Prince.  The  English 
ministers  were  not  consulted,  nor  was  the  matter  brought  before  parliament. 
Ministers  simply  gave  an  unquahfied  assent  to  William's  bargain. 

But  then  the  bargain  itself  was  nullified  by  the  death  of  the  Electoral 
Prince.  William  did  not  want  to  see  the  Spanish  Empire  handed  over  to 
Leopold  of  Austria,  but  still  less  did  he  wish  to  see  it  handed  over  to  Louis 
XIV.  Louis,  however,  was  again  ready  to  make  his  bargain  with  the  mari- 
time Powers,  since  he  did  not  wish  to  fight  for  his  maximum  claims  against 
a  European  coalition.  He  was  moderate  enough,  and  was  prepared  practic- 
ally to  content  himself  Vvith  the  Italian  territories,  leaving  the  rest  to  the 
Archduke  Charles.  On  these  terms  William  and  Louis  came  to  an  agree- 
ment known  as  the  Second  Partition  Treaty ;  but  when  it  was  submitted  to 
Leopold  he  refused  to  accede  to  it. 

This  was  the  situation  at  the  beginning  of  1700  ;  but  it  was  once  more 
turned  upside  down  by  the  action  of  Spain.  The  Spaniards  were  furious 
at  any  scheme  of  partition.  The  dying  King  Charles  made  his  choice 
between  the  Hapsburg  and  the  Bourbon  in  favour  of  the  Bourbon.  He 
named  as  legitimate  heir  to  the  whole  of  his  dominion  Philip,  the  second 
son  of  the  French  Dauphin,  since  it  was ,  recognised  in  Spain  as  well  as 
elsewhere  that  the  actual  crowns  of  Spain  and  France  were  not  to  be 
united.  If  Philip's  elder  brother  should  die  without  heirs  then  the  crown 
of  Spain  was  to  be  transferred  to  his  younger  brother,  and  only  if  he  suc- 
ceeded to  the  French  throne  should  it  pass  to  the  Archduke  Charles,  the 
Hapsburg  claimant.     Having  made  his  will  in  these  terms  Charles  died. 

Now  William  took  for  granted  that  this  will  would  merely  be  used  to 
force  Leopold  into  acceptance  of  the  Partition  Treaty.  To  his  intense  in- 
dignation Louis  immediately  tore  up  the  treaty  and  took  his  stand  upon 
the  will,  claiming  the  entire  Spanish  inheritance  for  his  grandson.  In 
William's  eyes  this  meant  that  for  all  practical  purposes  the  policy  of  the 
Spanish  Empire  would  be  directed  by  Louis  ;  and  that  was  a  consumma- 
tion which  must  be  averted  at  all  costs.  He  could  have  carried  the  Whigs 
with  him,  but  now  the  Tories  were  dominant  ;  therefore  he  dissolved 
parliament.  But  he  apparently  gained  nothing  by  the  dissolution,  for  in  the 
new  parliament  the  Tories  retained  their  preponderance.  It  was  absolutely 
necessary  to  conciliate  the  Tories,  and  to  educate  them  over  to  his  point 
of  view.  Godolphin  returned  to  the  ministry,  which  was  also  joined  by 
Rochester. 

The  first  business  of  the  new  parliament  was  to  secure  the  course  of 
the  succession.  Anne  would  of  course  follow  William  on  the  throne,  but 
the  last  of  her  numerous  children  had  just  died,  and  the  succession  after 
her  had  been  left  indefinite.  Parliament  proceeded  to  pass  the  Act  of 
Settlement,  which  nominated  as  Anne's  heir  the  Electress  Sophia  of  Hanover 
and  her  offspring.  But  the  new  Act  of  Succession  or  Act  of  Settlement 
included  also  a  series  of  clauses  dealing  with   constitutional  matters  which 


THE    REVOLUTION  529 

had  been  left  over  by  the  Bill  of  Rights.  The  king's  dangerous  control  of 
the  courts  and  judges  was  finally  abolished  by  the  enactment  which  made 
judges  irremovable  except  on  an  address  from  both  Houses.  In  view  of 
the  prospect  that  the  throne  of  England  would  be  occupied  by  German 
princes,  it  was  enacted  that  the  sovereign  must  be  not  only  a  Protestant 
but  a  member  of  the  Church  of  England  ;  that  he  must  not  leave  the 
country  without  consent  of  parliament ;  that  England  was  not  to  be  in- 
volved in  war  for  the  defence  of  foreign  territories  ;  and,  finally,  that  only 
English-born  subjects  could  be  admitted  to  parliament,  to  public  oiBces, 
civil  or  military,  or  to  the  Privy  Council.  The  king's  acceptance  of  the 
Act  of  Settlement  had  an  extremely  mollifying  influence,  which  was  shown 
by  the  resolutions  of  the  Commons  promising  their  support  in  his  foreign 
policy. 

But  in  the  meanwhile  Louis  had  been  helping  William  to  convert  the 
country  by  the  openly  aggressive  character  of  his  proceedings  ;  and  the 
popular  conversion  was  hastened  by  the  captious  conduct  of  the  Tories  in 
parliament,  who  seemed  more  intent  upon  impeaching  the  Whig  leaders  than 
on  considering  national  interests.  From  the  county  of  Kent  there  came  a 
petition  which  was  practically  a  censure  of  the  Tory  majority  and  an  expres- 
sion of  confidence  in  the  king.  The  indignant  House  treated  this  as  a 
breach  of  privilege,  and  sent  the  gentlemen  who  had  presented  the  petition 
into  custody  ;  but  this,  to  the  country,  appeared  only  to  be  an  interference 
with  the  right  of  petitioning,  and  a  series  of  addresses  after  the  Kentish 
model  poured  in. 

With  his  hands  thus  strengthened,  and  with  Marlborough,  who  had  at 
last  been  restored  to  his  confidence,  as  his  principal  lieutenant  both  for 
diplomatic  and  for  military  purposes,  William's  negotiations  for  a  new  Grand 
Alliance  progressed  not  unfavourably.  But  once  again  it  was  Louis  who 
deliberately  gave  William  the  one  thing  that  he  most  wanted.  In  September 
James  II.  died  at  St.  Germain.  By  his  deathbed  Louis  pledged  himself  to 
recognise  young  James  Edward  Stuart  as  king  of  England.  James  II.  was 
no  sooner  dead  than  Louis  XIV.  publicly  acknowledged  King  James  III. 
Through  that  act  the  current  of  public  opinion,  already  setting  steadily  in 
William's  favour,  became  a  rushing  tide.  William  seized  his  moment  and 
again  dissolved  the  parliament. 

It  was  true  that  when  the  new  assembly  met  there  was  a  single-figure 
majority  of  nominal  Tories  in  the  Commons,  but  half  the  Tories  themselves 
were  already  converts  as  far  as  the  war  was  concerned.  The  new  House 
not  only  pronounced  it  treason  to  hold  commerce  with  the  prince  who  now 
called  himself  James  III.,  while  outside  the  Jacobite  circles  he  was  known  as 
the  "  Pretender  "  (a  term  properly  applicable  to  any  person  claiming  a  title 
held  de  facto  by  somebody  else) ;  it  also  voted  forty  thousand  men  for  the 
Army  and  the  same  number  for  the  Navy.  A  clause  was  inserted  in  the 
terms  of  the  Grand  Alliance  by  which  the  allies  undertook  to  make  no  treaty 
with  France  until  she  gave  England  satisfaction  on  this  head. 

2   L 


530      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

William's  patience  had  won.  A  great  coalition  had  been  formed  against 
Louis,  in  which  England  had  at  last  become  not  merely  an  auxiliary  but  a 
principal.  But  it  was  left  to  another  to  carry  on  his  work.  William's  health 
had  always  been  feeble,  and  had  constantly  threatened  to  break  down  under 
the  tremendous  strain  of  toil  and  responsibility.  The  shock  of  a  fall  from 
his  horse  and  a  broken  collar-bone  proved  too  much  for  his  wrecked  con- 
stitution. On  March  9,  1702,  Anne,  the  last  of  the  Stuart  sovereigns, 
became  Queen  of  England. 


CHAPTER    XXI 

THE   CENTURY 
I 

COLONIAL   EXPANSION 

When  James  VL  of  Scotland  became  also  James  I.  of  England  his  actual 
dominion  did  not  include  a  single  acre  of  soil  outside  the  British  Isles. 
Ninety-nine  years  later,  when  William  III.  died,  the  whole  of  the  North 
American  seaboard  between  the  French  Acadia  on  the  North  and  the 
Spanish  Florida  on  the  South  was  occupied  by  British  colonists.  Still 
farther  north,  beyond  the  French  Canada,  England  claimed  possession  of 
the  Hudson  Bay  territory  or  Prince  Rupert's  Land.  Also  she  was  in 
possession  of  sundry  islands,  and  the  East  India  Company  had  established 
a  footing  on  the  Indian  Peninsula.  Her  colonial  system  was  in  full  play, 
and  her  Indian  Empire  was  in  the  germ. 

The  conception  of  an  Imperial  England  overseas  had  been  born  in  the 
brains  of  Humphrey  Gilbert  and  Walter  Raleigh  while  the  Virgin  Queen 
still  sat  on  the  throne  of  England  and  the  world  still  counted  Spain,  which 
had  annexed  the  Portuguese  Empire,  mistress  of  the  seas.  But  Raleigh's 
attempts  to  found  the  colony  which  he  called  Virginia  had  failed  woefully. 
The  Elizabethans  were  still  too  eager  in  the  pursuit  of  short  cuts  to  wealth. 
Those  who  were  venturesome  preferred  preying  upon  Spanish  galleons  to 
settling  down  to  a  toilsome  battle  with  nature  in  new  lands  which  produced 
no  gold  nor  silver  nor  precious  stones.  But,  as  in  ancient  days,  the  Dane, 
baulked  of  his  robbing  propensities,  sought  to  satisfy  his  greed  of  gain  by 
commerce,  the  Englishman,  when  he  could  no  longer  spoil  the  Spaniard, 
bethought  himself  of  turning  the  New  World  to  commercial  account. 

In  1606  a  commercial  company  was  formed,  which  procured  a  charter 
for  the  colonisation  of  Virginia ;  for,  after  a  vague  fashion,  England  had 
asserted  a  claim  to  the  territories  which  lay  north  of  the  Spanish  posses- 
sions. The  company  was  granted  what  were  practically  sovereign  rights 
over  a  vast  and  undefined  region  (subject  to  the  English  crown).  The 
company's  settlement  at  Jamestown  formed  the  nucleus  of  the  colony  of 
Virginia.  Here  there  was  no  native  empire  to  be  subdued,  such  as  the 
Spaniards  had  found  in  Mexico  and  Peru,  or  such  as  that  which  dominated 
India.     The  native  tribes  were  elevated  only  a  degree  above  barbarism; 

531 


532      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

they  knew  no  cities,  were  still  half  nomadic,  and  had  no  political  organisa- 
tion higher  than  that  of  the  tribe.  But  such  an  experiment  as  this  of  the 
English  had  no  precedent  in  the  world's  history.  The  Greeks  had  planted 
city  states  on  the  Mediterranean  shores  among  peoples  for  the  most  part 
akin  to  themselves  or  already  possessing  an  elaborate  civilisation.  The 
Romans  had  not  colonised  but  had  planted  garrisons.  The  Spaniard 
treated  his  conquests  in  America  as  estates  of  the  Crown  occupied  by  garri- 
sons who  exploited  the  mineral 
wealth  of  the  land  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Crown.  But  the 
Englishman  went  out  to  make 
for  himself  a  new  home  in  a 
new  land,  to  acquire  com- 
/6^^^^^^^^r  -.^a^t  ^^  ^^\       petence     or     wealth     by     the 

/jLjilIll^MEl"'."?]- "  ^'  \^M.  ^rit^y\      methods   with    which    he    was 

familiar  in  the  old  home  ;  and 
he  carried  with  him  his  tradi- 
tional ideas  of  liberty  and  self- 
government. 

The  first  settlers  narrowly 
escaped  the  fate  of  Raleigh's 
colonists.  But  for  the  vigour 
and  abilities  of  one  of  their 
leaders,  Captain  John  Smith, 
they  would  have  been  wiped 
out  in  their  collisions  with  the 
native  Red  Indians,  so  named 
because  it  was  still  believed 
that  the  New  World  was  a 
portion  of  the  Indies.  Ex- 
perience was  needed  to  teach 
the  practical  principle  that  the 
colony  would  best  serve  the 
commercial  objects  of  its  founders  if  the  colonists  were  left  in  the  main  to 
manage  their  own  affairs  with  the  minimum  of  interference  from  home. 
In  1623  the  colonists  were  granted  a  constitution  which  vested  the  govern- 
ment in  the  hands  of  a  nominated  Governor  and  Council  and  an  elected 
Assembly  of "  burgesses."  The  business  of  the  colony  was  not  merely  to  be 
self-supporting,  but  to  develop  the  products  of  the  country  suitable  for 
export,  notably  tobacco,  in  exchange  mainly  for  manufactured  goods.  A 
large  proportion  of  the  settlers  were  younger  sons  of  the  English  gentry, 
of  the  landowning  class,  Church  of  England  men,  of  the  type  which  was 
presently  to  recruit  the  ranks  of  the  Cavaliers.  The  climatic  conditions 
and  the  character  of  the  work  to  be  done  favoured  the  employment  of 
slave   labour    and   the   importation    of  negro   slaves   began   in    1620,   to   be 


[Fr 


John  Smith  at  37. 
'General  History  of  Virginia," 


1624.] 


THE   CENTURY  533 

supplemented  afterwards  by  criminals  or  quasi-criminals,  who  were  trans- 
ported to  the  plantations  as  slaves  for  a  term  of  years. 

The  enterprise  of  the  Virginia  Company  was  followed  by  one  of  an 
altogether  different  type,  when  a  group  of  Nonconformists  sailed  in  the 
Mayflower  from  Plymouth  in  1620  and  founded  the  first  of  the  New 
England  Colonies.  The  motive  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  was  to  find  new  soil 
where  they  might  follow  religion  after  their  own  fashion,  and  they  were 
followed  by  others  like-minded  with  themselves,  although  these  Northern 
Colonies  were  divided,  like  the  Puritans  at  home,  between  those  which  were 
rigidly  Presbyterian  and  those  which  favoured  Independency  and  toleration. 
Here  the  conditions  approximated  more  nearly  to  those  of  the  English 
agricultural  districts  and  towns.  They  drew  to  them  Puritan  gentry, 
burghers,  and  yeomen.  There  was  no  demand  for  slave  labour,  nor  did  the 
soil  grow  products  for  export  as  in  the  South  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  settlers  were  very  much  less  dependent  on  manufactured  goods  from 
the  Old  World. 

Romanists  as  well  as  Puritans  were  allowed  to  seek  free  exercise  of 
their  religion  in  the  New  World ;  and  the  primarily  Romanist  colony  of 
Maryland  was  also  of  necessity  tolerationist.  This  group,  however,  was 
much  more  nearly  akin  to  the  landowning  classes  of  the  South  in  origin 
than  to  the  Puritans  of  the  North,  and  planted  itself  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Virginia  as  the  second  plantation  colony,  not  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  New  England  group.  As  a  natural  consequence  the  New  Englanders 
were  entirely  in  sympathy  with  the  Roundheads  when  the  Civil  War  broke 
out,  while  Cavalier  sentiment  prevailed  in  the  plantation  colonies  which 
gave  some  trouble  to  the  Commonwealth  government.  Meanwhile  the 
English  flag  had  already  been  set  up  in  the  Bermudas  and  the  Bahamas,  and 
in  Cromwell's  time  the  almost  accidental  seizure  of  Jamaica  established 
England  beside  Spain  in  the  West  Indies. 

The  habitual  procedure  on  the  creation  of  colonies  was  for  a  company 
or  an  individual  to  procure  from  the  Crown  a  charter  conveying  the  pos- 
session of  certain  territories  upon  conditions.  Privileges  were  conceded, 
but  rights  were  reserved  to  the  Crown.  There  was  no  theory  that  the 
colony  was  a  free  state ;  it  was  a  community  to  which  permission  was  given 
to  settle  itself  and  to  go  its  own  way,  provided  that  its  specific  interests 
were  always  recognised  as  subordinate  to  those  of  the  mother  country. 
The  powers  of  self-government  varied  according  to  circumstances ;  that  is, 
the  powers  of  the  elected  Assembly,  as  compared  with  those  of  the 
Governor  and  Council,  differed,  mainly  according  to  the  nature  of  the  body 
to  whom  the  original  charter  was  granted. 

On  the  North  beyond  the  St.  Lawrence  the  French  made  their  province 
of  Canada.  The  regions  between  the  St.  Lawrence  and  New  England 
were  appropriated  under  James  I.,  and  named  Nova  Scotia  in  order  to  pro- 
vide colonising  ground  for  the  Scots.  But  the  ground  was  inadequately 
occupied,  and  was  claimed  and  colonised  by  the  French  under  the  name  of 


534  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

Acadia,  More  than  once,  during  the  Anglo-French  wars,  the  theoretical 
sovereignty  changed  hands  ;  but  it  was  not  till  17 13  that  the  country  was 
finally  ceded  to  Great  Britain.  We  have  already  observed  that  the  Dutch 
at  one  time  thrust  in  a  wedgo  between  the  northern  and  the  southern 
colonies  of  the  English,  and  the  continuity  of  the  British  seaboard  from 
North  to  South  was  only  completed  with  the  cession  of  the  Dutch  colony 
at  the  Treaty  of  Breda. 

Pennsylvania  was  a  colony  created  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  at  the 
instance  of  the  Quaker  WilHam  Penn.  This,  too,  was  intended  to  provide 
a  home  for  the  persecuted  members  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  though  under 
conditions  which  required  a  general  toleration.  The  Carolinas  were  an 
earlier  product  of  the  Restoration  ;  both  Clarendon  and  Ashley  were  in 
the  small  group  of  the  original  "  Proprietors." 

As  a  general  rule  the  English  government  itself  intervened  very  little 
in  the  affairs  of  the  colonies.  Under  the  Commonwealth  Navigation,,  Act 
no  difference  was  made  between  them  and  England  itself.  English,  Scot- 
tish, Irish,  and  Colonial  shipping  were  all  on  precisely  the  same  footing. 
The  Commonwealth  was  Imperialist  in  refusing  to  differentiate  between 
different  portions  of  the  Empire,  just  as  it  sought  for  unification  by  uniting 
the  parliaments  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland  at  Westminster.  But 
with  the  Restoration  the  Particularists  prevailed.  The  united  parliament 
was  dissolved,  and  the  English  parliament  became  exceedingly  English  ; 
that  is,  it  sought  the  interests  of  England,  however  detrimental  they  might 
be  to  other  portions  of  the  Empire.  The  effects  were  felt  by  the  colonies  ; 
for  the  Navigation  Act  at  the  Restoration  imposed  restrictions  upon  colonial 
commerce  for  the  benefit  of  English  merchants.  Colonial  ships,  it  is  true, 
counted  as  English  ships ;  they  could  participate  in  the  carrying  trade. 
But  no  goods  could  be  imported  to  the  colonies  except  from  an  English 
port,  nor  might  colonial  goods  be  exported  except  in  the  first  instance 
to  an  English  port.  This  did  not  of  course  interfere  with  the  trade  be- 
tween England  herself  and  her  colonies ;  but  it  required  colonial  commerce 
with  all  other  countries,  including  Scotland  and  Ireland,  to  take  England 
en  route.  Protectionist  principles  were  presently  carried  still  further, 
and  the  colonists  were  forbidden  to  export  or  even  to  manufacture  goods 
which  could  compete  in  the  market  with  English  products. 


II 

THE   TRADING   COMPANIES 

The  reign  of  Elizabeth  saw  the  close  of  the  long  period  of  agricultural 
depression  brought  about  largely  by  the  conversion  of  tillage  into  pasture. 
That  process  ceased  when  the  stage  had  been  reached  at  which  the  profits 
of  growing  wool  and  of  growing  corn  had  become  equalised.      Something 


THE   CENTURY  535 

was  contributed  to  this  end  by  the  introduction  of  convertible  husbandry, 
which  increased  the  profits  of  tillage.  Otherwise,  however,  there  were 
no  great  improvements  in  the  methods  of  farming  ;  enterprise  on  the  part 
of  the  greater  landholders  was  checked  by  the  civil  broils.  But  two 
features  of  the  period  had  a  specially  favourable  effect  on  the  rural  popu- 
lation. The  Elizabethan  Poor  Law  to  a  very  great  extent  served  the 
purpose  with  which  it  had  been  enacted,  of  providing  relief  for  honest 
destitution  and  at  the  same  time  discouraging  wilful  idleness  and  vagabond- 
age. But  besides  this  the  substitution  of  the  system  of  industrial  regu- 
lation under  the  Statute  of  Apprentices  for  the  old  gild  system  made 
itself  felt.  It  provided  those  whose  substantive  employment  was  agricul- 
tural labour  with  supplementary  means  of  livelihood,  because  it  allowed 
spinning  to  become  a  general  cottage  industry,  while  in  many  cases  the 
farmer  added  weaving  to  his  other  employments.  The  Civil  War  was 
inevitably  destructive,  but  its  effects  were  hardly  so  injurious  in  England 
as  those  of  the  partisan  struggles  in  France,  and  were  in  no  way  com- 
parable to  the  disastrous  results  produced  in  Germany  by  the  Thirty 
Years'  War.  The  general  prosperity,  in  short,  compared  favourably  with 
that  of  other  nations ;  and  a  further  impulse  was  given  to  industrial 
development  when  the  persecuting  policy  of  Louis  XIV.  drove  the  highly 
skilled  industrial  population  out  of  France  and  to  a  very  great  extent 
into  England.  The  employments  in  which  the  expelled  Huguenots  ex- 
celled were  not  such  as  in  the  main  brought  them  into  direct  competition 
with  the  English  trades  ;  a  colony  of  silk-weavers  was  established  at 
Spitalfields  without  arousing  native  hostility.  Coming  immediately  before 
the  Revolution,  at  a  moment  when  Englishmen  were  particularly  ready 
to  sympathise  with  persecuted  Protestants,  and  when  ideas  of  toleration 
were  gaining  ground,  the  French  king's  victims  were  sympathetically 
welcomed,  and  new  industries  were  planted  which  soon  became  thoroughly 
acclimatised. 

The  great  development  of  the  period,  however,  was  commercial  rather 
than  industrial,  and  the  main  agencies  by  means  of  which  the  commercial 
extension  was  effected  were  the  chartered  companies  of  merchants  which 
began  to  multiply  in  the  later  years  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 

The  general  principle  applied  to  these  companies  was  one  which  had 
long  been  familiar  in  the  cases  of  the  Merchants  of  the  Staple  and  the 
Merchant  Adventurers.  A  charter  was  given  to  an  association  of  merchants 
conveying  to  them  exclusive  rights  of  trading  in  particular  fields,  with 
jurisdiction  over  their  own  members  and  large  powers  of  independent 
action.  During  the  sixteenth  century  the  members  of  such  companies 
traded  on  their  own  account  as  individuals,  but  were  bound  to  obey  the 
company's  regulations.  In  the  seventeenth  century  there  came  a  new 
development  which  was  in  effect  initiated  by  the  East  India  Company, 
which  had  first  received  its  charter  on  December  31st,  1600.  At  a  quite 
early  stage  of  its  career  this  association  converted  itself  into  a  joint-stock 


536      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

company  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  members  ceased  to  trade  as  individuals  ;  the 
company  traded  as  a  unit,  distributing  the  profits  of  the  trade  among  its 
members.  The  actual  trading  was  done  by  the  agents  or  servants  of  the 
company.  Thus  in  what  were  called  the  Regulated  Companies  the  associates 
were  actually  individual  traders,  trading  under  the  guarantees  of  the  whole 
body  and  bound  by  its  regulations.  In  iho.  Joint- Stock  Companies  the  associates 
became  simply  shareholders,  participating  in  the  profits  of  the  trade  carried 
on  by  the  company  as  a  whole,  while  they  themselves  only  controlled  that 
trade  in  so  far  as  they  could  control  the  election  of  the  Board  of  Directors. 

Practically  the  whole  of  the  trading  with  remote,  barbarous,  or  semi- 
barbarous  countries  was  appropriated  to  the  companies,  regulated  or  joint- 
stock  ;  for,  as  we  have  seen,  the  permanent  communities  or  colonies  over- 
seas were  also  planted  in  the  first  instance  by  chartered  companies.  The 
principle  was  obvious.  In  remote  regions  the  Home  Government  could 
not  undertake  police  business  ;  the  trader  must  be  left  to  protect  himself 
not  only  against  avowed  pirates  but  against  foreign  rivals.  He  could  not 
efficiently  protect  himself  if  his  own  countrymen  were  behaving  in  a  law- 
less fashion.  He  could  not  make  terms  for  himself  and  his  countrymen 
with  native  potentates  if  others  of  his  countrymen  were  not  legally  bound 
by  those  terms.  Hence  it  was  necessary  to  give  to  the  company  exclusive 
rights  of  trading  and  an  indisputable  authority  over  traders. 

In  the  importance  ultimately  achieved  by  their  operations  none  of  the 
great  associations  can  be  compared  with  the  East  India  Company.  For  a 
century  after  the  company  received  its  first  charter  the  great  Mogul  Empire 
in  India  was  at  the  height  of  its  splendour  and  power.  The  Moguls  ruled 
unchallenged  over  all  Northern  India,  though  they  had  not  brought  the 
great  kingdoms  of  the  South  into  actual  subjection.  No  one  dreamed  of  a 
conquest  of  India  like  the  Spanish  conquests  of  Mexico  and  Peru.  But, 
broadly  speaking,  the  effect  of  the  maritime  rivalry  now  developing  between 
Dutch  and  English — for  the  old  Portuguese  supremacy  in  the  Eastern 
waters  had  already  perished — was  to  make  the  Spice  Islands  on  the  South- 
East  the  Dutch  sphere,  while  the  English  devoted  themselves  rather  to  the 
Indian  Peninsula  itself.  The  first  footing  was  gained  in  1612  when  the 
British  company  was  permitted  to  set  up  a  trading  establishment  (called  a 
"factory")  at  Surat  on  the  western  coast.  A  second  factory  was  conceded 
on  the  south-east  coast  at  Madras,  where  the  English  quarter  was  known  as 
Fort  St.  George.  This  was  in  1639.  The  third,  at  Hugli  on  the  Ganges 
delta,  was  granted  in  1650  ;  and  this  was  afterwards  shifted  to  Calcutta. 
The  marriage  of  Charles  II.  to  Catherine  of  Braganza  brought,  as  a  portion 
of  the  dower,  the  Portuguese  possession  of  Bombay,  which  was  transferred 
by  the  Crown  to  the  East  India  Company,  and  took  the  position  formerly 
occupied  by  Surat.  The  three  factories  at  Bombay,  Madras,  and  Hugli 
were  the  centres  from  which  the  three  British  Presidencies  ultimately 
expanded  ;  but  the  company  were  merely  tenants,  not  owners,  except  iu 
the  one  case  of  Bombay. 


THE   CENTURY  537 

During  the  last  third  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  French  entered  the 
field  as  rivals  of  the  English  and  Dutch.  This  was  the  era  in  which,  under 
the  influence  of  Colbert,  France  developed  her  greatest  maritime  energy, 
and  the  French  East  India  Company  was  started  in  1664.  Hence  in  the 
ensuing  century  the  French,  not  the  Dutch,  were  the  rivals  who  attempted 
to  monopolise  the  Indian  trade  and  dreamed  of  a  European  ascendency  in 
India  ;  it  was  the  French  whose  defeat  gave  to  the  British  the  ascendency 
which  was  gradually  to  expand  into  Empire. 


The  old  East  India  House. 
[Drawn  from  an  old  print  by  Herbert  Railton.] 


But  even  in  the  seventeenth  century  there  were  Englishmen  in  India 
who  were  conscious  of  the  instability  of  the  Mogul  Empire  ;  and  a  French 
observer  expressed  his  own  belief  that  a  Turenne  with  twelve  thousand  men 
could  conquer  India.  As  a  matter  of  fact  that  was  very  nearly  what  had 
been  done  by  Babar,  the  founder  of  the  Mogul  Empire,  when  Henry  VIII. 
was  reigning  in  England.  English  governors,  prem.aturely  contemptuous 
of  an  empire  which  was  as  yet  only  on  the  verge  of  utter  disintegration, 
ventured  to  levy  war  in  support  of  their  demand  for  the  redress  of  griev- 
ances. The  English  factories  would  have  been  wiped  off  the  face  of  India 
if  the  Emperor  Aurangzib  had  not  feared  that  English  ships  would  cut  off 
his  faithful  Mohammedan  subjects  from  the  pilgrimages  to  Mecca  by  which 


538      THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

he  and  they  set  great  store.  This,  not  fear  of  Enghsh  arms,  induced  tlie 
Mogul  to  deal  magnanimously  with  the  English,  and  to  reinstate  them  at 
Calcutta  after  the  Hugh  factory  had  been  destroyed. 

But  the  East  India  Company  had  other  vicissitudes  to  pass  through  be- 
sides Dutch  and  French  rivalry  and  quarrels  with  the  native  powers.  Their 
monopoly  was  a  grievance.  Enterprising  English  merchants  objected  al- 
together to  the  principle  of  the  joint-stock  company ;  they  wanted  to 
trade  for  themselves,  and  to  secure  for  themselves  the  profits  of  their  own 
enterprise  and  energy.  They  wanted  Free  Trade  for  the  individual,  and 
they  struggled  hard  to  break  down  the  company's  monopoly.  The  Com- 
monwealth government  inclined  to  favour  the  view  of  the  "  interlopers," 
as  they  were  called,  and  to  treat  their  independent  trading  as  legitimate. 
Cromwell,  however,  resisted  the  temptation  to  allow  a  rival  company  to  set 
itself  up.  The  view  prevailed  not  that  monopoly  was  in  itself  a  thing  de- 
sirable, but  that  under  existing  conditions  it  was  a  necessity.  Only  a  mono- 
polist company  would  be  able  to  exercise  the  sovereign  functions  which 
were  required  in  dealing  with  native  powers  and  foreign  rivals. 

The  theory  found  justification  in  the  reign  of  William  III.,  when  a  rival 
company  was  actually  established  under  Whig  auspices,  the  old  company 
being  associated  with  the  Tories.  This  was  in  1698.  The  Exchequer  was 
in  need  of  money.  The  company  offered  nearly  three-quarters  of  a 
million  to  have  its  charter  confirmed  by  parliament.  The  interlopers  were 
ready  to  provide  two  millions  if  the  subscribers  were  given  the  exclusive 
trade  for  thirteen  years.  The  second  offer  was  accepted,  while  the  old 
company  was  allowed  three  years'  grace  to  wind  up  its  affairs.  Before  the 
three  years  were  up  a  Tory  parliament  confirmed  the  old  company's 
charter.  The  battle  between  the  companies  was  so  obviously  and  immedi- 
ately disastrous  to  both  that  in  a  very  short  time  they  were  negotiating  for 
a  union  ;  and  in  the  last  days  of  170 1  they  were  incorporated  as  a  single 
company  whose  monopoly  remained  unchallenged  for  a  century. 

The  accepted  commercial  doctrine  of  the  day  was  what  is  called  the 
Mercantile  Theory.  It  was  the  business  of  the  State  to  direct  commerce 
and  industry  into  the  channels  which  were  regarded  as  best  for  the  national 
welfare  ;  the  theory  of  free  competition  was  unheard  of.  The  East  India 
Company  itself  had  much  ado  to  preserve  its  existence,  apart  from  the 
difficulties  already  referred  to,  because  there  was  a  very  general  belief  that 
the  East  India  trade  was  bad  for  the  country,  although  highly  profitable  to 
the  traders.  The  argument  was  that  India  did  not  buy  English  goods, 
while  England  bought  Indian  goods.  Therefore  what  took  place  was  an 
exchange  of  English  gold  for  Indian  goods,  whereby  England  was  drained 
of  bullion.  It  was  the  universally  accepted  theory  that  a  trade  which  took 
money  out  of  the  country  was  bad  for  the  country.  It  was  left  for  a  later 
age  to  demonstrate  that  in  the  whole  field  of  trade  the  balance  adjusted 
itself  automatically.  The  advocates  for  the  company  won  its  case  with  the 
public  by  the  argument    that  although   gold   went  out  of  the   country  to 


THE   CENTURY  539 

India  a  large  proportion  of  the  goods  for  which  it  was  exchanged  were  re- 
exported and  exchanged  again  for  gold  at  greatly  enhanced  prices,  so  that 
the  net  outcome  of  the  Indian  trade  was  an  actual  addition  to  the  amount 
of  gold  in  the  country. 

On  another  side  Protectionism  and  Retaliation  both  followed  in  prac- 
tice upon  the  mercantile  theory.  It  was  good  to  foster  each  English  in- 
dustry, good  to  damage  the  industry  of  any  neighbour  who  might  become 
hostile,  and  good  to  damage  any  specific  foreign  industry  which  might  com- 
pete with  an  English  one.  The  influence  of  the  mercantile  community  in 
parliament  caused  those  principles  to  be  applied  not  only  to  the  countries 
of  Europe  but  to  Scotland,  Ireland,  and  the  colonies.  Scotland  could  be 
dealt  with  only  by  tariffs,  but  Ireland  and  the  colonies  were  subject  to 
direct  legislation  from  Westminster.  The  colonies  probably  did  not  suffer 
very  greatly,  for  the  simple  reason  that,  if  there  had  been  no  legislation  at 
all,  there  would  still  only  have  been  a  very  small  market  for  such  of  their 
goods  as  came  in  competition  with  those  of  England.  It  was  not  so  with 
Ireland,  where  the  growing  of  wool  was  deliberately  suppressed.  Virtually 
the  only  industry  permitted  in  that  country,  apart  from  agriculture,  was  the 
linen  manufacture  (vigorously  encouraged  by  Strafford),  which  never  became 
acclimatised  in  England  ;  and  this  was  not  the  least  of  the  reasons  which 
kept  Ireland  in  a  miserable  state  of  economic  depression. 

Scotland,  on  the  other  hand,  though  it  had  gained  economically  by  the 
commercial  and  political  union  under  the  Commonwealth,  had  not  yet  come 
to  regard  such  commercial  advantages  as  an  equivalent  for  the  loss  of 
political  independence.  With  the  Restoration  she  reverted  to  the  position 
of  a  foreign  state.  Her  competing  goods  were  shut  out  from  the  English 
market,  and  she  was  excluded  from  the  benefits  which  English  shippers 
derived  from  the  Navigation  Act.  Although  she  was  too  poor  to  challenge 
the  great  English  monopolies  successfully  on  her  own  account,  she 
attempted  to  do  so,  most  conspicuously  in  the  disastrous  Darien  Scheme. 
The  Darien  Company  was  formed  to  establish  on  the  Isthmus  of  Darien  a 
trading  centre  which  was  to  rival  the  East  India  Company.  The  scheme 
failed  to  find  financial  support  outside  of  Scotland  itself,  where  it  was  taken 
up  with  unreasoning  passion.  The  inevitable  failure  was  attributed  to  the 
machinations  of  the  English  mercantile  community  and  the  political  pres- 
sure brought  to  bear  upon  foreign  communities  by  William  acting  under 
their  influence.  The  collapse  of  the  Darien  Scheme  and  the  widespread 
ruin  it  involved  were  turned  to  account,  like  the  Massacre  of  Glencoe,  to 
intensify  anti-English  sentiment,  though  there  were  level-headed  Scots 
who  saw  in  it  rather  a  strong  argument  for  a  Legislative  Union  with 
England  which  should  make  the  two  countries  commercially  equal. 


540  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTUPvY 


III 

NATIONAL  FINANCE 

The  system  of  national  finance  occupies  a  prominent  position  in  the 
history  of  the  seventeenth  century,  since  for  some  three-fourths  of  the 
period  it  is  a  primary  factor  in  the  relations  between  the  Crown  and  the 
parliament.  It  is  at  the  very  root  of  the  constitutional  struggle  ;  not 
because  the  people  were  afraid  of  being  tyrannically  taxed  beyond  endur- 
ance, not  because  they  grudged  money  for  public  purposes,  but  because 
they  recognised  that  the  control  of  the  purse  ultimately  entails  the  control 
of  policy.  But  since  this  constitutional  struggle  is  itself  the  leading  feature 
of  the  period  to  a  much  greater  extent  than  at  any  other  time  in  our 
history,  national  finance  in  its  connection  with  that  struggle  has  already 
been  dealt  with  and  requires  little  further  elucidation.  In  effect  the  out- 
come of  the  long  fight  was  that  the  Restoration  separated  the  personal  in- 
come of  the  king  from  the  public  revenue  of  the  kingdom  which  had 
hitherto  been  identified  with  it.  The  regular  revenue  was  appropriated  to 
particular  objects,  while  for  all  other  objects  additional  revenue  had  to  be 
voted  by  parliament  ;  and  in  the  course  of  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  the 
principle  was  finally  laid  down  of  appropriating  the  expenditure  to  the 
specific  object  for  which  the  supplies  had  been  granted. 

Except  in  one  particular  the  sources  of  supply  remained  the  same  as 
in  the  past.  The  parliamentary  votes  were  concerned  mainly  with  the 
"subsidies,"  to  which  each  locality  was  called  upon  to  contribute  in  pro- 
portions fixed  by  an  exceedingly  antiquated  assessment.  Variations  in  the 
duties  at  the  ports  were  controlled  not  by  the  desire  to  increase  revenue 
from  that  source,  but  to  encourage  or  discourage  particular  trades.  The 
one  new  source  of  revenue  was  the  invention  of  the  Long  Parliament,  or, 
more  accurately,  was  borrowed  by  them  from  the  Dutch,  This  was  the 
excise,  a  tax  primarily  imposed  upon  the  home  production  of  alcoholic 
liquors.  Unpopular  as  this  novel  tax  was,  it  was  too  productive  to  be 
given  up,  although  there  was  no  further  extension  of  its  principles. 

But  revenue  had  hitherto  been  provided  on  what  may  be  called  ready- 
money  principles,  on  the  hypothesis  that  the  year's  expenditure  was  to  be 
met  out  of  the  year's  revenue.  Kings  in  the  past  had  occasionally  run 
heavily  into  debt,  sometimes  with  disastrous  results  for  the  lenders,  as  in 
the  case  of  Edward  III.  and  Henry  VII I.,  who  met  their  difficulties  by  re- 
pudiating their  obligations.  But  in  general  the  Treasury  borrowed  only  to 
meet  the  immediate  expenditure  which  could  not  await  the  collection  of  the 
revenue  ;  when  the  revenue  was  collected  the  debts  thus  incurred  were 
paid.  In  the  days  of  the  early  Plantagenets  the  principal  lenders  had  been 
the  Jews  ;   when  the  Jews  were  expelled  from  England  the  kings  borrowed 


THE   CENTURY  541 

chiefly  from  the  Lombards,  at  a  later  stage  from  the  Germans,  and 
then,  with  the  great  development  of  English  wealth,  from  the  London 
merchants  and  especially  the  goldsmiths.  But  the  risks  which  still  attended 
this  method  were  demonstrated  by  the  Stop  of  the  Exchequer  in  1672, 
when  the  Government  suspended  repayment  to  the  goldsmiths. 

The  Crown  in  the  past  had  supplemented  its  revenues,  much  to  the 
disgust  of  the  general  public,  by  the  sale  of  monopolies.  Private  mono- 
polies were  abolished  before  the  Civil  War,  but  the  monopolies  of  the  great 
companies  were  increasingly  valuable  sources  of  revenue.  Thus  we  have 
seen  the  Government  in  1698 
obtaining  a  couple  of  millions 
as  the  price  for  bestowing  a 
monopoly  on  the  new  East 
India  Company.  Here,  we 
may  remark  in  passing,  lies  a 
striking  difference  between  the 
English  enterprises  of  this 
kind  and  those  of  France.  The 
English  company  bought  its 
privileges  from  the  govern- 
ment by  substantial  subsidies  ; 
the  French  company  was  a 
creation  of  the  government, 
not  of  private  enterprise,  and 
was  run  by  the  government 
generally  at  a  loss. 

But,  in  fact,  England  had 
entered  upon  a  period  of  foreign  wars,  whose  expenses  the  normal  sources 
of  revenue  were  not  capable  of  meeting.  The  vigorous  and  impressive 
foreign  policy  of  the  Commonwealth  had  almost  reduced  it  to  bankruptcy. 
After  the  Restoration,  the  Dutch  war,  coupled  with  the  gross  misuse  of 
the  public  funds,  had  so  emptied  the  Treasury  in  1667  that  half  the  English 
fleet  had  to  be  laid  up,  and  the  Dutch  sailed  up  the  Medway.  The 
determination  to  embark  on  another  Dutch  war  brought  about  the  Stop  of 
the  Exchequer  in  1672.  And  when  the  Revolution  sucked  England  into  the 
vortex  of  the  European  complications,  it  became  increasingly  impossible  to 
meet  the  heavy  demands  for  military  and  naval  purposes  out  of  an  annual 
revenue  derived  from  the  established  sources. 

The  first  remedy  that  presented  itself  was  a  revision  of  the  old  assess- 
ment of  the  land  and  property  tax,  which  had  become  translated  into  the 
subsidy  of  £'jo,ooo.  As  matters  stood  the  relative  taxable  capacity  of  the 
different  areas  had  changed  enormously  since  the  old  assessment.  Poor 
areas  had  become  wealthy  and  wealthy  areas  had  become  poor.  A  formerly 
rich  area  which  had  become  poor  still  paid  its  old  proportion,  and  therefore 
reached  the  limit  of  endurance  much  sooner  than  a  stationary  area,  while  a 


A  first-rate  man  of  war  of  1680. 
[From  a  print.  ] 


542  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

poor  district  which  had  become  rich  was  still  only  lightly  burdened.  The 
limit  of  taxing  was  set  by  the  paying  capacity  of  the  most  heavily  burdened 
of  these  three  groups.  A  redistribution  of  the  burden  under  a  new  assess- 
ment would  obviously  enable  a  much  larger  revenue  to  be  collected  without 
hardship.  So  in  1692  a  new  assessment  was  made,  under  which  it  was 
estimated  that  a  tax  of  one  shilHng  in  the  pound  would  produce  approxi- 
mately half  a  million.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  burden  fell  almost  entirely 
upon  the  land,  owing  to  the  extreme  difficulty  of  arriving  at  any  tolerable 


The  old  Mercer's  Hall,  where  the  Bank  of  England  was  first  established. 


assessment  of  the  value  of  other  kinds  of  property.     From  this  time  forward 
the  land  tax  became  the  main  source  of  revenue. 

But  even  when  the  land  tax  was  as  high  as  four  shillings  in  the  pound, 
when  it  produced  a  couple  of  millions,  war  expenditure  outran  the  annual 
revenue.  The  land  tax  of  four  shillings  in  1692  provided  a  million  less 
than  was  required.  The  solution  of  the  problem  was  found  by  Charles 
Montague,  afterwards  Lord  Halifax,  in  the  creation  of  the  National  Debt. 
A  loan  of  a  million  was  invited,  but  the  lenders,  instead  of  being  paid  off  at 
an  early  date,  were  to  receive  life  annuities.  Thus  the  annuity  would  be  an 
annual  charge  on  the  Exchequer,  steadily  diminishing  as  the  annuitants 
died  off.  Two  years  later  the  principle  of  borrowing  was  further  extended 
by  the  creation  of  the   Hank   of  Kngland.     The  Government  called  for  a 


THE    CENTURY  543 

loan  of  a  million  and  a  quarter.  Interest  was  guaranteed  on  the  amount, 
and  was  secured  on  an  increase  in  the  Customs.  From  the  subscriber's  point 
of  view  the  subscription  was  simply  an  investment.  He  was  certain  of  his 
interest,  and  if  he  wanted  to  recover  his  principal,  he  would  have  no  diffi- 
culty in  finding  some  one  else  willing  to  take  his  place.  The  subscribers 
were  incorporated  as  the  Bank  of  England,  a  company  whose  business  was 
not  commercial  but  exclusively  financial.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  the 
creation  of  the  National  Debt  provided  a  powerful  guarantee  against  the 
development  of  Jacobitism.  The  commercial  classes,  from  whom  most  of 
the  money  was  borrowed,  inevitably  felt  that  a  Jacobite  restoration  might 
mean  a  repudiation  of  the  National  Debt.  That  fear  kept  the  solid  mass  of 
vested  interests  on  the  side  of  the  Protestant  succession,  and  tended  to  keep 
it  on  the  side  of  the  Whigs,  because  the  Whigs  were  more  decisively  bound 
to  the  Protestant  succession  than  were  the  Tories,  although  the  bulk  of  the 
Tories  were  by  no  means  Jacobites. 

The  real  ease  with  which  the  country  was  able  to  bear  an  enormous 
financial  strain  without  suffering  was  further  demonstrated  by  the  reform  of 
the  currency  in  1696.  The  coinage  had  been  deliberately  and  shamelessly 
debased  in  the  twenty  years  preceding  the  reign  of  Elizabeth.  Its  restora- 
tion had  been  one  of  that  queen's  first  measures  ;  and  since  that  time  the 
standard  of  the  coins  issued  from  the  Mint  had  been  maintained.  But  the 
coin  in  circulation  had  been  clipped  and  defaced  till  most  of  it  was  very 
much  below  the  face  value.  According  to  the  recognised  law,  it  was  the 
debased  coins  that  remained  in  regular  circulation.  The  effect  on  foreign 
exchange  was  disastrous,  and  trade  was  hampered.  Yet  with  the  war 
actually  in  progress  the  Government  faced  the  problem  of  calling  in  the 
defective  coin  and  replacing  it  with  a  currency  of  full  value  and  not  liable  of 
clipping.  The  whole  cost  was  borne  by  the  State.  In  spite  of  the  great 
quantity  of  coin  called  in  and  the  long  time  required  for  replacing  it  with 
the  new  coins,  trade  was  not  seriously  disturbed.  The  moment  was  seized 
by  the  numerous  enemies  of  the  Bank  of  England  to  make  an  attempt  to 
ruin  that  body.  The  goldsmiths  bought  up  the  Bank  paper  and  presented 
it  for  payment  in  specie  when  the  Bank  cellars  were  drained.  The  Bank, 
however,  treated  the  demand  as  a  conspiracy,  which  it  actually  was,  and  re- 
fused payment,  though  it  met  all  bona  fide  claims  as  fast  as  the  Mint  could 
provide  it  with  money.  The  conspiracy  defeated  itself,  and  the  Bank 
emerged  from  the  crisis  stronger  than  before. 

IV 

THE   SPIRIT   OF  THE   AGE 

The  splendid  virility  of  the  Elizabethan  era  had  displayed  itself  in  an 
astonishing  individual  versatility  typified  in  Walter  Raleigh,  who  was 
equally  fit  to  play  the  part  of  soldier,  sailor,  courtier,  statesman,  and  man 


544  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

of  letters.  It  was  an  age  in  which  one  man  could  conceive  and  depict 
Falstaff  and  Lear,  Nick  Bottom  and  Hamlet,  Rosalind  and  Cleopatra.  Not 
so  were  the  elements  mixed  in  the  age  which  followed.  The  abounding 
delight  in  the  exuberance  of  life  and  the  appreciation  of  life's  seriousness, 
Paganism  and  Puritanism,  parted  company.  Paganism  captured  the  court 
and  Puritanism  dominated  the  country.  Puritanism  as  a  force  in  literature 
gave  to  the  world  of  its  best  in  Milton  and  Bunyan.  Paganism  achieved 
nothing  higher  than  the  dainty  lyrics  of  Herrick  and  the  brilliant  depravity 

of  the  Restoration  comedy. 
tov^  Even    in    the    seventeenth 

'"^'^  century  it  is  true  that  the 

world  could  not  be  divided 
into  Puritans  and  Pagans  ; 
but  at  no  other  period  had 
the  two  principles  been  so 
openly  at  war  ;  and  because 
they  were  so  openly  at  war 
Puritanism  assumed  an  ex- 
travagance of  austerity,  and 
Paganism  an  extravagance 
of  wantonness,  incompat- 
ible with  consummate  ar- 
tistic achievement.  Only 
the  supreme  genius  of 
Milton  and  Bunyan  made 
them  exceptions.  Paganism 
produced  no  Aristophanes 
to  set  against  them. 

It  must  be  remembered, 
however,  that  the  border- 
land between  the  Elizabethan  and  the  early  Stuart  literature  lies  not  at  the 
beginning  but  at  the  end  of  the  reign  of  James  I.  ;  that  half  of  the  "  Eliza- 
bethan "  drama  was  produced  after  the  Union  of  the  Crowns.  And  even 
when  the  generation  of  Elizabethans  had  died  out,  the  hostility  between 
Puritanism  and  Paganism  was  not  by  any  means  fully  developed.  The 
immediate  severance  was  rather  that  between  the  intellectual  and  the 
emotional,  which  must  unite  in  the  production  of  the  greatest  literary  work, 
especially  poetry.  The  pursuit  of  verbal  ingenuities  and  intellectual  subtle- 
ties, which  had  in  fact  been  heralded  by  the  Euphuists,  dominated  the 
cultivated  taste  of  the  time  and  produced  what  a  later  age  chose  to  call  the 
"  metaphysical  "  poets,  at  whose  head  was  John  Donne.  The  deeper  feelings 
of  men  were  concentrating  upon  religion  and  the  passion  for  liberty,  but 
they  had  not  yet  hardened  into  fanaticism.  Comus  is  the  consummate 
expression  of  the  Puritanism  which  was  at  once  spiritual  and  intellectual, 
neither   Roundhead  nor  Cavalier   but  characteristic  of  much  that  was  best 


A  bedroom  party  of  163 1, 


THE    CENTURY  545 

among  the  adherents  of  both  sides  when  the  Civil  War  broke  out.  It 
was  the  Civil  War  itself  which  taught  Milton  to  identify  the  Royalists  witli 
the  Philistines,  and  to  allegorise  the  struggle  of  Puritanism  in  the  Samson 
Agonistes ;  while  the  essential  unconquerable  spirit  at  the  heart  of  English 
Puritanism,  independent  of  all  the  turmoil  of  war  and  faction,  still  found 
its  sublime  expression  in  the  Paradise  Lost, 

In  Milton  alone  the  most  intense  Puritanism  was  wedded  to  the  highest 
intellectuality.  Consciously  his  appeal  was  to  a  ''  fit  audience  though  few." 
John  Bunyan  represents  the  Puritanism  which  took  captive  the  humble 
and  unlearned  through  its  own 
essential  humility  and  simplicity. 
A  man  of  the  people,  low  born, 
with  no  social  advantages,  un- 
educated save  for  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  Scriptures 
and  a  considerable  acquaintance 
with  the  controversial  literature 
of  Puritanism,  John  Bunyan 
followed  the  old  advice  of  Sir 
Philip  Sidney,  "  looked  in  his 
heart  and  wrote."  The  im- 
mortal allegory  of  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  displays  the  root  quality 
of  Puritanism,  not  turned  arro- 
gant by  battling  with  the  Devil, 
nor  harsh  by  battling  with  the 
flesh,  nor  sour  by  the  world's 
contempt  and  persecution.  In- 
cidentally it  gives  a  delightfully 

vivid  impression  of  eternal  human  types  under  the  conditions  of  the 
England  of  the  Restoration.  But  in  the  history  of  literature  it  stands 
out  peculiarly  as  the  precursor  of  the  English  novel  which  was  about  to  be 
created  by  Daniel  Defoe. 

The  reign  of  King  Charles  I.,  the  Civil  War,  and  the  rule  of  the 
Commonwealth  were  not  favourable  to  literary  production,  except  of  a  con- 
troversial character  either  political  or  religious.  Pamphleteering  flourished, 
but  the  lighter  forms  of  writing  could  only  be  practised  by  those  who  were 
able  to  stand  aloof  altogether  from  the  arena.  Yet  such  peaceful  spirits 
were  to  be  found.  There  is  nothing  militant  in  the  devotional  prose  of 
Jeremy  Taylor  or  the  devotional  verse  of  George  Herbert,  the  latter  of 
whom  lived  to  witness  only  the  danger-signals  of  the  storm,  not  the  storm 
itself.  There  are  few  writers  dearer  to  the  true  book-lover  than  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  though  not  every  one  takes  a  genuine  delight  in  the  Religio 
Medici.  Battles  raged  and  kingdoms  fell,  but  that  did  not  prevent  Isaac 
Walton  from  practising  the  most  peaceful  of  recreations  and  writing  the 

2  M 


546  THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

fisherman's  supreme  classic,  while  Milton  was  deserting  his  diviner  muse  to 
produce  the  Areopagitica,  a  masterpiece  in  political  prose  hterature. 

With  the  exception  of  Comus  the  great  masterpieces  of  Puritan  literature 
were  actually  produced  after  the  Restoration.  But  the  voices  which  pre- 
vailed were  not  those  of  Puritans.  Milton  was  the  survivor  of  an  age  of 
idealists,  when  men  fought  for  causes  with  a  splendid  devotion,  however 
antagonistic  the  causes  themselves  might  be ;  when  they  w^ere  ready  to  die 
for  "Church  and  King"  or  for  "the  Houses  and  the  Word."  The  old 
ideals  had  shattered  themselves.     The  new  age   which  had  dawned   was 

materialist  and  cynical.  The  past  age  had 
been  too  much  in  earnest  to  be  clever  and 
witty  ;  the  new  age  was  supremely  clever 
and  witty,  being  no  longer  in  earnest. 
Therefore  its  tragedy  was  insincere,  stilted, 
and  unconvincing.  Its  comedy  was  brilliant, 
but  it  was  not  merely  non-moral  and  irre- 
sponsible ;  it  assumed  in  its  reaction  against 
Puritanism  that  virtue  is  redeemed  from 
being  contemptible  only  when  circumstances 
render  it  comic.  And  the  note  of  the  Re- 
storation prevailed  through  the  Revolution  ; 
the  claims  of  decency  remained  in  abeyance, 
so  far  as  polite  society  was  concerned,  until 
the  seventeenth  century  had  passed.  Milton, 
as  we  have  said,  belongs  to  the  earlier  age. 
Besides  Bunyan's,  the  one  other  great  literary 
name  of  the  era  is  that  of  John  Dryden, 
whose  work  practically  covers  the  period 
from  the  Restoration  to  the  end  of  the 
century.  As  befits  the  times  in  which  he 
lived,  Dryden's  supreme  achievement  was  in  the  field  of  satire.  His 
political  pieces  Absalom  and  Achitophel  and  the  Hind  and  the  Panther  are  un- 
surpassed in  their  kind.  But  satire  is  essentially  intellectual,  appealing  to 
the  intelligent  critical  judgment,  the  taste  of  the  audience.  If  the  poet's 
function  is  to  express  his  own  sense  of  beauty,  what  the  Greeks  meant  by 
the  phrase  which  we  translate  as  "  the  beautiful,"  and  to  arouse  the  per- 
ception of  it  in  others,  the  satirist  is  not  a  poet,  since  he  is  mainly  con- 
cerned with  denouncing  and  exposing  the  antithesis  of  the  beautiful.  Satire 
is  the  natural  product  of  materialist  conditions. 

Such  conditions,  on  the  other  hand,  are  rather  favourable  to  scientific 
inquiry,  though  they  are  by  no  means  necessary  to  it.  The  era  of  the 
Restoration  and  the  Revolution  was  one  during  which  England  achieved 
far  more  distinction  in  natural  science  and  in  the  literature  of  Rationalism 
than  in  the  literature  of  imagination  and  emotion.  But  the  scientific 
movement  had  its  birth  at  a  much  earlier  date,  in  the  reign  of  James  I., 


John  Dryden. 
[From  the  engraving  by  Houbraken.] 


THE  CENTURY  547 

when  Harvey  was  demonstrating  the  theory  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood 
and  Bacon  was  formulating  afresh  the  whole  system  of  scientific  thought. 
Living  political  problems  inspired  speculative  inquiry  into  the  bases  of 
the  political  structure  and  the  organisation  of  society.  Advocates  of 
parliamentary  control  began  to  assert  that  kings  were  nothing  more  than 
the  chief  magistrates  of  the  states  over  which  they  ruled.  Advocates  of 
Absolutism  discovered  that  they  ruled  by  right  divine,  which  it  was  pro- 
fanity to  question.  Thomas  Hobbes,  the  disciple  and  sometime  secretary 
of  Francis  Bacon,  recognised  in  politics  a  branch  of  the  universal  science 
conceived  by  his  master;  and  being  himself  a  convinced  Absolutist,  he 
endeavoured  to  discover  a  basis  for  Absolutism  more  satisfying  to  the 
reason  than  the  theory  of  Divine  Right.  He  evolved  his  own  peculiar 
doctrine  of  the  Social  Contract,  promulgated  in  the  work  which  he  called 
Leviathan.  Mankind  being  by  nature  in  a  condition  of  war,  every  man 
against  every  other  man,  the  warring  units  discovered  that  each  of  them 
could  profit  more,  individually,  by  acting  in  consort  with  others  for  mutual 
assistance.  But  the  individual  had  no  guarantee  that  his  consorts  would 
not  play  him  false ;  some  coercive  power  was  required.  Hence  men 
entered  into  a  contract  with  each  other  to  recognise  and  enforce  the 
supreme  authority  of  some  one  person  or  body  of  persons.  Here  was 
the  nucleus  of  the  state,  the  whole  body  of  persons  who  entered  into 
the  contract  which  was  ipso  facto  binding  upon  all  persons  born  under 
the  contract.  But  it  was  not  a  contract  between  the  ruler  and  the  ruled, 
but  between  the  ruled  among  themselves  ;  a  contract  from  which  they  could 
not  free  themselves  without  dissolving  society  altogether.  Society  there- 
fore has  no  rights  as  against  the  ruler  ;  the  ruler  has  obligations,  but  in 
respect  of  them  he  is  responsible  to  himself  and  the  Almighty  and  to 
no  one  else.  But  the  doctrine  of  Thomas  Hobbes,  published  in  the 
early  years  of  the  Commonwealth,  w^as  by  no  means  to  the  taste  of  the 
clerical  royalism  of  the  day,  since  it  uncompromisingly  subjected  religion 
to  the  authority  of  the  absolute  ruler  of  the  state.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  theory  of  the  Social  Contract  was  appropriated  and  modified  by  the 
Constitutionalists,  and  was  formulated  by  John  Locke  in  his  Theory  of 
Civil  Government^  the  text-book  of  the  Revolution  Whigs.  The  king  was 
bound  by  the  contract,  being  himself  a  party  to  it  in  the  primary  con- 
stitution of  society.  If  he  broke  his  part  of  the  contract,  the  other  parties 
to  it  were  released  from  their  obligation,  not  of  recognising  a  supreme 
authority,  but  of  continuing  to  regard  him  personally  as  the  seat  of  that 
authority,  of  which  the  ultimate  sanction  was  the  will  of  the  society 
as  a  whole.  The  names  of  Hobbes  and  Locke,  widely  though  they  differ, 
stand  at  the  head  of  the  peculiarly  English  school  of  moral  and  political 
philosophy. 

But  the  highest  distinction  was  reserved  for  the  leaders  of  English  pro- 
gress in  natural  science,  one  of  whom  stands  second  to  none,  whether  in 
English  or  in  European   records.     The  discoveries  of   Sir  Isaac   Newton 


548       THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

in  the  field  of  physics  revolutionised  men's  knowledge  of  the  Universe. 
Not  Darwin  himself  effected  so  fundamental  a  change  in  the  imaginative 
conception  of  an  infinite  creation,  apart  from  the  vast  practical  bearings  of 
the  new  knowledge.  Perhaps  the  most  creditable  trait  in  the  character  of 
Charles  II.  was  his  genuine  interest  in  scientific  inquiry.  To  Charles  we 
owe  the  foundation  of  the  Royal  Society ;  and  beside  the  supreme  name  of 
Isaac  Newton  stand  those  of  the  astronomer  Flamsteed,  of  Boyle  the  father 
of  modern  chemistry,  and  of  Ray  the  founder  of  the  science  of  zoology. 


Ilcad-piece  from  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  1662. 


BOOK  V 

THE   BRITISH  EMPIRE 

CHAPTER    XXII 

QUEEN   ANNE 

I 

MARLBOROUGH 

The  death  of  William  III.  left  Whigs  and  Tories  very  evenly  balanced  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  while  the  Whigs  had  a  small  majority  in  the 
Peers.  On  the  great  pressing  question  of  the  hour,  however,  Whigs 
and  Tories  were  for  the  time  being  at  one.  With  few  exceptions  the 
Tories  as  well  as  the  Whigs  were  a  war  party.  Under  these  conditions 
William  would  have  worked  with  a  ministry  mainly  Whig,  since  the 
Whigs  would  have  given  him  the  stronger  personal  support.  The  Crown 
was  still  so  strong  that  nothing  short  of  a  marked  predominance  in  the 
Opposition  would  outweigh  the  king's  personal  predilections  in  selecting 
ministers  and  directing  policy.  Although  William's  successor  was  very  far 
from  possessing  a  strong  character,  this  dominance  of  the  Crown  lasted 
throughout  her  reign.  The  queen  chose  her  own  ministers,  and  she  did 
not  select  them  because  they  represented  the  dominant  party  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  The  queen's  choice  was  generally  managed  by  the 
reigning  favourite.  The  reigning  favourite  at  the  moment  of  her  accession 
was  Sarah,  as  yet  only  Countess  of  Marlborough ;  and  for  eight  years  her 
ascendency  was  the  governing  factor  in  English  politics.  Marlborough  him- 
self still  counted  as  a  Tory,  though  his  party  ties  were  of  the  slenderest. 
His  closest  personal  ally  was  Godolphin,  whose  son  had  married  one  of 
Marlborough's  daughters,  while  another  was  the  wife  of  the  young  Earl  of 
Sunderland,  who  this  year  succeeded  to  the  title.  Godolphin's  Toryism, 
too,  was  by  no  means  deeply  rooted. 

The  natural  effect  of  Anne's  accession  was  in  the  first  place  to  give  the 
Tories  the  ascendency  in  her  ministry,  but  in  the  ministry  itself  the  real 
supremacy  lay  with  Marlborough  ;  and  since  Marlborough  was  the  in- 
heritor of  William's  foreign  policy,  which  was  essentially  that  of  the  Whigs 

549 


550  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

and  only  accidentally  that  of  the  Tories,  it  followed  that  Marlborough  and 
his  ally  Godolphin  presently  found  themselves  relying  upon  the  Whigs  and 
parting  from  the  Tories.  The  curious  fact  is  that  Marlborough's  own 
supremacy  depended  on  his  wife's  ascendency  over  the  mind  of  the  queen. 
When  Anne  freed  herself  from  the  yoke  of  the  Duchess  Sarah,  Marlborough's 
supremacy  collapsed.  It  was  not  the  Revolution  but  the  Hanoverian 
Succession  which  placed  the  Crown  in  subjection  to  parliament.  At 
the  moment  of  Anne's  accession,  however,  everything  pointed  to  the 
ascendency  of  Tory  policy.     By  associating  itself  with  the  war,  the  party 

had  saved  its  credit  with  the 
country.  The  queen's  personal 
predilections  were  Tory,  notably 
on  questions  connected  with 
Church  and  Dissent,  and  a 
period  of  Whig  depression  was 
generally  anticipated. 

On  the  continent  William's 
death  appeared  to  be  a  ground 
for  infinite  congratulation  for 
Louis  XIV.  For  thirty  years 
past  William's  patient,  indomit- 
able, remorseless  resistance  was 
the  one  obstacle  which  had 
constantly  checked  the  French 
King's  ambitions,  and  had  more 
definitely  foiled  them  since  he 
had  brought  England  to  join 
forces  with  Holland.  William 
was  the  diplomatist  who  had 
combined  the  powers  against 
France,  the  general  who  had 
neutralised  victory  after  victory 
of  the  French  arms.  W'illiam  had  been  the  soul  and  brain  of  the  re- 
sistance to  French  aggression.  And  now  the  great  antagonist  had 
disappeared,  at  a  moment  when  Louis  occupied  a  position  more  advan- 
tageous than  ever  before.  His  grandson  Philip  was  de  facto  king  of 
Spain,  and  was  accepted  as  king  by  Spain.  French  troops  were  in 
occupation  of  the  Spanish  Netherlands.  Within  the  German  Empire  the 
Elector  of  Bavaria,  Max  Emanuel,  had  allied  himself  with  Louis  out 
of  hostility  to  the  Emperor.  His  alliance  with  Savoy  gave  him  the 
entry  of  Italy.  No  one  as  yet  knew  that  the  allies  had  the  two  greatest 
soldiers  of  the  day  to  lead  them,  and  that  one  of  them  was  not  only  a 
much  greater  military  genius  than  William  had  been,  but  was  hardly  if 
at  all  inferior  to  him  as  a  diplomatist. 

Ostensibly  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession  was  a  dynastic  struggle 


Queen  Anne. 

[From  the  paiining  by  Kneller.] 


QUEEN    ANNE  551 

to  decide  whether  the  crown  of  Spain  should  rest  on  the  head  of  a 
Hapsbiirg  or  of  a  Bourbon,  a  question  of  the  balance  of  power  to  prevent 
the  undue  preponderance  of  France  in  Europe,  a  question  in  which 
England  would  hardly  have  been  concerned  but  for  the  wound  inflicted  on 
her  amour  propre  by  the  French  king's  recognition  of  a  king  of  England 
whom  England  herself  had  rejected — another  dynastic  question.  But  in 
actual  fact  matters  of  vital  interest  were  at  stake.  If  England  had  stood 
aside,  France  and  Spain  between  them  would  have  taken  complete  pos- 
session of  Italy  and  the  Netherlands,  and  there  would  have  been  very 
little  left  of  Holland.  France  and  Spain  would  have  been  so  closely 
united  that  they  would  have  counted  practically  as  a  single  power,  and 
might  have  developed  a  maritime  strength  which  would  have  become 
more  than  a  menace  to  English  naval  supremacy.  The  whole  of  the 
Bourbon  dominion  would  have  been  closed  for  British  commerce,  while 
the  British  colonies  in  America  and  the  British  trade  in  the  East  would 
have  been  seriously  endangered.  These  possibilities  had  passed  long  before 
the  war  was  actually  over ;  but  when  the  war  began  they  were  imminent 
perils.  Neither  statesmen  nor  merchants  probably  had  any  very  definite 
idea  of  a  British  Empire  as  the  stake  for  which  the  nation  was  fighting ; 
but  the  mercantile  interest,  which  was  chiefly  associated  with  the  Whig 
party,  was  very  much  aware  that  unless  the  nation  fought  its  commerce 
would  be  in  jeopardy. 

Fighting  between  France  and  Austria  had  already  begun  in  Italy  ;  and 
the  allies  whom  William  had  brought  together  were  much  relieved  to  find 
that  William's  death  would  not  withdraw  England  from  the  alliance. 
William  himself,  at  the  close  of  his  reign,  had  settled  upon  Marlborough  as 
the  man  to  carry  out  his  policy.  Marlborough,  conscious  where  his  own 
supreme  genius  lay,  was  certain  to  feel  that  the  road  of  his  ambitions  lay 
through  European  battlefields  ;  and  Marlborough's  influence  at  home  was 
ensured  by  the  relations  between  the  Countess  Sarah  and  Queen  Anne. 
War  was  declared  in  May,  and  William's  nominee  occupied  his  place  as 
commander-in-chief  of  the  allied  army. 

The  new  chief's  operations  were  seriously  hampered  by  the  fact  that 
instead  of  his  having  a  free  hand  his  plans  were  liable  to  be  vetoed  by  a 
body  of  Dutch  commissioners  or  "  field  deputies,"  who  were  not  by  any 
means  military  experts,  while  their  views  of  the  purposes  to  be  served  were 
strictly  confined  to  the  immediate  securing  of  Holland  against  invasion. 
Marlborough,  prohibited  by  them  from  seeking  to  destroy  the  French  army 
in  the  field,  had  to  content  himself  with  manceuvres  which  forced  the 
enemy  back  from  the  line  of  the  Meuse.  A  series  of  forts  were  captured 
and  Marlborough's  reputation,  which  had  hitherto  been  called  in  question, 
was  established  by  the  campaign,  though  his  accomplishment  fell  far  short 
of  what  he  would  have  aimed  at  achieving  if  his  hands  had  not  been  tied. 
In  England  his  success  was  rewarded  by  his  elevation  to  a  Dukedom, 

Meanwhile,   an   expedition    had    been    despatched   to   Cadiz  under   Sir 


deputies  to  sanction   his   design 


552  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

George  Rooke,  which  failed  there  ignominiously  ;  but  his  fleet  redeemed  his 
credit  by  breaking  the  boom  of  the  harbour  of  Vigo,  where  it  destroyed  a 
powerful  French  squadron,  and  sank  the  most  part  of  a  great  treasure  fleet, 
after  securing  booty  to  the  value  of  about  a  million  sterling. 

Again,  in  1703,  the  French  confined  themselves  to  a  campaign  in  the 
Netherlands,  and  again  the  Dutch  sought  to  confine  Marlborough  to  a 
campaign  of  sieges.  His  operations  were  marred  by  the  disobedience  to 
orders    of    the    Dutch   generals,   and   the   flat  refusal  of    the    Dutch    field 

of  falling  upon  the  main  French  force. 
The  campaign,  therefore,  was  marked 
with  no  striking  results.  Meanwhile 
France  had  designed  what  should  have 
been  a  paralysing  blow  to  the  Grand 
Alliance.  Marshal  Villars  from  the  Upper 
Rhine,  the  Elector  of  Bavaria,  and  Ven- 
dome  from  Italy,  were  to  effect  a  junc- 
tion and  strike  straight  at  Vienna.  The 
plan  was  frustrated  by  the  unforeseen. 
Villars  and  the  Elector  joined  hands ; 
but  then  the  latter  proceeded  into  the 
Tirol,  a  province  of  Austria  which  had 
been  promised  to  him  with  careless 
generosity  by  the  French  king.  He 
meant  to  secure  the  Tirol  and  to  join 
the  French  as  they  came  up  from  Italy 
by  the  Brenner  Pass.  But  the  Tirolese, 
who  were  not  parties  to  this  arrange- 
ment, handled  the  electoral  troops  so 
roughly  that  Max  Emanuel  evacuated 
the  country  and  declared  himself  unable 
to  proceed  to  Vienna.  Moreover,  no  French  column  came  from  Italy, 
because  Victor  Amadeus  of  Savoy  played  his  favourite  game  of  changing 
sides  at  the  critical  moment.  He  fell  upon  Vendome's  communications, 
and  the  French  general  had  to  turn  back  instead  of  advancing  to  join  hands 
with  Villars. 

Now  Austria  was  in  no  plight  to  resist  a  French  invasion  in  force, 
supported  by  Bavaria.  On  the  east  she  was  harassed  by  a  Hungarian 
rebellion  ;  and  her  military  organisation  was  in  a  state  of  desperate  disorder, 
which  Prince  Eugene  was  patiently  struggling  to  remedy.  Austria  owed 
the  services  of  that  brilliant  commander  to  the  fact  that  when  he  offered 
his  sword  to  France  some  years  before,  when  his  talents  were  still  unknown, 
she  had  declined.  Though  the  French  scheme  of  invasion  had  been  baulked 
in  1703,  it  was  to  be  carried  out  next  year  on  a  less  complicated  plan  of 
campaign.  Vienna  was  doomed,  unless  England  and  Holland  came  to  the 
rescue,    and   neither   England  nor    Holland  would    dream  of   withdrawing 


John  Churchill,  Duke  of  Marlborough. 

[After  the  painting  by  Van  der  Werff. ] 


QUEEN    ANNE  553 

forces  from  the  Netherlands  in  order  to  take  care  of  Austria.  It  was  true 
that  if  the  power  of  Austria  were  shattered  France  would  be  able  to  con- 
centrate the  whole  of  her  force  on  the  Netherlands  ;  but  English  Tories 
had  a  vague  conviction  that  English  troops  ought  not  to  be  fighting  on  the 
continent  at  all,  certainly  not  further  off  than  Holland  ;  and  the  Dutch  did 
not  look  further  than  the  defence  of  their  own  frontier. 

.  Marlborough  appreciated  the  situation  and  formed  his  own  plan, 
which  had  to  be  carried  out  without  being  suspected  either  in  England  or 
in  Holland,  to  say  nothing  of  PYance.  He  required  a  confidant  in  Holland 
and  another  in  England  to  hoodwink  the  two  governments  while  he  con- 
certed his   scheme  with 


DUKE     OF    MARLBOROUGH 


PRINCE 
EUGENE 


PRINCE    taO"**     a  / 

MAXIMILIAN  ^ 

^   O  LUTZIN6EN 


Eugene.  From  Eng- 
land he  obtained  an 
authority  which  sufficed 
for  his  purpose  ;  from 
the  Dutch  he  procured 
permission  to  conduct  a 
campaign  on  the  Moselle 
with  a  large  force.  To 
the  Moselle  went  Marl- 
borough with  his  army  ; 
the  great  French  force 
still  on  the  Upper  Rhine 
awaited  developments. 
Suddenly  Marlborough 
vanished  ;  he  was  racing 
through  Germany  to 
Bavaria  to  join  Eugene, 
and    was    fairly    out    of 

reach   before    Dutch   or   English    could   make   any   attempt   to   stop   him. 
On  the  way  he  joined  a  German  force  under  Lewis  of  Baden. 

Bavaria  was  commanded  by  a  hostile  force  holding  the  heights  of 
Schellenberg,  by  Donauwerth  ;  the  position  was  stormed  and  carried. 
Meanwhile  Tallard,  who  had  taken  the  place  of  Villars  as  commander  of 
the  army  of  invasion  on  the  Rhine,  had  started  on  his  march  to  join  the 
Elector  of  Bavaria  and  the  French  forces  under  Marsin  which  were  already 
in  that  region.  By  August  12th  Marlborough  had  effected  his  junction 
with  Eugene,  and  the  hostile  armies  lay  facing  each  other,  the  river  or  stream 
of  the  Nebel  flowing  between  them  into  the  Danube.  The  French  right 
was  in  the  village  of  Blenheim  on  the  bank  of  the  great  river.  It  was  the 
task  of  Eugene  on  the  right  of  the  allies  to  keep  the  French  left  in  play 
when  the  great  battle  was  fought  on  the  13th.  It  was  not  till  mid-day 
that  the  allies  opened  the  attack,  which  was  developed  on  the  two  wings. 
At  four  in  the  afternoon  every  attack  had  been  beaten  back,  but  the  French 
centre  had  been  weakened  to  strengthen  the  wings.     It  was  at  this  point 


Plan  of  the  Battle  of  Blenheim. 


554  THE   BRITISH   EMPIRE 

that  Marlborough  reconstructed  his  lines  for  a  furious  assault  upon  the 
French  centre,  which  was  pierced.  The  French  right  was  rolled  up,  and 
nearly  the  whole  of  it  was  cut  to  pieces,  driven  into  the  Danube,  or  forced 
to  surrender  ;  the  left,  principally  the  Bavarian  contingent,  for  the  most 
part  made  its  escape,  since  the  victorious  army  was  unable  to  follow  up  the 
pursuit.  But  the  victory  was  absolutely  decisive  and  crushing.  The 
French  were  driven  back  behind  the  Rhine,  and  there  was  no  more  thought 
or  talk  of  a  French  army  threatening  Vienna.  Marlborough  returned  to 
the  Netherlands. 

Meanwhile  Admiral  Rooke  had  been  despatched  with  intent  to  an  attack 
upon  Toulon,  the  naval  control  of  the  Mediterranean  being  very  definitely  a 
part  of  Marlborough's  conception  of  the  war  policy  as  a  whole.  He  did  not 
attack  Toulon,  because  the  Duke  of  Savoy  was  unable  to  co-operate  as  had 
been  intended.  Though  he  had  a  great  fleet  it  appeared  that  he  would 
have  made  no  use  of  it  at  all  if  he  had  not  been  goaded  into  trying  what 
could  be  done  with  Gibraltar.  When  the  attack  was  made  it  was  found 
that  the  place  was  practically  incapable  of  offering  resistance.  It  was 
seized  in  the  name  of  King  Charles  III. — that  is,  the  Austrian  Archduke 
Charles,  the  son  to  whom  the  Austrian  Emperor  had  finally  made  over  his 
own  claim  to  the  Spanish  throne — and  was  garrisoned  with  English  troops. 
Little  general  importance  seems  to  have  been  attached  to  the  capture  at  the 
time  except  by  Marlborough,  who  declared  that  no  cost  should  be  spared 
to  make  it  secure.  Thus  accidentally  the  great  fortress  passed  into  English 
control. 

The  last  parliament  of  William  III.  was  also  the  first  parliament  of 
Queen  Anne's  reign.  It  was  dissolved  in  the  summer  of  1702,  and  the 
new  House  of  Commons,  which  met  in  the  autumn,  showed  a  large  Tory 
preponderance.  The  small  Whig  majority  in  the  Lords  was  due  to  the 
presence  of  the  latitudinarian  bishops  appointed  under  William — men  who 
were  in  sympathy  with  the  principles  of  toleration.  The  queen  and  the 
Tories  were  antagonistic  to  the  Nonconformists.  The  bulk  of  the  Tories 
were  opposed  to  Marlborough,  not  on  the  general  principle  of  main- 
taining the  war,  but  because  they  wished  to  restrict  it  to  the  sea  so  far  as 
England  was  concerned  ;  whereas  Marlborough,  like  William,  while  he 
understood  better  than  the  Tories  themselves  the  importance  of  naval 
supremacy  and  the  way  to  secure  it,  was  also  determined  that  England 
should  take  the  lead  upon  land  as  well.  Thus  practically  from  the  outset 
there  was  a  growing  estrangement  between  Marlborough  and  Godolphin  on 
the  one  hand  and  the  Tories  on  the  other,  while  the  duchess  exerted  herself 
to  ally  her  husband  with  the  Whigs,  and  to  manage  the  queen  on  the  same 
lines.  The  advanced  Tories  for  their  part  endeavoured  to  establish  a 
complete  Tory  ascendency,  increasingly  antagonistic  to  Marlborough  him- 
self. The  struggle  between  Tories  and  Whigs  was  to  a  very  considerable 
extent  a  contest  between  the  Commons  and  the  Lords.  In  this  contest 
the  Lords  were  victorious.     They  were  able  to  defeat  the  attempt  of  the 


# 


\^.>'     -i 


IMP 


\(^# 


1 1 

O     ft. 


^      S 


QUEEN    ANNE  555 

Commons  to  apply  the  late  Act  of  Succession  so  as  to  exclude  from  the 
House  of  Lords  the  Dutchmen  who  had  received  peerages  from  William. 
They  defeated  also  an  Occasional  Conformity  Bill,  which  now  became  a 
favourite  scheme  of  the  Tories.  William's  Toleration  Act  had  conceded 
freedom  of  worship  to  the  Nonconformists,  but  retained  the  tests  which 
required  all  office-holders  to  participate  in  Anglican  services.  Noncon- 
formists in  general,  while  habitually  attending  their  own  places  of  worship, 
did  not  find  it  against  their  consciences  to  make  the  necessary  attendances 
at  the  Anglican  rites,  so  that  the  still  valid  Corporation  and  Test  Acts  did 
not  in  effect  preclude  them  from  taking  office.  The  object  of  the  High 
Churchmen  was  to  disqualify  these  Occasional  Conformists  by  penalising 
them  heavily  if  they  attended  the  religious  services  of  any  body  other  than 
that  of  the  Church  of  England  while  they  held  office.  This  attempt  also  the 
Lords  were  able  to  frustrate.  Popular  sentiment  was  at  first  on  the  High 
Church  side,  but  a  strong  reaction  was  produced,  in  part  at  least  by  an 
ironical  pamphlet  entitled  The  Shoj'test  Way  with  the  DissenterSy  which  pre- 
tended to  be  an  inflammatory  appeal  to  all  good  Churchmen  to  insist  on  the 
extirpation  of  the  enemies  of  Church  and  State.  The  satire  on  the  Tory 
programme  was  convincing,  and  the  Tories  only  made  matters  worse  for 
themselves  by  having  the  author,  Daniel  Defoe,  set  in  the  pillory.  The 
punishment  provided  the  audacious  pamphleteer  with  a  popular  ovation. 

The  Blenheim  campaign  saved  what  may  be  called  the  Marlborough 
Administration.  The  Tories  had  been  studiously  minimising  the  Duke's 
doings  on  the  continent  ;  but  the  attempt  to  belittle  Blenheim  itself  recoiled 
on  their  own  heads.  The  victory  was  in  effect  a  Whig  triumph.  A  general 
election  in  the  spring  of  1705  gave  a  small  Whig  majority  in  the  Commons, 
where  Harley,  the  leader  of  the  moderate  Tories,  alone  of  that  party 
remained  firmly  attached  to  the  Ministry,  since  Marlborough  and  Godolphin 
must  now  be  reckoned  as  Whigs.  But  the  administration  was  also  rein- 
forced by  Henry  St.  John,  the  most  brilliant  of  the  younger  Tories.  The 
remaining  members  of  the  party  were  soon  displaced  by  pronounced  Whigs. 
The  Government  thus  formed  devoted  itself  to  the  whole-hearted  carrying 
out  of  Marlborough's  war  policy  ;  but  it  achieved  something  still  more 
vital  to  the  future  of  the  British  Empire  in  carrying  through  the  Incor- 
porating Union  between  England  and  Scotland. 


n 

THE   UNION 

An  Incorporating  Union  between  England  and  Scotland  was  a  project 
which  William  III.  had  been  anxious  to  carry  through  ;  and  one  of  his  last 
public  acts  was  to  commend  such  a  scheme  to  the  consideration  of  the 
Scottish  parliament.     The  existing  arrangement,  which  united  the  crowns 


556  THE   BRITISH   EMPIRE 

only,  was  fraugnt  with  danger  ;  for  Scotland  it  was  intolerable.  As  matters 
stood,  England  was  practically  able  to  treat  Scotland  as  a  hostile  country 
whose  commercial  interests  were  to  be  ruined  for  the  benefit  of  England  ; 
while  the  Union  of  the  Crowns  left  the  weaker  and  poorer  country  no 
means  of  defending  herself  except  commercial  retaliation,  which  could 
inflict  no  great  harm  in  England  but  must  inevitably  be  ruinous  to  Scotland 
herself.  With  the  Union  dissolved,  Scotland  could  at  least  follow  the  ancient 
policy  of  allying  herself  with  the  enemies  of  England  abroad  ;  and  separa- 
tion appealed  to  the  Scottish  mind  as  being  a  restoration  of  Scotland's 
ancient  independence.  An  independent  Scotland  could  not  be  ignored  by 
England  ;  a  Scotland  tied  to  her  as  Scotland  was  now  tied  could  be  ignored 
altogether.  The  fact  had  become  most  patent  during  William's  own  reign. 
Though  he  himself  had  been  unable  to  visit  his  northern  kingdom,  he  had 
not  been  unpopular  there  in  spite  of  Glencoe  and  the  Darien  failure.  In  the 
one  case  he  was  held  to  have  been  misled  by  Dalrymple,  and  in  the  other 
to  have  been  rather  the  victim  of  irresistible  pressure  than  a  free  agent. 
But  it  was  precisely  in  that  fact  that  Scottish  hostility  to  the  existing  arrange- 
ment found  its  strongest  argument.  If  such  a  king  as  William  found 
himself  compelled  to  subordinate  Scottish  to  English  interests,  in  spite  of 
his  zeal  for  even-handed  justice,  it  was  hardly  possible  that  Scotland  should 
not  suffer  yet  more  under  another  king  who  wore  the  English  crown. 
The  one  condition,  therefore,  which  could  make  the  Union  of  the  Crowns 
tolerable  was  commercial  equality.  Scotland  was  practically  agreed  that 
the  alternative  to  commercial  equality  was  separation  ;  and  the  threat  of 
separation  was  the  one  means  by  which  commercial  equality  might  be 
obtained. 

There  was  no  possible  question  of  Scotland's  right  to  separate  herself 
from  England.  The  two  nations  were  bound  together  by  nothing  whatever 
except  the  accident  that  a  King  of  Scotland  had  succeeded  to  the  throne  of 
England  as  the  legitimate  heir  a  hundred  years  before.  Since  that  time  each 
nation  had  asserted  its  own  right  to  lay  down  a  rule  of  succession  for  itself. 
The  English  Commonwealth  indeed,  for  its  own  preservation,  had  asserted 
its  right  to  forbid  Scotland  by  force  of  arms  to  set  up  as  a  separate  kingdom 
under  a  Stuart  monarch  ;  but  there  was  no  possibility  of  questioning  that, 
for  so  doing  she  had  no  other  authority  than  that  of  superior  force.  At 
the  Restoration  England  herself  had  cancelled  the  absorption  of  Scotland. 
Both  countries  had  rejected  James  II.,  and  both  had  accepted  William  ;  but 
the  Acts  by  which  England  had  fixed  the  course  of  the  succession  to  the 
English  throne  were  in  no  sense  binding  upon  Scotland,  which  had  not 
committed  itself  any  further  than  the  acceptance  of  Anne.  Though 
England  had  selected  the  Electress  Sophia  and  her  heirs,  Scotland  was 
perfectly  free  to  settle  the  Scottish  succession  on  some  one  else. 

Now  England  had  hitherto  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  all  Scottish  complaints 
on  the  score  of  her  commercial  policy.  The  recognised  English  mer- 
cantile doctrine  was  that  foreign  products  should  not  be  allowed  to  compete 


QUEEN    ANNE  557 

with  home  products  at  all  in  the  home  market,  or  in  the  foreign  market 
so  far  as  such  competition  could  be  prevented.  With  greater  insight  the 
Commonwealth  had  realised  that  English  commerce  would  not  suffer  by 
freeing  the  trade  with  Scotland,  Ireland,  and  the  Colonies.  But  with  the 
Restoration  England  had  reverted  to  the  earlier  theory.  She  believed  that 
something  very  tangible  would  be  required  to  compensate  her  for  any 
concession  on  the  point ;  and  hitherto  Scotland  had  had  nothing  very 
tangible  to  offer.  But  now  came  the  Scottish  threat  of  separation.  The 
Scottish  parliament  passed  what  was  called  the  Act  of  Security,  which 
asserted  the  right  of  the  nation  to  nominate  as  successor  to  the  throne  of 
Scotland  some  other  person  than  the  Electress  Sophia.  It  claimed  also  that 
the  great  officers  should  be  nominated  by  the  Scottish  parliament,  whose 
consent  should  be  necessary  to  any  declaration  of  war  on  the  part  of  a 
king  of  Scotland  who  was  also  king  of  England.  Here  then  was  some- 
thing tangible.  Nothing  short  of  an  incorporating  union  could  preclude 
the  possibility  that  now  or  at  some  future  time  the  exiled  Stuarts  might  be 
restored  in  Scotland,  and  England  might  be  hampered  as  of  old  by  a  hostile 
state  in  the  North,  ready  to  attack  her  whenever  she  should  find  herself 
embroiled  with  continental  powers,  and  ready  also  to  support  a  Jacobite 
revolt.  Immunity  from  that  danger  was  worth  purchasing  at  the  cost  of 
commercial  concessions.  On  the  other  hand,  Scotland  could  hardly  be 
secure  of  the  permanence  of  commercial  concessions  unless  they  were 
guaranteed  by  an  incorporating  union.  The  problem  was  to  frame  an 
incorporating  union  sufBciently  attractive  to  Scotland  to  counterbalance 
the  Nationalist  bias  towards  separation.  For  half  Scotland  was  convinced 
that  no  union  whatever  could  be  devised  which  would  not  subordinate 
Scottish  to  English  interests. 

The  Convention  in  Scotland  which  had  called  William  to  the  throne, 
and  had  by  him  been  continued  as  a  parhament,  had  never  been  dissolved  ; 
Scotland  had  no  Triennial  Act.  It  was  exceedingly  doubtful  whether  this 
assembly  had  any  validity  as  a  parliament  beyond  the  term  of  William's 
own  reign.  Nevertheless  it  was  this  parliament  which  opened  the  negotia- 
tions for  a  union  with  England  at  the  moment  when  a  House  of  Commons 
had  just  been  returned  with  a  large  Tory  majority.  The  moment  therefore 
was  unfavourable,  because,  whereas  the  Whigs  followed  William  in  favouring 
the  idea  of  the  union,  the  Tories  as  a  natural  consequence  were  antagonistic. 
The  conference  therefore  between  the  Scottish  and  English  commissioners 
which  was  held  in  the  winter  of  1702-3  was  unsatisfactory.  The  authority 
of  the  Scottish  commissioners  was  dubious,  and  Scottish  Nationalists  had 
already  repudiated  the  authority  of  the  parliament.  The  English  com- 
missioners, though  ready  to  make  concessions,  still  fell  considerably  short 
of  the  minimum  of  the  Scottish  demands. 

The  election  of  a  new  parliament  in  Scotland  whose  legal  authority 
should  be  beyond  question  left  the  real  Unionists,  headed  by  Queensberry, 
decidedly  weak  ;  while  the  Nationalists,  or  <*  Country  Party,"  seemed  likely 


558  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

to  gain  the  support  of  the  extreme  section  who  called  themselves  Cavaliers, 
with  most  of  those  who  were  as  yet  indisposed  to  commit  themselves  to  one 
side  or  the  other.  The  head  of  this  coalition  was  that  Duke  of  Hamilton 
who  figures  in  Thackeray's  Esmond.  The  real  chief  of  the  uncompromising 
Nationalists  was  Fletcher  of  Saltoun.  It  was  the  parliament  thus  com- 
posed which  passed  the  Act  of  Security  already  referred  to,  in  which  the 
crucial  clause  declared  that,  after  Anne,  the  same  person  should  be 
incapable  of  being  king  or  queen  of  both  England  and  Scotland  unless 
England  had  conceded  "  a  free  communication  of  trade,  the  freedom  of 
navigation,  and  the  liberty  of  the  Plantations,"  that  is  to  say,  of  the  colonies. 
The  Act  did  not  receive  the  royal  assent  this  year,  but  did  so  in  the 
following  year  after  it  had  again  been  passed  with  the  commercial  clause 
omitted. 

The  Act  of  Secuiity  received  the  royal  assent  almost  on  the  day 
when  Marlborough  was  winning  the  battle  of  Blenheim.  The  event  was 
unknown  ;  disaster  was  still  possible  ;  if  the  royal  assent  had  been 
refused,  Scotland  would  have  refused  the  money  to  pay  the  army,  and  if 
Marlborough  had  been  defeated  on  the  Danube,  a  very  critical  situation 
would  have  arisen.  After  Blenheim,  the  English  Government  no  longer 
felt  that  it  would  be  imperilled  by  anything  that  Scotland  might  do.  The 
immediate  reply  of  the  Whigs  to  the  Act  of  Security  was  contained  in 
measures  stiffening  the  barriers  to  Scottish  trade,  ordering  the  north  of 
England  to  be  put  in  a  state  of  defence,  and  treating  all  Scots  as  aliens 
unless  and  until  Scotland  should  adopt  the  line  of  succession  laid  down 
for  the  English  Crown.  But  these  measures  were  accompanied  by  further 
proposals  for  a  union  ;  and  again  in  April  1706  commissioners  from  the 
two  countries  were  assembled  to  discuss  terms. 

The  Scots  proposed  in  effect  a  commercial  union  under  one  crown, 
the  two  countries  retaining  their  separate  legislatures.  The  English 
insisted  that  the  union  of  legislatures  and  the  acceptance  of  the  English 
rule  of  succession  were  a  sine  qua  non.  The  Scots  required  with  equal 
emphasis  that  the  freedom  of  trade  should  be  part  of  the  bargain.  These 
conditions  having  been  accepted  by  both  sides,  there  remained  questions 
of  detail  as  to  the  treatment  of  finance,  the  composition  of  the  united 
legislature,  and  the  security  in  Scotland  of  the  national  religion  and 
national  institutions.  In  July  nearly  the  whole  of  the  commissioners 
signed  the  articles ;  but  the  ratification  by  both  parliaments  was  still 
necessary.  The  English  commissioners  had  done  a  good  deal  towards 
disarming  opposition  by  the  liberality  of  their  financial  concessions  and 
by  the  reasonableness  of  their  demands  as  to  the  relative  strength  of  the 
representation  of  the  two  nations  in  the  parliament  of  Great  Britain. 
Before  the  Scottish  Estates  met  in  the  autumn  to  discuss  the  acceptance 
of  the  treaty,  the  English  parliament  hajd  withdrawn  the  hostile  measures 
with  which  they  had  responded  to  the  Act  of  Security.  Marlborough's 
later  successes  in  the  Netherlands  had  confirmed  the  results  of  Blenheim, 


QUEEN    ANNE  559 

and  neither  Nationalists  nor  Jacobites  in  Scotland  could  use  the  fear  of 
France  as  a  lever  for  gaining  their  own  ends. 

Nevertheless,  it  w<is  still  far  from  certain  that  the  treaty  would  be 
accepted.  On  one  side  there  were  the  zealots  of  the  Covenant,  who  feared 
for  the  independence  of  the  Scottish  Kirk,  on  the  other  the  Jacobitism 
which  was  wide-spread  in  the  Highlands,  though  comparatively  inactive 
in  the  Lowlands.  Everywhere,  even  among  men  who  were  rationally 
convinced  of  the  substantial  benefits  that  would  arise  from  the  union,  there 
was  a  sentimental  antipathy  t©  anything  which  savoured  of  diminishing 
national  independence.  It  was  possible  with  perfect  honesty,  and  easy 
by  means  of  deliberate  exaggeration  and  misrepresentation,  to  excite  a 
passion  of  emotional  hostility,  insomuch  that  hardly  any  one  believed 
that  the  union  would  be  carried  without  bloodshed.  But  the  opposition 
was  overcome,  not  without  the  employment  of  influence  which  a  strict 
political  morality  would  have  rejected  as  corrupt.  The  leaders  of  the 
opposition  were  divided.  But  when  the  crucial  clause  deciding  the 
question  of  the  legislative  union  came  up  for  final  decision,  Hamilton 
abstained  from  voting,  and  the  clause  was  carried  by  a  substantial  majority. 

The  Scottish  Act  of  Union  received  the  royal  assent  in  January  1707  ; 
that  of  the  English  parliament  received  it  in  March.  The  Acts  came  in 
force  on  the  ist  May,  and  from  that  time  England  and  Scotland,  while  their 
separate  nationalities  remained  intact,  were  merged  in  the  single  Power 
of  Great  Britain. 

From  a  strictly  constitutional  point  of  view,  the  government  of  England 
was  modified  at  the  Union  by  nothing  more  than  the  addition  of  forty-five 
Scottish  members  to  the  House  of  Commons  and  of  sixteen  Scottish  peers 
to  the  House  of  Lords.  So  far  as  the  sovereignty  of  the  country  lay  with 
the  parliament  there  was  no  change.  It  was  not  so  with  Scotland,  where 
it  was  only  during  the  reign  of  William  III.  that  parliament  had  claimed 
powers  approximating  to  those  of  the  English  Estates.  The  Union  in  fact 
applied  the  English  system  to  Scotland.  On  the  other  hand,  it  prepared 
the  way  for  Scotland  to  exercise  a  very  effective  influence  in  the  policy 
and  the  concerns  of  Great  Britain.  Scottish  Nationalism  was  respected, 
the  Presbyterian  Scottish  establishment  was  secured,  the  Scottish  system 
of  law  and  Scottish  institutions  generally  were  preserved.  Although  the 
Treaty  of  Union  could  not  in  effect  debar  the  sovereign  parliament  of 
Great  Britain  from  occasionally  modifying  the  original  terms,  the  fact  still 
remained  that  it  would  be  exceedingly  dangerous  to  the  public  welfare  and 
the  public  peace  for  the  parliament  of  Great  Britain  to  introduce  modifica- 
tions which  were  not  acceptable  to  the  Scottish  people. 

When  there  was  no  longer  any  differentiation  between  English  and 
Scottish  trade  and  shipping,  the  way  was  cleared  for  an  immense  develop- 
ment of  Scottish  energy  and  Scottish  wealth,  although  half  a  century  was 
to  pass  before  the  effects  were  thoroughly  realised.  At  the  moment  and 
for  years  to  come  the  Union  was  not  popular  in  Scotland  ;  it  had  been 


560  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

carried  because  the  Unionists  proved  themselves  more  skilful  party  managers 
than  the  Nationalist  stalwarts.  The  opposition  to  Jacobitism  was  much 
weakened  in  the  northern  country  by  the  expectation  that  national  inde- 
pendence would  be  restored  with  the  Restoration  of  the  Stuarts.  It  was 
not  till  the  Jacobites  had  played  their  last  card  and  lost  the  game  for  good 
and  all  at  Culloden  that  Scotland  became  sufficiently  reconciled  to  the 
Union  to  turn  it  to  full  account. 


Ill 

THE   WHIG   ASCENDENCY 

The  year  which  followed  Blenheim  was  a  trying  one  for  Marlborough. 
His  design  for  an  effective  invasion  of  France  was  frustrated  by  the  failure 
of  the  imperialist  troops  to  co-operate.  He  succeeded  during  the  summer 
in  piercing  the  French  lines  with  his  English  and  Dutch  forces;  but  when 
he  would  have  followed  up  the  success,  he  was  paralysed  by  the  obstinacy 
of  the  Dutch  field  deputies  and  the  misconduct  of  some  of  the  Dutch 
commanders.  There  was  the  usual  tendency  of  the  English  and  Dutch, 
each  to  suspect  the  others  of  playing  for  their  own  interests.  Through  the 
winter  Marlborough  was  engaged  in  diplomatic  efforts  to  bring  the  new 
Emperor  Joseph  and  the  German  States  which  had  joined  the  alliance 
effectively  into  line.  Yet,  although  his  hand  was  strengthened  in  Holland 
by  a  reaction  in  his  favour,  brought  about  by  the  discovery  of  the  misconduct 
of  some  of  the  Dutch  generals,  Holland  refused  in  1706  to  sanction  his 
design  of  carrying  an  allied  force  into  Italy  and  sweeping  the  French  out 
of  that  country  as  he  had  previously  swept  them  behind  the  Rhine.  The 
Northern  German  States  were  equally  averse  from  sharing  in  such  remote 
expeditions. 

Nevertheless  he  found  his  opportunity  for  dealing  another  destructive 
blow  to  the  French  in  the  Netherlands.  The  Dutch  for  once  abstained 
from  tying  his  hands,  and  at  the  battle  of  Ramillies  in  May  he  inflicted  a 
tremendous  defeat  upon  the  French  marshal  Villeroi.  The  result  of  the 
victory  was  a  general  evacuation  by  the  French  of  Flanders  and  Brabant. 
From  Ostend  to  Brussels  and  Louvain  the  whole  region  before  the  end 
of  the  year  passed  into  the  possession  of  the  allies.  Moreover,  the  battle 
itself  produced  such  an  effect  on  the  German  princes  that  they  yielded 
to  Marlborough's  exhortations,  and  sent  their  troops  to  Italy,  where  the 
campaign,  conducted  by  Prince  Eugene,  cleared  the  French  out  of  the 
country. 

During  these  two  years  also  the  allies  were  possessed  with  illusory 
ideas  on  the  subject  of  the  Spanish  Peninsula  itself.  The  plain  fact  was 
that  the  entire  peninsula,  with  the  exception  of  the  kingdom  of  Portugal 
and  the  province  of  Catalonia,  was  on  the  side  of  Philip.      The  Catalonians, 


QUEEN   ANNE  '    561 

who  had  been  robbed  of  cherished  poHtical  rights  by  the  supremacy  of 
Castile,  filing  themselves  into  the  cause  of  the  Archduke  Charles  ;  Portugal 
had  confirmed  the  alliance  with  England  which  had  originated  at  the  time 
of  the  Restoration  in  England.  Portugal  and  Catalonia  gave  the  great 
maritime  Power  an  entry  to  Spain  both  on  the  west  and  on  the  east. 
Imperial  and  British  troops  were  sent  to  Spain,  the  latter  under  the  command 
of  the  brilliant  but  exceedingly  erratic  Lord  Peterborough.  Successes  of 
a  remarkable  character  were  achieved  in  a  most  unorthodox  manner  ;  but 
it  was  no  more  possible  for  the  English  and  Imperialists  to  carry  out 
an  effective  conquest  of  Spain 
against  the  will  of  the  Spanish 
people  than  for  France  to 
achieve  the  same  object  a 
hundred  years  later.  Although 
in  1706  it  seemed  for  a  time 
that  the  Bourbon  cause  was 
lost,  its  ascendency  was  re- 
covered in  the  following  year 
at  the  battle  of  Almanza.  The 
French  on  this  occasion  were 
commanded  by  the  Duke  of 
Berwick,  an  illegitimate  son  of 
James  II.,  whose  mother  was 
Marlborough's  sistero 

Again  in  that  year,  1707, 
Marlborough's  great  naval  de- 
signs were  frustrated.  None 
of  the  allies  could  be  easily 
persuaded  to  take  part  whole- 
heartedly   in    any    share    of    a 

general  scheme  in  which  their  own  individual  interests  did  not  obviously 
occupy  the  first  place.  The  clearance  of  Italy  in  1706  opened  the  way 
for  the  invasion  of  France  from  the  south-east.  Marlborough  designed 
such  an  invasion,  with  which  the  British  fleet  (as  it  must  be  called  from 
this  date)  was  to  co-operate.  The  objective  was  to  be  Toulon,  and  the 
capture  of  Toulon  would  turn  the  Mediterranean  into  a  British  lake. 
But  since  this  presented  itself  as  a  merely  British  interest  to  the  Austrians, 
no  energy  was  applied  to  the  project.  All  that  Austria  and  Savoy  really 
cared  about  was  to  secure  the  Italian  land  frontier  against  French  invasion. 

During  1707  Marlborough  himself  was  again  engaged  in  diplomacy, 
not  on  campaigning.  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden  had  started  on  his  astonishing 
and  meteoric  career.  He  had  grievances  against  the  Emperor,  and  there 
was  serious  danger  that  his  sword  would  be  thrown  iiito  the  scale,  in 
effect  against  the  Grand  Alliance.  In  part  at  least  it  was  due  to 
Marlborough   that   the   danger   passed,   and    Charles    plunged   into   Russia, 

2  N 


The  Allied  Forces  going  into  action  at  Ramillies. 
[From  a  medal  struck  to  commemorate  the  victory.] 


562  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

a  country  which  was  just  beginning  to  assume  Europe:in  importance  under 
Peter  the  Great. 

The  situation  at  the  end  of  1706  looked  so  ill  for  France  that  Louis 
was  prepared  to  seek  peace  with  the  allies  on  the  terms  of  giving  up 
the  Bourbon  claim  to  Spain  and  the  Netherlands.  The  terms,  however,  were 
rejected  by  the  allies,  and  the  events  of  1707  on  the  whole  gave  some 
encouragement  to  France.  Hence  a  vigorous  defensive  campaign  was 
planned  in  the  Netherlands  for  the  next  year.  Marlborough  was  hampered 
as  usual  by  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  the  co-operation  of  the  German 
forces,  whose  Northern  arm.y  had  now  been  placed  under  the  command  of 

the  Elector  of  Han- 
over, the  future 
George  I.  of  Eng- 
land. Eugene,  how- 
ever, released  from 
Italy,  was  now 
bringing  up  a  third 
army  to  the  North  ; 
and  with  him  Marl 
borough  could 
always  count  upon 
cordial  agreement. 
But  before  a  junc- 
tion could  be  effected  some  of  the  recently  occupied  Netherland  towns 
revolted  against  the  Dutch  ascendency,  and  the  French  were  threatening 
Oudenarde.  Marlborough  could  not  afford  to  wait  for  the  whole  of 
Eugene's  army,  though  he  was  joined  by  Eugene  in  person.  By  rapid 
and  skilful  movements  he  was  able  to  fling  himself  upon  the  French 
forces  near  Oudenarde  and  to  inflict  upon  them  a  decisive  defeat, 
though  too  late  in  the  afternoon  to  effect  the  complete  destruction  of 
the  French  army.  The  victory  enabled  Marlborough  to  prevent  the 
French  from  recovering  Ostend,  after  another  brilliant  action  had  been 
fought  by  General  Webb  at  Wynendael.  Before  the  end  of  the  year  the 
important  fortress  of  Lille  surrendered.  Another  valuable  capture 
bears  further  witness  to  Marlborough's  [understanding  of  the  meaning 
of  naval  supremacy.  It  was  owing  to  his  urgency  that  a  force  was 
despatched  to  Minorca,  Port  Mahon  seized,  and  the  island  occupied,  a 
winter  naval  station  in  the  Mediterranean  being  thereby  provided  for  the 
British  fleets.  The  design  was  carried  out  by  Lord  Stanhope  ;  the  island 
remained  a  British  possession  till  its  loss  in  1756. 

Ever  since  Blenheim  the  power  of  the  Whigs  at  home  had  been 
steadily  increasing.  The  party  was  controlled  by  a  group  known  as  the 
Junto,  consisting  of  Lord  Somers,  Charles  Montague,  who  had  become 
Lord  Halifax,  and  must  not  be  confused  with  the  "Trimmer"  Halifax  of  the 
Revolution,  Sunderland,  Wharton,  and  Lord  Orford — that  Admiral  Russell 


A  medal  celebratinf?  the  French  defeat  at  Oudenarde. 


QUEEN    ANNE  563 

who  had  won  the  battle  of  La  Hogue.  It  was  the  completeness  of  their 
agreement  with  Marlborough  and  Godolphin  with  regard  to  the  war  which 
bound  these  two  chiefs  to  the  Whig  party,  of  which  they  were  not  pro- 
fessedly members.  The  Tories,  Harley  and  St.  John,  endeavoured  to 
undermine  the  Whig  influence  through  Abigail  Hill  (Mrs.  Masham),  a 
kinswoman  both  of  Harley  and  of  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough.  The 
intrigue  was  detected  at  the  beginning  of  1708,  Harley  was  removed,  and 
the  ministry  became  exclusively  Whig,  though  Mrs.  Masham  still  retained 
the  ear  of  the  queen  in  spite  of  the  Duchess.  A  general  election  in  the 
summer  confirmed  the  Whig  ascendency,  all  the  more  because  the  majority 
of  the  Scots  in  both  Houses  for  practical  pur- 
poses increased  the  majority  of  the  Whigs. 
Their  victory  in  Parliament  was  capped  by  the 
successful  campaigns  of  the  year  and  the  apparent 
prostration  of  France. 

So  complete  was  this  prostration  that  Louis 
was  ready  to  accept  almost  any  terms  for  peace. 
He  was  willing  to  withdraw  even  from  active 
support  of  his  grandson's  claim  to  the  Spanish 
throne,  and  to  surrender  to  the  Dutch  sundry 
fortresses  in  the  Netherlands  which  would  serve 
as  a  barrier  against  French  aggression.  But 
the  Emperor  was  not  satisfied  with  the  terms  ; 
and  neither  the  Whigs  nor  Marlborough  wanted 
peace,  Marlborough  for  obvious  reasons,  and  the 
Whigs  because  they  were  afraid  that  peace 
would  be  followed  by  a  Tory  reaction.  The 
war  party  were  afraid  that  Holland  might  be 
tempted  by  the  offers  of  Louis  to  make  a  separate  treaty  on  her  own 
account ;  against  this  they  secured  themselves  by  the  Barrier  Treaty  with 
Holland  engaging  to  secure  her  still  more  favourable  terms.  The  demands 
finally  formulated  for  the  acceptance  of  the  French  king  were  in  plain 
terms  intolerable ;  for  he  was  required  not  only  to  withdraw  his  support 
from  Philip  but  to  employ  French  troops  in  ejecting  him  from  Spain,  on 
which  Louis  very  pertinently  observed  that  if  he  must  fight  some  one 
he  would  fight  not  his  friends  but  his  enemies. 

A  wave  of  fiery  enthusiasm  ensued.  A  new  army  was  drawn  together, 
ill-fed  and  ill-clad  but  burning  with  patriotic  ardour.  Under  the  com- 
mand of  Villars,  the  best  of  the  French  marshals,  it  met  Marlborough 
and  Eugene  at  Malplaquet.  The  formal  victory  fell  to  the  allies,  but 
at  the  cost  of  terrific  carnage,  and  losses  heavier  than  those  of  the 
French,  who  were  able  to  beat  an  orderly  and  secure  retreat.  It  was 
a  Pyrrhic  victory  ;  though  it  enabled  the  victors  to  capture  some  more 
fortresses  in  the  course  of  the  next  twelve  months,  they  had  been 
punished    too    severely    to    strike    any    decisive    blow.       And    when    the 


'1^^^::^ 


Queen  Anne  clipping  the  wings  of 
the  GalUc  cock. 

(A  contemporary  caricature  of  the  French 
position  in  170S.  ] 


564  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

twelve  months  were  past,  the  war  party  was  no  longer  in  the  ascendant 
in  England. 

Again,  in  Spain  renewed  campaigning  went  on  the  whole  favourably 
10  the  allies  through  the  first  half  of  17 10,  but  the  Spaniards  remained 
obstinately  loyal  to  Philip.  In  the  autumn  they  received  more  reinforce- 
ments from  France,  and  at  the  end  of  the  year  the  small  British  contingent 
under  Stanhope  forming  the  rearguard  of  the  allied  army  was  surprised 
and  compelled  to  surrender  at  Brihuega.  The  other  successes  of  the  allies 
had  little  effect  beyond  hardening  their  hearts  to  the  persistent  rejection  of 
peace  proposals. 

In   the   meanwhile   matters   had   been    going  ill    with    the   ministry   in 


The  campaigns  of  Marlborough. 

England.  In  1709  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough's  influence  with  the  queen 
was  waning,  and  all  Anne's  personal  sympathies  were  with  the  Tories. 
Moreover,  there  was  serious  friction  between  the  Junto  on  one  hand  and 
Godolphin  and  Marlborough  on  the  other.  In  the  winter  both  Marlborough 
and  the  Junto  committed  serious  blunders.  Marlborough,  anxious  to  secure 
his  own  position  above  party,  applied  to  the  queen  to  be  made  Captain- 
General  for  life.  The  fact  sufficed  by  itself  to  destroy  his  popularity  and 
to  arouse  ominous  suspicions  that  he  was  scheming  for  a  military  dictator- 
ship. The  Whigs  found  their  own  pitfall  in  an  outbreak  of  High  Church 
fanaticism.  An  egregious  divine,  Dr.  Henry  Sacheverell,  had  long  made 
himself  notorious  by  his  attacks  upon  dissenters  and  upon  the  latitudi- 
narian  bishops.  On  November  5th  he  preached  in  St.  Paul's  an  egregious 
sermon  denouncing  toleration  and  comprehension,  directed  against  pro- 
minent politicians  and   more  particularly  against  Godolphin,  to  whom  he 


QUEEN    ANNE  565 

referred  by  the  popular  nickname  of  Volpone,  taken  from   Ben  Jonson's 
play. 

The  thing  itself  was  of  no  serious  consequence,  but  it  was  typical  of 
the  attitude  of  the  High  Clerical  Tories  who  represented  Whig  ascendency 
as  a  danger  to  the  Church.  The  Whig  leaders,  urged  on  by  the  vindictive- 
ness  of  Godolphin,  resolved  to  silence  the  political  extravagances  of  the 
pulpit  instead  of  leaving  them  alone.  Sacheverell  was  impeached,  and  was 
forthwith  prematurely  glorified  as  a  martyr ;  his  trial  caused  as  much 
excitement  as  that  of  the  seven  bishops.  The  real  object  of  the  Whigs  in 
the  prosecution,  apart  from  Godolphin's  personal  feeling  of  vindictiveness, 
was  to  procure  the  condemnation  of  the  prevalent  Tory  doctrines  as  sub- 
versive of  the  principles  of  the  Revolution  and  as  being  in  fact  veiled 
Jacobitism.  There  was  not  much  difficulty,  however,  in  representing  their 
action  as  mere  persecution  of   a  political  opponent.     The   Doctor   was   a 


A  High  Church  caricature  on  the  Sacheverell  prosecution,  1710. 

fashionable  preacher,  and  the  fashionable  audience  who  attended  his  trial 
were  moved  to  sympathetic  tears  by  his  eloquent  defence.  The  Peers,  by  a 
small  majority,  found  him  guilty  of  the  charges,  but  they  had  taken  alarm 
at  the  popular  excitement  ;  the  queen  was  known  to  be  favourable  to  the 
culprit  ;  and  the  sentence  merely  suspended  him  from  preaching  for  three 
years,  and  ordered  the  obnoxious  sermon  to  be  publicly  burnt.  The  Whigs 
had  only  succeeded  in  making  themselves  look  foolish. 

Through  the  early  months  of  17 lo  Harley  was  secretly  intriguing  to 
sow  dissensions  among  the  Whig  chiefs  and  to  foster  the  queen's  in- 
creasing determination  to  escape  from  the  yoke  of  Duchess  Sarah.  He 
brought  into  play  the  erratic  Shrewsbury,  who  had  secluded  himself  from 
politics  for  many  years  past.  Before  midsummer  the  queen  had  broken 
finally  with  her  ancient  but  too  domineering  confidante.  The  disappear- 
ance of  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough  from  her  intimate  society  was  followed 
by  the  dismissal  first  of  Sunderland  and  then  of  Godolphin.  Harley 
reappeared  in  the  ministry.      His  own  object  was  in  all  probability  to  form 


566  THE   BRITISH   EMPIRE 

a  ministry  made  up  of  the  moderates  of  both  parties.  But  there  was 
no  real  coalescence.  By  September  all  Harley's  colleagues  were  Tories, 
while  the  House  of  Commons  was  the  same  which  had  been  returned  as 
triumphantly  Whig  some  two  years  before.  A  general  election  was  in- 
evitable, and  resulted  in  the  return  of  a  strong  Tory  majority. 


IV 
THE   TORY   ASCENDENCY 

The  Barrier  Treaty  had  done  the  war  party  no  good,  since  it  had 
encouraged  the  popular  cry  that  England  was  pouring  out  blood  and 
treasure  merely  to  benefit  the  Dutch  ;  moreover,  the  extravagant  conditions 
of  peace  offered  to  and  rejected  by  Louis  could  not  be  reconciled  with 
that  desire  to  bring  the  war  to  an  honourable  close  by  which  every  one  was 
professedly  actuated.  The  events  of  1710  demonstrated  with  some  clearness 
that  the  war  was  not  likely  to  come  to  an  end  at  all  if  Britain  insisted 
on  the  Whig  formula  which  absolutely  refused  to  recognise  the  Bourbon 
king  of  Spain.  The  Tory  ministers  were  entirely  warranted  in  conveying 
to  France  their  readiness  to  enter  upon  negotiations  with  a  view  to 
terminating  the  war.  The  peace  party  received  a  great  accession  of 
strength  by  the  death  of  the  Emperor  Joseph  and  the  consequent  succession 
of  his  brother  the  Archduke  Charles  to  the  Austrian  dominion  and  the 
Imperial  Crown.  England  had  not  gone  into  the  war  in  order  to  revive 
for  Charles  VI.  the  enormous  empire  of  Charles  V.  A  Hapsburg  on  the 
Spanish  throne  had  certainly  appeared  preferable  to  a  Bourbon  so  long  as 
it  was  clearly  understood  that  the  different  Hapsburg  crowns  were  not  to 
be  worn  by  one  person  ;  but  if  the  Austrian  Emperor,  Charles  VI.,  was 
established  also  as  the  head  of  the  Spanish  Empire  as  the  result  of  a  great 
European  war  ostensibly  directed  to  maintaining  the  balance  of  power,  the 
paradox  would  be  somewhat  glaring. 

Throughout  171 1  secret  negotiations  with  France  were  in  progress. 
There  was,  in  fact,  only  one  way  to  bring  the  war  to  an  end — that  one  of 
the  great  Powers  should  come  to  terms  with  France  and  then  insist  upon 
the  other  Powers  accepting  those  terms.  Only  by  pressure  of  this  kind 
could  they  be  induced  individually  to  surrender  extravagant  claims.  The 
war  itself  was  languishing  ;  Marlborough  was  conscious  of  the  precarious 
character  of  his  own  position  in  England,  since  his  wife  had  not  only 
ceased  to  be  the  queen's  intimate  confidante,  but  had  been  definitely 
dismissed.  The  political  managers  in  England  were  Harley,  the  nominal 
chief  of  the  Tories,  and  the  brilliant  St.  John,  men  whose  characters  and 
aims  were  too  incompatible  for  the  alliance  to  last,  though  they  might  be 
considered  as  each  other's  complements  luilil  they  became  antagonists. 
Hai  ley  was  an  opportunist  with  a  dislike  for  extremes  and  a  preference  for 


QUEEN    ANNE  567 

back-stairs  methods.  St.  John  was  an  ambitious  adventurer,  entirely 
unscrupulous,  and  of  boundless  audacity,  who  held  Harley's  cautious  and 
non-committal  attitude  in  contempt,  though  he  was  quite  ready  to  assume 
the  same  attitude  merely  as  a  mask.  For  him  the  matter  of  first-rate 
importance  was  to  gain  a  complete  ascendency  over  the  fox-hunting  Tory 
squires  whom  he  despised  from  the  bottom  of  his  soul. 

But  for  both  Harley  and  St.  John  the  first  thing  was  to  procure  peace 
and  to  get  rid  of  Marlborough.  The  two  objects  were  secured  by  a  coup  d'etat 
at  the  end  of  the  year.  The  way  was  blocked  by  the  hostile  majority  in  the 
House  of  Peers,  small  but  sufficient.  The  majority  was  converted  into  a 
minority  by  the  innovation  of  adding  twelve  Tories  to  the  Peerage,  and  the 
transformation  of  the  House  of  Lords  was  accompanied  by  the  dismissal  of 
Marlborough  and  the  appointment  of  Ormonde  to  the  chief  military  command. 
The  ministers  could  conduct  with  a  free  hand  the  negotiations  which  now 
opened  at  Utrecht  for  a  general  peace,  as  to  the  terms  of  which  they  had 
already  come  to  their  agreement  with  France. 

The  Peace  of  Utrecht,  which  was  signed  in  the  spring  of  171 3,  was  the 
great  achievement  of  the  Tory  ministry.  In  its  broad  lines  it  was  such  a 
treaty  as  would  have  been  approved  by  William  III.,  although  the  terms 
obtained  by  France  were  infinitely  better  that  those  which  Louis  would 
have  accepted  in  1707,  1709,  or  17 10.  It  was  of  little  importance  that 
the  Emperor  chose  to  prolong  the  war  with  France  on  his  own  account 
for  some  little  while  before  he  would  surrender  his  claims.  Philip  was  to 
retain  Spain  and  the  Indies,  but  he  and  his  house  were  to  be  barred  from 
the  French  succession  ;  the  Spanish  Netherlands  became  the  Austrian 
Netherlands,  while  Holland  held  the  barrier  fortresses.  Naples  and 
Milan  went  to  Austria  ;  Sicily  was  handed  over  as  a  kingdom  to  the  Duke 
of  Savoy.  The  gains  of  Great  Britain  from  the  treaty  were  substantial. 
She  retained  Minorca  and  Gibraltar,  bases  for  the  naval  command  of  the 
Mediterranean.  In  America  she  received  Nova  Scotia,  Newfoundland,  and 
the  Hudson  Bay  Territory,  all  of  them  hitherto  subjects  of  periodical 
dispute  with  France.  In  the  West  Indies  she  acquired  the  island  of 
St.  Christopher.  To  her  was  transferred  what  was  called  the  Asiento, 
restricted  rights  of  trading  with  the  Spanish  colonies  which  had  recently 
been  enjoyed  by  France.  This  included  a  monopoly  of  the  supply  of  negro 
slaves  and  the  right  of  sending  one  trading  vessel  annually  to  trade  in  the 
South  Seas.  Further,  France  undertook  to  dismantle  Dunkirk,  formally 
repudiated  the  claim  of  the  exiled  Stuarts  to  the  Crown  of  Great  Britain, 
and  acknowledged  the  Hanoverian  Succession. 

The  war,  which  was  originally  commenced  for  sound  enough  reasons,  had 
been  carried  on  successfully  by  the  Whigs,  and  the  Tories  brought  it  to  an 
end  by  a  peace  which  came  as  near  to  achieving  the  original  aims  of  the  war 
as  could  have  been  hoped  for.  Great  Britain  herself  had  very  substantial 
gains  in  the  American  territories  and  the  two  new  n^val  bases  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean.     But  while  the  peace  itself  might  be  claimed  as  satisfactory,  two  at 


568  THE   BRITISH   EMPIRE 

least  of  the  attendant  circumstances  were  extremely  discreditable  to  the 
ministry.  Great  Britain  induced  the  allies  to  come  to  terms  by  practically 
deserting  them  in  the  field.  Ormonde's  forces  were  neutralised  by  orders 
from  home,  while  he  was  still  supposed  to  be  acting  in  concert  with  the 
allies.  This  might  perhaps  have  been  excused  as  being  no  very  great 
breach  of  international  political  morality  ;  but  no  excuse  whatever  could 
be  found  for  the  desertion  of  the  Catalonians.  The  British  had  directly 
encouraged  Catalonia  to  rise  in  arms  against  the  Bourbon  monarchy  ;  they 
were  bound  in  honour  to  protect  the  Catalonians  against  any  vindictive 
treatment.  They  did  nothing  of  the  kind  ;  they  made  no  terms  for  their 
Spanish  allies,  and  the  rebellious  province  was  left  to  the  tender  mercies 
of  the  Spanish  monarchy. 

Probably  the  Tories  did  themselves  more  harm  by  proposing  a  com- 
mercial treaty  with  France  to  accompany  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht.  In  1704 
the  Methuen  Treaty  with  Portugal  had  secured  a  market  for  English  wool  by 
granting  a  preference  to  Portuguese  wines,  which  gave  port  wine  its  enormous 
vogue  throughout  the  eighteenth  century.  The  Methuen  Treaty  was  uni- 
versally applauded,  because  the  value  of  the  exports  to  Portugal  was  much 
greater  than  that  of  the  imports  ;  what  was  called  the  ''  balance  of  trade  " 
was  heavily  in  favour  of  England,  because  the  difference  in  values  was  made 
up  in  bullion.  A  commercial  treaty  with  France,  on  the  other  hand,  would 
on  the  same  principles  have  been  in  favour  of  France,  v/here  there  was  no 
great  market  for  English  goods,  whereas  a  lowered  tariff  would  have  induced 
a  great  demand  for  French  wines  and  other  goods  in  Britain.  Bullion 
would  have  gone  out  of  Great  Britain  into  France  ;  so  that,  according  to 
the  theory  of  the  time,  a  country  generally  hostile  to  us  would  have  gained 
at  our  expense.  The  proposal  was  received  with  so  much  indignation  that 
it  had  to  be  dropped. 

This  affair  is  to  be  noted  as  a  striking  example  of  the  fact  that  the 
Whigs  were  much  more  determined  advocates  of  the  mercantile  theory  of 
economics  than  the  Tories.  The  strength  of  Toryism  lay  with  the  landed 
interest,  and  the  landed  interest  had  not  become  protectionist  for  the  simple 
reason  that  the  country  had  no  difficulty  in  producing  all  the  corn  it  wanted 
for  itself.  The  strength  of  the  Whigs  lay  among  the  mercantile  classes, 
and  the  mercantile  classes  still  believed  that  their  own  interests  were  safe- 
guarded by  protection.  In  the  nineteenth  century  the  points  of  view  were 
reversed  ;  it  was  the  landowners  who  demanded  Protection  and  the  mer- 
cantile classes  who  carried  Free  Trade. 

The  Whigs  had  believed  that  they  could  best  maintain  themselves  in 
power  by  prolonging  the  war  ;  the  Tories  had  displaced  them  by  advo- 
cating peace  on  the  ground  that  the  war  was  being  continued  for  the 
benefit  not  of  Great  Britain  but  of  the  allies.  Hitherto  both  parties  had 
posed  alike  as  supporters  of  the  Hanoverian  Succession.  Hut  while 
the  Tory  leaders  were  endeavouring  to  maintain  themselves  in  power  by 
securing  the  favour  of  Queen  Anne,  the  Whig  leaders  were  busy  in  im- 


QUEEN    ANNE  569 

pressing  upon  the  court  of  Hanover  the  conviction  that  they  were  the 
friends  of  Hanover,  and  that  the  Hanoverian  Succession  was  endangered 
by  the  Tory  ascendency.  The  Tories  did  not  grasp  the  position  until  it  was 
too  late.  Before  the  end  of  17 13  it  was  already  a  moral  certainty  that, 
as  soon  as  the  Elector  of  Hanover  ascended  the  British  throne,  he  would 
place  himself  in  the  hands  of  the  Whigs.  And  the  Tories  had  only  just 
awakened  to  the  fact  that  the  succession  question  was  imminent.  Harley, 
now  known  as  the  Earl  of  Oxford,  was  not  the  man  to  guide  the  party  in 
an  emergency,  but  he  was  the  man  in  possession.  St.  John,  who  was  now 
Viscount  Bolingbroke,  found  that  the  time  had  arrived  when  he  must  grasp 
the  leadership.  When  that  was  secured,  he  would  have  to  stake  everything 
on  a  Stuart  Restoration, 
though  until  he  held  com- 
plete control  such  a  policy 
could  not  be  avowed.  The 
general  election  which  fol- 
lowed the  peace  had  pre- 
served the  predominance  of 
his  party  in  Parliament.  The  ^  hackney  coach  about  1710. 

,,  f  i     1       •  1  [From  a  broadside.] 

matter  of  vital    miportance 

for  him  was  to  get  rid  of  Oxford,  and  himself  to  obtain  such   a  dominant 

influence  with  the  party  as  would  enable  him  to  carry  it  with  him  when 

the   moment   arrived    for  throwing  off   the  mask  and  declaring  for    King 

James. 

If  the  game  was  to  be  won  it  would  not  be  by  any  futile  effort  to  con- 
ciliate adverse  interests  and  win  over  the  moderates.  The  thing  could 
only  be  effected  by  an  appeal  made  to  popular  passion  at  the  right  moment, 
and  the  Sacheverell  incident  pointed  to  a  wave  of  High  Church  fanaticism 
as  the  most  promising  means  to  attaining  the  end  in  view.  To  secure  the 
High  Churchmen  the  Schism  Act  was  introduced  and  carried,  which 
entirely  barred  dissenters  from  educational  work.  It  was  an  obvious  first 
step  towards  the  revival  of  the  Clarendon  Code,  overthrown  by  William's 
Toleration  Act,  but  still  dear  to  the  hearts  of  the  High  Church  Tories.  It 
served  its  purpose  in  rallying  the  whole  of  that  section  to  the  enthusiastic 
acceptance  of  Bolingbroke's  leadership.  Meanwhile  he  had  not  only  been 
intriguing  with  James,  but  had  been  steadily  employing  Mrs.  Masham  to 
destroy  Oxford's  influence  with  the  queen. 

On  July  27th  the  intrigues  were  so  far  successful  that  Anne  dismissed 
Oxford,  and  Bolingbroke  had  a  clear  field  in  forming  a  new  administration. 
Ready  and  swift  as  he  was,  death  was  swifter.  In  three  days  all  the  con- 
trolling executive  offices  had  been  conferred  upon  Jacobites,  secret  or 
avowed  ;  yet  a  few  days  more  were  needed  to  make  the  control  effective  and 
enable  Bolingbroke  openly  to  throw  off  the  mask.  The  few  days  were  not 
given.  On  the  third  day  after  the  fall  of  Oxford  the  queen  had  an  apoplectic 
stroke.     The  Council  met,  among  them  the  incalculable  Shrewsbury.     To 


570  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

them  entered  two  of  the  great  Whig  Peers,  Somerset  and  Argyle,  to  offer 
their  aid  in  this  melancholy  emergency.  Custom  restricted  attendance 
at  the  Council  meetings  to  the  acting  ministers  of  state,  but  theoretically 
all  members  of  the  Privy  Council  could  claim  the  right  to  be  present. 
The  arrival  of  Argyle  and  Somerset  was  sufficient  proof  that  the  Whigs  had 
concerted  their  measures  for  the  emergency.  Bolingbroke  dared  not  take 
the  tremendous  risk  of  there  and  then  throwing  off  the  mask  and  declaring 
against  the  Hanoverian  Succession.  Some  one,  perhaps  he  himself,  pro- 
posed that  Shrewsbury,  who  was  obviously  in  collusion  with  the  Whigs, 
should  be  made  Lord  Treasurer  ;  Bolingbroke  at  any  rate  did  not  venture 
to  resist  the  proposal.  When  the  physicians  reported  that  the  queen  had 
recovered  consciousness  a  deputation  was  sent  to  the  dying  woman's 
chamber  to  request  her  to  confer  the  Treasurer's  staff  upon  Shrewsbury. 
She  acquiesced,  handing  it  to  him  with  the  pathetic  words,  "  Use  it  for  the 
good  of  my  people."  A  general  meeting  was  immediately  called  of  all  the 
available  members  of  the  Privy  Council — a  very  different  thing  from  the 
selected  gathering  of  Bolingbroke's  instruments  which  had  been  interrupted 
by  the  Whig  Peers.  The  Council  acted  as  a  united  Government,  whose 
first  business  was  to  secure  the  Hanoverian  Succession,  and  to  take 
measures  against  any  possibility  of  insurrection  or  invasion.  On  the  fifth 
day  after  Oxford's  fall  Queen  Anne  died,  and  George  I.  was  proclaimed 
king  of  England,  while  no  man  ventured  to  raise  a  dissentient  voice. 


CHAPTER    XXIIl 

THE   WHIGS,   AND   WALPOLE'S  ASCENDENCY 

I 


THE   HANOVERIAN    SUCCESSION 

The  Hanoverian  Succession  confirmed  and  extended  the  principles  of  the 
Revolution  ;  it  was  absolutely  irreconcilable  not  merely  with  the  doctrine 
of  divine  right  but  with  any  very  elevated  conception  of  monarchy.  The 
Revolution  itself  had  been  brought 
about  by  the  determination  to  put  an 
end  to  government  by  a  king  who 
had  made  himself  intolerable,  and  to 
provide  security  against  a  like  mis- 
government  on  the  part  of  his  succes- 
sors. A  legal  justification  was  required 
to  satisfy  the  English  conscience  ;  it 
was  found  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Social 
Contract  as  expounded  by  Locke,  in 
the  elective  character  of  the  early 
English  monarchy,  and  in  the  parlia- 
mentary title  of  Henry  IV.  and  Henry 
Vn.  But  the  Revolution  had  been 
carried  out  successfully  because  Mary 
and  Anne  were  conspicuously  English 
princesses,  and  Mary's  husband,  though 
a  Dutchman  and  a  Calvinist,  was  still 
grandson  of  King  Charles  the  Martyr, 
and  a  man  indubitably  lit  to  play 
the  part  of  a  king.  He  was,  in  fact, 
the  man  of  whom  England  stood  in 
every  living  descendant  of  King  Charles  was  a  Romanist,  barred  from  the 
succession  by  religion.  What  Great  Britain  wanted  was  not  a  king  but 
some  one  to  sit  on  the  throne  and  prevent  it  from  being  occupied  by  a 
Roman  Catholic.  The  nearest  representative  of  the  blood  royal  who 
would  answer  the  purpose  happened  to  be  a  rather  elderly  German  prince 
whose  grandmother  had  been  a  daughter  of  James  I. 

Now  William  had  been  made  king  upon  conditions,  but  the  conditions 

571 


George  T. 

[From  the  painting  by  Kneller  in 
Gallery.] 


need   at   the   moment.      But   now 


^^2  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

did  not  make  him  into  a  dummy.  He  was  a  king  in  fact  as  well  as  in 
name,  because  England  needed  him  quite  as  much  as  he  needed  England. 
Now,  however,  England  needed  not  George  in  particular,  but  merely  some 
colourable  imitation  of  a  king  to  occupy  the  place  of  James  Stuart.  George 
and  his  son  would  have  gained  nothing  by  threatening  to  go  back  to 
Hanover.  They  were  kings  on  condition  of  good  behaviour.  Neither 
their  talents  nor  their  characters  procured  them  the  respect  or  affection  of 
their  British  subjects  ;  if  the  country  was  loyal  to  anything  it  was  not 
to  the  person  of  its  kings  but  to  the  principles  of  the  Revolution.  The 
Hanoverians  had  no  choice  but  to  place  themselves  practically  without  re- 
serve in  the  hands  of  the  dominant  party  in  Great  Britain.  Boiingbroke 
had  destroyed  the  Tory  party  by  identifying  it  with  Jacobitism,  and  con- 
sequently the  Whigs  held  complete  control  of  the  situation  and  retained 
it  for  more  than  fifty  years.  The  comparatively  small  influence  which 
under  such  conditions  the  Crown  was  able  to  exercise  finally  estab- 
lished the  supremacy  of  parliament  and  the  system  of  party  government 
which  was  only  coming  into  being  during  the  reigns  of  William  and 
Mary. 

The  Whigs  had  very  carefully  taught  the  Elector,  and  his  mother 
before  him,  that  they  could  win  and  hold  the  Crown  of  England  only  by 
grace  of  the  Whigs  and  by  recognising  their  dependence  on  the  Whigs. 
In  accordance  with  the  arrangements  made  for  dealing  with  the  situation 
when  Queen  Anne  should  die,  the  government  was  vested  in  the  hands  of 
a  group  of  "  Lords  Justices"  nominated  by  the  new  king,  until  he  himself 
should  arrive  in  the  country.  This  was  in  accordance  with  the  precedents 
of  William's  reign,  when  the  king  himself  had  been  absent  in  the  Nether- 
lands. The  Lords  Justices  nominated  were  all  Whigs  ;  when  George 
himself  came  to  England  in  September  he  appointed  all  his  ministers  from 
that  party.  They  soon  showed  themselves  bent  on  the  entire  destruction 
of  the  Tories.  The  dissolution  of  parliament  and  a  general  election 
returned  a  strong  Whig  majority.  A  commission  was  appointed  to  inquire 
into  the  proceedings  in  connection  with  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht,  and  on  the 
strength  of  its  report  Boiingbroke,  Oxford,  and  Ormonde  were  all  im- 
peached. Boiingbroke  had  already  taken  refuge  in  flight  and  had  joined 
James  Stuart.  Ormonde,  frightened  by  the  impeachment,  promptly 
followed  him.  Oxford  declined  to  run  away,  and  was  justified  by  the 
event.  It  was  too  obviously  impossible  to  condemn  as  treasonable 
proceedings  which  had  been  ratified  by  the  votes  of  two  parliaments  as 
well  as  by  the  approval  of  the  monarch  who  was  reigning  at  the  time. 

France  was  pledged  by  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  to  recognise  the  Hano- 
verian Succession;  but  at  the  deathbed  of  James  II.  Louis  ignored  a 
similar  pledge  which  he  had  given  at  the  Peace  of  Ryswick.  France  might 
again  repudiate  her  pledges,  and  if  she  supported  the  claim  of  James  Stuart 
it  was  conceivable  that  a  well-organised  Jacobite  rising  might  be  successful. 
Common-sense  and  material  interests  were  on  the  side  of  the  Hanoverian 


THE    WHIGS   AND   WALPOLE'S   ASCENDENCY     t^ji 

Succession  ;  sentiment  was  entirely  on  the  other  side.  But  the  whole 
machinery  of  government  was  in  the  hands  of  men  to  whom  a  Stuart 
restoration  would  mean  political  ruin.  There  were  three  things  absolutely 
necessary  to  a  successful  insurrection — organisation,  enthusiasm,  and  the 
certainty  of  extraneous,  that  is  to  say  French,  support.  The  Jacobites 
attempted  to  upset  the  new  dynasty  without  any  one  of  the  three  requisites. 
Unfortunately  for  them  Bolingbroke  was  the  only  intelligent  person  who 
attempted  to  direct  their  counsels,  and  the  unintelligent  people  carried  out 
their  own  plans  behind  his  back.  Bolingbroke  had  bent  himself  to  winning 
over  King  Louis,  but,  as  in  17 14,  fate  fought  against  him.  Louis  was  dying; 
on  September  ist,  17 15,  he  died.  His  sickly  great-grandchild  Louis  XV. 
became  king  of  France,  and  the  interests  of  the  Orleans  regency  were  entirely 
opposed  to  a  Stuart  restoration. 

Nevertheless  a  few  days  later  the  Earl  of  Mar  raised  King  James's 
standard  in  the  north  of  Scotland,  where  he  had  collected  together  a  group 
of  Highland  chiefs  on  the  pretext  of  a  great  hunting.  The  Government 
were  somewhat  unaccountably  unprepared.  Jacobite  sentiment  and  hatred 
of  the  Union  were  real  forces  in  Scotland  capable  of  effective  combination. 
Prompt  and  vigorous  action  on  Mar's  part  might  have  given  him  at  the 
outset  such  an  advantage  as  would  have  made  the  insurrection  exceedingly 
formidable.  But  "Bobbing  John,"  as  he  was  nicknamed,  was  incapable  of 
promptitude  or  vigour.  While  he  sat  still  and  did  nothing  the  Duke  of 
Argyle,  a  soldier  and  statesman  of  considerable  distinction,  was  despatched 
to  Scotland  to  suppress  the  insurrection.  On  November  13th  the  armies 
of  Argyle  and  Mar  met  and  fought  at  Sheriffmuir.  The  battle  was 
characteristic  in  its  futility — 

"  There's  some  say  that  we  wan, 

And  some  say  that  they  wan, 
And  some  say  that  none  wan  at  a',  man ! 

But  ae  thing  I'm  sure, 

That  at  Sheriffmuir 
A  battle  there  was  that  I  saw,  man  : 

And  we  ran  and  they  ran, 

And  they  ran  and  we  ran. 
And  we  ran  and  they  ran  awa',  man." 

Both  the  left  wings  broke  and  ran  ;  some  ran  without  any  reason,  and 
on  the  whole  the  Jacobites  ran  most  effectively.  To  have  called  the  fight  a 
victory  for  either  party  would  have  been  absurd  ;  some  five  or  six  hundred 
appear  to  have  fallen  on  either  side;  but  the  practical  result  was  that  when 
the  running  was  over  Mar  retreated  and  Argyle  did  not.  The  advance  of 
the  insurgents  was  stopped,  and  all  the  heart  that  there  ever  had  been  in 
the  rebellion  w^as  taken  out  of  it. 

When  Mar  raised  the  standard  of  James  in  the  North  the  English 
Jacobites  ought  to  have  risen  simultaneously.  But  insurrection  in  the 
Scottish    Highlands  was  a  much  simpler  matter  than  in   England,  where 


574  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

there  were  no  solid  Jacobite  districts,  and  the  government  troops  could  be 
moved  with  comparative  ease  and  rapidity.  The  news  of  the  Scottish  rising 
was  immediately  followed  by  the  arrest  of  half-a-dozen  leading  English 
Jacobites  ;  and  if  any  hopes  of  French  help  had  survived  the  death  of  Louis 
XIV.  they  were  quenched  by  prompt  demonstration  that  the  fleet  was  ready 
for  action.  In  the  north  of  England,  however,  a  number  of  Jacobite 
squires  collected  together  under  the  leadership  of  the  Earl  of  Derwent- 
water  and  Sir  Thomas  Forster,  who  was  nominated  General.  Over  the 
border  Lord  Kenmure,  with  Lords  Nithsdale,  Carnwath,  and  Wintoun, 
declared  for  King  James,  and  were  joined  by  Brigadier  M'Intosh  with  a 
few  Highlanders  from  Mar's  force.  These  two  companies  united  at  Kelso. 
But  the  Englishmen  would  not  march  North  to  help  Mar  against  Argyle, 
and  the  Highlanders  would  not  march  South  to  strike  at  the  small  govern- 
ment force  commanded  by  General  Carpenter.  While  they  tried  to  make 
up  their  minds  to  do  something  government  troops  were  mustering.  At 
last  the  insurgents  determined  to  invade  Lancashire,  whereupon  the  High- 
landers returned  home.  The  rest,  some  fifteen  hundred  strong,  marched 
through  Cumberland  southwards,  collecting  miscellaneous  recruits  by  the 
way  till  they  got  to  Preston.  Here  they  were  attacked  by  Carpenter  and 
Wills.  Led  with  any  intelligence  they  should  have  been  able  to  rout  the 
government  troops  ;  but  after  having  repulsed  on  attack  their  commanders 
were  inveigled  or  bluffed  into  surrendering.  Sheriffmuir  was  being  fought 
on  the  same  day. 

Thus  ignominiously  collapsed  the  rising  in  England.  In  Scotland  it 
dragged  on  a  little  longer.  James  himself  arrived  on  the  scene  with  the 
idea  that  his  presence  would  give  heart  to  his  followers.  But  the  un- 
fortunate prince  suffered  from  an  inveterate  melancholy  which  would  have 
damped  the  most  eager  enthusiasm.  Argyle  was  in  no  hurry  to  strike 
home  ;  but  the  Jacobites  had  lost  the  power  of  striking  at  all.  Their  forces 
diminished  day  by  day,  James  in  despair  withdrew  from  the  country,  and 
the  once  threatening  Jacobite  conflagration  guttered  dolefully  out. 

Most  of  the  leaders  escaped  to  France ;  some  were  attainted.  Of  the 
prisoners  taken  at  Preston  some  who  had  been  army  ofBcers  were  shot. 
The  peers  were  condemned  to  be  beheaded,  and  several  of  the  leading 
commoners  to  be  hanged.  But  some  succeeded  in  breaking  prison,  others 
were  respited,  and  only  Kenmure,  Derwentwater,  and  twenty-six  commoners 
were  actually  put  to  death.  The  plain  truth  was  that  it  was  unsafe  to 
proceed  to  extremities,  because  too  many  people  would  have  been  incon- 
veniently compromised.  Everybody  on  both  sides  had  friends  in  the 
opposite  camp,  and  no  one  felt  quite  sure  that  though  it  was  Hanover's 
turn  to-day  it  might  not  be  the  Stuart's  turn  to-morrow,  and  it  would  be 
highly  impolitic  to  make  the  Jacobites  vindictive.  In  not  a  few  families 
one  or  two  sons  had  been  allowed  to  join  the  rising  to  demonstrate  the 
family's  loyalty  to  the  Stuarts,  while  the  head  of  the  house  had  remained 
at  home  to  demonstrate  its  loyalty  to  the  Hanoverian  Succession.     And 


THE    WHIGS   AND    WALPOLE'S   ASCENDENCY     S7S 

^the  nation  at  large  sat  still,  in  scarcely  disturbed  apathy,  while  the  supreme 
question  of  the  day  was  settled  by  two  or  three  thousand  regular  troops, 
a  rabble  of  fox-hunters,  a  few  broken  adventurers,  and  some  Highland 
clansmen,  most  of  whom  cared  more  about  clan  feuds  than  the  real  issues 
that  were  at  stake.  A  few  forfeitures,  the  construction  of  some  military  roads 
in  the  Highlands,  and  an  ineffective  measure  of  disarmament,  were  the 
principal  outcome  of  the  Fifteen. 

It  produced  however  one  measure  of  constitutional  importance.  Under 
the  Triennial  Act  a  general  election  was  due  in  1717,  and  as  matters  stood 
it  was  clearly  possible  that  there  might  then  be  a  Jacobite  majority  in 
parliament.  So  the  Whig  House  of  Commons  resolved  to  prolong  its  own 
life,  and  passed  the  Septennial  Act,  which  extended  the  period  of  parliament 
from  three  years  to  seven — an  Act  which  remained  in  force  until  the  passing 
of  the  Parliament  Act  in  191 1.  The  Whigs  were  impervious  to  the  Tory 
outcry  that  such  a  proceeding  was  unconstitutional.  For  precedent  there 
was  the  case  of  the  Long  Parliament,  which  had  made  its  own  life  legally 
interminable,  except  with  its  own  consent.  For  the  rest,  the  measure  was 
necessary  to  secure  the  stability  of  government. 


II 

THE   FRENCH   ALLIANCE 

The  death  of  Louis  XIV.  in  September  17 15  produced  what  was 
practically  a  revolution  in  international  relations.  Only  one  sickly  child, 
Louis  XV.,  stood  between  Philip  V.  of  Spain  and  the  Crow-n  of  France. 
Philip  had  abjured  all  pretensions  to  that  Crown,  and  if  that  abjuration 
held  good,  the  heir  of  the  young  Louis  was  Philip,  Duke  of  Orleans,  the 
son  of  the  second  son  of  Louis  XIII.  Orleans  was  declared  regent;  but 
there  was  no  escaping  the  possibility  that  if  Louis  died  Philip  might  act 
upon  the  legal  doctrine  that  no  abjuration  of  the  French  Crown  could  be 
valid.  Hence  the  regent  Orleans,  so  long  as  he  should  be  heir-presumptive 
to  the  French  throne,  had  the  very  strongest  interest  in  upholding  the 
terms  of  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht.  The  House  of  Orleans  and  the  House  of 
Hanover  were  thus  mutually  bound  to  support  each  other  ;  and  there 
followed  a  period  of  close  alliance  between  the  French  and  British  Govern- 
ments. Further,  this  possible  succession  question  created  an  antagonism 
between  the  Spanish  Bourbon  and  the  Government  of  France  ;  for  the 
time  being  there  was  no  danger  to  Europe  from  that  m.enace  of  Bourbon 
aggression,  which  had  been  conjured  up  by  the  old  king's  acceptance  of 
the  Spanish  Crown  for  his  grandson. 

These  conditions  had  a  double  effect  on  naval  policy.  On  the  one 
hand,  France  was  satisfied  to  rely  upon  the  alliance  with  Great  Britain  for 
security  against  maritime  attack,  Holland  during  the  late  war  had  already 


576  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

dropped  behind,  and  the  British  naval  supremacy  thus  secured  was  in-^ 
creased  by  the  new  combination.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Spanish  minister 
Alberoni  was  inspired  with  a  passion  for  reviving  the  Spanish  capacity  for 
maritime  rivalry  ;  since,  while  the  British  dominated  the  seas,  Spain  was 
cut  off  from  adventures  for  recovering  power  in  the  Italian  Peninsula,  now 
mainly  absorbed  by  Austria, 

Though  the  Whigs  were  in  power,  the  great  Whig  names  of  Anne's 
reign  very  soon  disappeared.  Marlborough,  at  first  recalled  to  a  position 
of  confidence,  broke  down  completely  at  a  very  early  stage  ;  Somers  was 
worn  out  ;  Shrewsbury  vanished  after  his  appearance  as  the  Whig  dens  ex 
machtnd.      Stanhope  and  Townshend  became  the  leading  counsellors  of  the 

Crown  ;  and  with  Townshend  was  pre- 

THE  FRENCH  SUCCESSION  sently  associated   Sir  Robert  Walpole, 

Louis  XIII.  whose   abilities    had    already   won   for 

him  a  marked  ascendency  in  the  House 


Louis  XIV.  Philip  of  Orleans,      of  Commons.     Of  the  Junto,  Sunder- 

Dau'phin.  Regen!  Philip        land    aloue    held    a    leading    position. 

i of  Orleans.  ^j-  ^j^g  beginning  of   17 1 7  there  was  a 

Burgundy.      Philip  V.  spHt  betwecu  the  W' higs,  which  caused 

Louiixv.       °'^P^'"-  Townshend  and  Walpole  to  retire  and 

form  a  Whig  Opposition,  which  vigor- 
ously criticised,  and  sometimes  successfully  challenged,  the  measures  of 
the  Government  conducted  by  Stanhope  and  Sunderland.  The  Whig  split 
was  almost  simultaneous  with  the  development  of  the  understanding 
between  the  French  and  British  Governments  into  the  Triple  Alliance, 
in   which   Holland  was  included. 

Alberoni  had  at  first  probably  hoped  to  procure  the  advancement  of 
Spain  by  closer  relations  with  England,  to  be  purchased  by  commercial 
concessions.  Such  hopes  could  not  survive  the  Franco-British  Alliance, 
and  he  was  using  his  immense  capacities  for  intrigue  to  work  up  combina- 
tions of  the  Baltic  Powers,  which,  by  threatening  Hanover  itself  and  the 
Hanoverian  Succession  in  England,  should  prevent  the  Maritime  Power 
from  active  intervention  in  his  other  designs.  Then  in  171 7  he  opened  a 
premature  attack  upon  Sardinia,  which  had  fallen  to  Austria  in  the  settle- 
ment after  Utrecht.  The  discovery  and  exposure  of  the  intrigues  with  the 
Northern  Powers  spoilt  whatever  existed  in  the  nature  of  a  plot ;  France 
and  Great  Britain  intervened  in  favour  of  Austria,  and  forced  the  accept- 
ance of  an  agreement  which  satisfied  neither  Austria  nor  Spain,  but  which 
gave  Sicily  to  Austria,  and  Sardinia  in  place  of  it  to  Savoy.  Thus  the 
rulers  of  Savoy  became  the  kings  of  Sardinia,  the  progenitors  of  the 
present  royal  house  of  Italy. 

The  check  only  incited  Alberoni  to  fresh  energy.  He  renewed  his 
secret  intrigues,  which  were  intended  to  bring  about  an  anti-Hanoverian 
combination  between  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden  and  his  sometime  great 
enemy  the  Tsar  Peter,  the  creator  of  the  power  of    Russia.      He  strove 


THE    WHIGS   AND    WALPOLE'S   ASCENDENCY     577 

harder  than  ever  to  build  up  a  mighty  Spanish  fleet.  In  France  he 
intrigued  with  the  faction  which  opposed  the  Orleans  regime.  In  the 
summer  of  17 18  he  struck  again,  launched  an  expedition  against  Sicily, 
and  laid  siege  to  Messina.  But  the  British,  fully  alive  to  the  great 
preparations  which  had  been  in  progress,  were  ready  with  a  strong  fleet 
under  command  of  Admiral  Byng  in  the  Mediterranean.  Although  Spain 
and  Great  Britain  were  not  at  war,  the  British  fleet  went  in  search  of  the 
Spanish  fleet.  They  met  off  Cape  Passaro.  The  result  was  entirely 
decisive.  Only  ten  of  the  Spaniards  escaped  annihilation,  while  only  one 
British  ship  was  seriously  damaged.  The  work  was  completed  by  Captain 
Walton.  There  is  an  established  fiction,  commonly  endorsed  by  historians, 
that  Walton's  despatch  describing  his  operations  was  the  briefest  on  record 
and  ran,  "  Sir,  we  have  taken  and  destroyed  all  the  Spanish  ships  which 
were  on  this  coast,  the  number  as  in  the  margin."  Unfortunately  the  real 
despatch  is  extant,  and  is  ten  times  as  long  as  the  laconic  epistle  with 
which  the  captain  has  been  credited.  But  though  Walton  gained  an 
undeserved  renown,  the  fact  remained  that  the  battle  of  Passaro  destroyed 
all  prospect  of  the  resuscitation  of  a  Spanish  fleet  on  a  scale  which  could 
threaten  the  British  supremacy.  Nevertheless  it  was  not  followed  by  a 
declaration  of  war.  Byng's  purpose  was  sufficiently  accomplished.  Spain 
could  not  fight  Austria  in  Sicily  and  Italy  unless  she  held  command  of 
the  seas. 

Every  one  of  Alberoni's  schemes  miscarried.  The  anti-Orleanist  plot 
in  France  was  detected  and  crushed.  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden  was  killed 
by  a  stray  shot  before  Fredricshalle  in  Norway,  and  a  revolution  brought 
into  power  in  Sweden  a  government  from  which  Hanover  had  nothing  to 
fear.  A  British  squadron  on  the  Baltic  was  an  argument  which  Peter  the 
Great  found  conclusive.  Austria  was  added  to  the  Triple  Alliance,  and  at 
the  beginning  of  17 19  the  United  Powers  declared  war  against  Spain. 
Alberoni  made  a  last  desperate  attempt  to  despatch  an  armada,  which  went 
to  pieces  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay  before  a  blow  had  been  struck.  A  French 
army  entered  Spain,  and  a  British  squadron  wrought  havoc  at  Vigo. 
Philip  realised  that  the  struggle  was  hopeless,  Alberoni  was  dismissed  and 
banished,  and  the  Spaniards  evacuated  Sicily.  The  arrangements  pro- 
posed in  1 717  were  generally  confirmed.  The  real  root  cause  of  the 
recent  trouble  had  been  the  ambitions  of  Philip's  queen,  Elizabeth  Farnese. 
The  heir  to  the  Spanish  throne  was  Ferdinand,  Philip's  son  by  a  previous 
wife,  and  Elizabeth  wanted  a  separate  dominion  in  Italy  for  her  own 
offspring.  She  had  now  to  be  content  with  the  recognition  of  her  son 
Charles  as  heir  to  the  duchies  of  Tuscany,  Parma,  and  Piacenza,  which 
were  to  be  definitely  separated  from  the  Spanish  Crown. 

In  England  the  Stanhope  administration  carried  out  the  traditional 
Whig  policy  by  repealing  the  Schism  Act  and  the  Occasional  Conformity 
Act  which  the  Tories  had  at  length  passed  during  their  period  of  power  in 
the   last  years  of  Queen   Anne's  reign.      Walpole,   in   Opposition,  did  not 

2  o 


578  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

scruple  to  criticise  the  repeal,  although  no  man  had  more  energetically 
denounced  those  measures  when  they  were  introduced.  In  other  respects, 
however,  the  divisions  of  the  party  were  destined  to  have  beneficial  results, 
and  in  fact  to  confirm  the  Whig  domination  instead  of  wrecking  it,  as  at 
one  time  they  seemed  in  danger  of  doing. 

The  revolution  Whigs  were  not  in  the  slightest  degree  democrats. 
They  represented  in  the  main  two  principles,  parliamentary  supremacy 
and  religious  toleration  ;  but  the  supremacy  of  parliament  did  not  for 
them  mean  popular  government.  The  steady  strength  of  the  Whig  party 
lay  in  the  House  of  Lords ;  all  the  more  since  the  addition  to  their 
numbers  of  the  Scottish  peers  and  of  former  Tories  who  had  repudiated 
all  connection  with  their  party  to  escape  the  Jacobite  taint.  A  bill  was 
brought  in  by  Sunderland  which  would  have  transformed  the  House  of 
Peers  into  a  permanent  oligarchy.  The  whole  number  of  peers  was  to 
be  limited  to  six  more  than  there  were  at  that  time.  Peerages  which 
lapsed  on  the  failure  of  male  heirs  might  be  replaced.  The  Crown  was  to 
nominate  twenty-five  Scottish  peers,  instead  of  the  sixteen  whom  the  body 
of  Scottish  peers  now  elected  from  their  own  number.  This  increase 
was  by  way  of  compensation  for  the  arrangement  under  the  Act  of  Union 
by  which  Scottish  peers  might  be  made  peers  of  Great  Britain,  when  they 
would  not  longer  be  included  among  the  sixteen,  but  would  sit  in  the 
House  each  in  his  own  right.  The  avowed  object  of  the  bill  was  to 
prevent  a  repetition  of  the  party  move  by  which  the  Tories  had  procured 
the  creation  of  twelve  peers  in  order  to  obtain  a  majority  for  the  passing 
of  a  particular  measure.  But  the  power  to  create  peers  was  the  only 
means  of  preventing  a  standing  majority  in  the  Upper  House  from  exercis- 
ing a  practical  sovereignty.  A  House  so  constituted  could  not  indeed 
directly  force  its  own  measures  through  the  House  of  Commons,  but  its 
veto  would  be  permanent.  It  would  be  a  close  hereditary  body  into  which 
no  new  blood  could  be  introduced  except  on  the  actual  lapse  of  a  peerage. 
The  commoner  could  no  longer  look  forward  to  a  peerage  as  the  prize  of 
public  service.  The  Scottish  peers  could  no  longer  acquire  the  status  of 
peers  of  the  realm.  From  Scotland  arose  a  clamour  that  the  bill  was  a 
breach  of  the  Treaty  of  Union,  and  that  if  it  were  carried  the  Union  itself 
would  be  challenged.  Walpole  appealed  to  the  ambitions  of  the  members 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  excluded  for  ever  from  the  prospect  of  being 
enrolled  among  the  aristocracy.  Sutherland's  Peerage  Bill  w^as  defeated, 
and  the  House  of  Lords  remained  an  open  body.  In  modern  times  such 
a  defeat  would  involve  the  resignation  of  ministers  ;  but  the  modern  theory 
was  then  unknown.  Both  Walpole  and  Townshend  accepted  office  under 
the  very  ministers  whom  they  had  just  opposed  with  all  their  might,  and 
defeated.     The  fall  of  the  Stanhope  ministry  was  due  to  another  cause. 

The  Whigs  under  King  William  had  created  the  great  financial 
corporation  of  the  Bank  of  England.  Of  the  commercial  corporations 
the   greatest  was   the    East    India   Company,    which,  originally  associated 


THE   WHIGS    AND    WALPOLE'S   ASCENDENCY     579 

rather  with  the  Tories,  had  also  become  preponderantly  Whig   since    its 

union  with  the   Second   East   India  Company.     The    Bank  and  the   East 

India  Company  were  both  extremely  useful  to  the  Whigs,  while  a  Tory 

Government  could  not  with  equal  confidence  rely  upon  their  help.     Hence 

when  the  Tories  came  into  power  in  17 10  they  created  another  commercial 

association  in  the  hope  that  it  would  serve  them  as  the  other  corporations 

served  the  Whigs.     This  was  the  South  Sea  Company,  with  a  commercial 

programme    based    upon    the    rights 

and  privileges  which  were  to  be  the 

reward  of  the  peace  which  Harley  and 

St.  John  at  once  set  about  negotiating. 

It  was  anticipated  that  the  monopoly 

of  the    South   Sea   trade   which    was 

formally  opened  to   England   by  the 

Treaty  of  Utrecht  would  soon  bring 

immense   wealth   to    the    South    Sea 

Company.     The  company,  in  return 

for    the    monopoly,    took    over    the 

government  debt  of  ten  millions,  the 

government    appropriating   to   it   for 

the  payment  of  interest  the  proceeds 

of  particular  duties. 

There  was  in  fact  a  substantial 
trade,  and  the  position  of  the  com- 
pany as  originally  constituted  was 
reasonably  sound.  But  shortly  after- 
wards Europe  was  visited  by  an 
epidemic  of  speculative  mania.  The 
thing  was  not  confined  to  England  ; 
France  went  crazy  over  the  fabric 
of  crazy  finance  erected  by  Law  of 
Lauriston.     Until  1719  the  South  Sea 

Company  so  far  prospered  that  its  shares  stood  at  a  premium.  Now  at  the 
close  of  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession  the  National  Debt  amounted  to 
more  than  fifty  millions,  and  the  annual  charges  thereon  were  more  than 
three  and  a  quarter  millions.  These  figures  seemed  alarming,  and  there  was 
a  very  strong  desire  to  reduce  the  debt  as  rapidly  as  possible.  But  very 
little  had  been  done  in  this  direction  by  Walpole's  institution  of  a  sinking 
fund,  made  just  before  the  Whig  split.  The  South  Sea  Company  now 
came  forward  with  a  proposal  to  take  over  another  thirty  millions  of  the 
National  Debt,  which  would  be  converted  into  South  Sea  stock,  and  to  pay 
seven  and  a  half  millions  to  the  government,  in  return  for  which  their 
existing  privileges  in  the  South  Sea  trade  were  to  be  expanded  into  an  entire 
monopoly,  and  the  expenses  of  management  entailed  by  the  scheme  were  to 
be  provided  for  by  the  Treasury.     Government  adopted  the  scheme  in  spite 


Jin  vMA    *iJ-tu3^  haA  U-nlhinliJT^  /'ooi/   are   /iujTit/ria 
To  JCumjivr  }<hd.vto  WfuL  CtoMfy  i/uur  Cummj/njj 

But  Jatne  tlvcr  mia/\^ ^o^ej  mJlCrnic^  Sadmf4 


A  caricature  of  the  day  on  the  South  Sea 
Company,  1720. 


580  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

of  the  open  warnings  of  Walpole ;  there  were  members  of  the  ministry  who 
did  not  go  into  the  matter  with  clean  hands,  though  others  were  perfectly 
honest  in  their  belief  in  the  soundness  of  the  scheme.  If  it  had  merely 
attracted  a  sufficient  supply  of  additional  capital  for  extended  operations 
the  business  might  have  escaped  disaster  or  even  have  achieved  a  moderate 
success.  But  the  public  imagination  was  inflamed  by  wild  rumours  of 
incredible  concessions  made  by  Spain,  and  the  huge  profits  to  be  anticipated. 
High  and  low,  rich  and  poor,  were  gripped  by  the  gambler's  fever,  and 
began  to  spend  every  available  shilling  on  South  Sea  stock.  The  prices 
rushed  up.  On  January  31,  1720,  while  the  South  Sea  Act  was  under 
consideration,  the  market  price  of  ;^ioo  of  South  Sea  stock  was  about  ;^i30. 
A  week  after  the  Act  was  passed  two  and  a  quarter  millions  were  sub- 
scribed at  the  price  of  ;^300  for  a  nominal  ;^ioo  of  stock.  At  the  end  of 
May  the  price  had  almost  reached  ^1000,  and  at  Midsummer  it  reached 
^1060.  But  in  the  meanwhile  innumerable  fraudulent  companies  had 
been  taking  advantage  of  the  gambling  frenzy  to  rob  the  credulous  public, 
and  in  the  light  of  the  prosecutions  which  were  instituted,  the  public  began 
to  wake  up  to  the  fact  that  it  was  being  robbed.  Stockholders  of  all  kinds 
began  to  be  as  eager  to  sell  as  they  had  been  to  buy,  and  three  months 
after  reaching  its  highest  point  the  South  Sea  stock  had  dropped  again 
to  what  was  after  all  the  highly  respectable  figure  of  ;^i5o.  But  the  drop 
meant  ruin  to  the  vast  numbers  who  had  bought  at  the  inflated  prices. 
Their  ruin  entailed  the  ruin  also  of  their  creditors,  and  the  creditor's 
creditors,  and  so  in  ever-widening  circles  the  ruin  spread.  It  was  easy 
for  the  public  to  attribute  the  whole  hideous  disaster  to  the  criminality  of 
directors  and  the  wicked  ways  of  the  Government,  which  had  tricked  them 
into  believing  that  the  concern  was  sound.  It  was  easy  to  forget  that  the 
action  neither  of  Government  nor  of  directors  had  warranted  the  mad 
inflation  of  prices,  though  there  were  individual  ministers  and  directors 
who  had  used  their  opportunities  to  feather  their  own  nests.  If  Jacobites 
expressed  an  unholy  glee  over  a  catastrophe  which  seemed  to  portend  the 
immediate  downfall  of  the  Whigs,  they  could  hardly  be  blamed  ;  for  every 
one  who  could  be  in  the  most  remote  degree  suspected  of  having  had  a 
share  in  causing  the  disaster  became  the  object  of  frantic  popular  exe- 
cration. 

But  such  critics  were  woefully  out  in  their  reckoning.  The  people 
turned  for  their  saviour  not  to  the  Tories  but  to  the  ranks  of  the  Whig 
Opposition.  Townshend,  Walpole,  those  who  had  joined  with  them  in 
attacking  the  men  and  the  measures  of  the  Stanhope-Sunderiand  adminis- 
tration, were  palpably  free  of  all  blame.  Walpole  himself  had  raised  the 
voice  of  warning  ;  Walpole  was  a  master  of  finance.  If  any  man  could 
minimise  the  disaster  it  would  be  Walpole. 

Walpole  succeeded  in  his  task.  He  was  strong  enough  to  refuse  to 
yield  to  merely  vindictive  clamour,  and  adopt  measures  which  would  have 
appeased  the  popular  rage  for  the  moment   at  the  expense  of  justice  and 


THE   WHIGS   AND    WALPOLE'S   ASCENDENCY     581 

without  restoring  public  credit.  The  company  itself  was  preserved  with 
its  nominal  shares  of  ;^ioo,  once  worth  ^looo,  reduced  to  ;^33.  The 
private  property  of  directors  was  confiscated,  and  provided  some  two 
millions  for  the  immediate  relief  of  the  sufferers  from  the  catastrophe.  The 
Government's  claim  on  the  company  for  the  promised  seven  millions  was 
cancelled.  The  South  Sea  Company  remained  a  going  concern.  As  for 
the  ministry,  Ayslabie,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  was  expelled  from 
the  House  in  disgrace.  Sunderland  was  deservedly  acquitted,  but  the 
bitterness  of  popular  feeling  forced  him  into  retirement.  Stanhope,  con- 
spicuously honest  and  blameless,  might  have  held  his  own,  but  was  killed 
by  the  shock  of  the  whole  affair.  Townshend  and  Walpole  became  the 
first  ministers  of  the  Crown. 

Ill 

WALPOLE   AND   THE  SYSTEM 

Townshend  and  Walpole  were  connected  by  marriage.  They  had  held 
together  through  the  political  vicissitudes  of  the  last  ten  years,  and  for  ten 
years  more  they  remained  colleagues.  Their  government  was  at  first  a 
partnership  ;  but  neither  was  content  to  be  second  or  merely  equal  to  the 
other ;  and  the  partnership  developed  into  a  rivalry  which  was  only 
brought  to  an  end  when  Townshend  made  up  his  mind  in  1730  to  leave 
the  field  to  Walpole,  since  they  could  not  longer  work  in  harness  together. 
But  from  the  outset  Walpole  rather  than  Townshend  filled  the  public  eye  ; 
for  practical  purposes  Walpole  controlled  British  policy  from  the  end  of 
1720  until  1739,  and  he  remained  nominally  at  the  head  of  affairs  for 
three  years  more.  This  long  ministry  of  W^alpole  inaugurates  the  era 
during  which  the  question  of  primary  importance  has  been  not  who  was 
king  or  queen,  but  who  was  Prime  Minister  ?  Since  the  days  of  Charles  I. 
and  Buckingham  it  had  hardly  been  possible  at  any  time  to  name  any  one 
person  as  the  minister  of  the  Crown  who  directed  the  policy  of  the  state. 
Before  the  seventeenth  century  ministers  had  been  still  more  palpably  the 
servants  of  the  Crown,  holding  office  at  the  pleasure  of  the  Crown,  and 
dismissed  or  disgraced  or  sent  to  the  block  if  the  Crown  so  pleased.  But 
from  Walpole's  time  onwards  the  sovereign  has  been  virtually  deprived  of 
choice.  He  has  hardly  been  able  to  refuse  a  minister  pressed  upon  him  by 
the  leaders  of  the  party  dominant  in  parliament,  still  less  to  dismiss  one 
who  enjoys  parliament's  support  or  to  appoint  one  whom  parliament  finds 
obnoxious.  And  almost  at  all  times  one  particular  minister  has  been 
decisively  the  chief  of  the  administration,  though  not  always  the  nominal 
figurehead  for  whom  the  title  of  Prime  Minister  has  come  to  be  reserved. 

The  change  however  was  gradual  and  unconscious.  William  III.  chose 
his  own  ministers,  merely  modifying  his  selection  in  order  to  avoid  ex- 
cessive   friction    in    the    machinery    of    government.      It    was    a   practical 


582 


THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 


outcome  of  the  struggle  between  Crown  and  parliament  that  parliament 
made  its  voice  heard  on  questions  of  pohcy  and  of  administration  very 
much  more  energetically  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  than  in 
the  days  of  Plantagenets  or  Tudors  ;  the  more  or  less  tacit  acquiescence 

of  parliament  was 
less  easily  obtained 
than  in  earlier  times. 
Hence  to  avoid 
friction  it  had  be- 
come necessary  to 
secure  correspond- 
ingly a  greater 
concord  between 
ministerial  action 
and  parliamentary 
opinion.  Theoreti- 
cally it  was  not 
necessary  for  minis- 
ters to  be  in  agree- 
ment even  with  each 
other,butpractically 
it  was  becoming 
very  inconvenient 
that  it  should  not 
be  so.  If  at  any 
time  during  the 
reign  of  William  or 
Anne  all  the  minis- 
ters were  taken 
from  one  political 
party,  it  was  merely 
because  such  a 
selection  seemed 
necessary  at  that 
particular  time  to 
prevent  a  deadlock. 
The  Crown  did  not  as  yet  recognise,  popular  opinion  did  not  yet  declare, 
that  the  power  of  the  Crown  to  select  ministers  was  restricted,  except  by 
the  obligation  not  to  choose  men  who  were  conspicuously  obnoxious. 
Moreover,  the  power  of  the  Crown  was  only  slightly  restricted  even  in 
practice.  It  is  notable  that  changes  of  ministry  did  not  usually  follow 
upon  general  elections.  When  the  Crown  and  the  ministry  were  in 
harmony  the  electors  gave  a  general  support  to  the  ministry.  When  the 
Duchess  of  Marlborough  thoroughly  dominated  the  queen,  Whigs  domi- 
nated the    ministry,    and    an    appeal    to    the    electorate    returned    a    Whig 


Sir  Robert  Walpole. 
[From  the  painting  by  ].  B.  Vanloo  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.] 


THE    HOUSE    OF    COMMONS    UNDER    SIR    ROBERT    WALPOLE  S    ADMINISTRATION 

From  an  engraving  of  the  painting  by  Hogarth  and  ThornhiU.     Walpole  stands  to  the 
left  of  Mr.  Speaker  Onslow. 


THE    WHIGS   AND    WALPOLE'S   ASCENDENCY     583 

majority.  When  the  queen  shook  herself  free  of  the  Duchess,  Whigs  were 
turned  out  of  office,  Tories  took  their  places,  and  when  there  was  a  general 
election  the  electors  returned  a  Tory  majority.  Politicians  devoted  them- 
selves more  zealously  to  capturing  the  favour  of  the  sovereign  than  to 
cultivating  the  goodwill  of  the  electorate. 

Both  the  theory  and  the  practice  survived  the  Hanoverian  Succession. 
But  the  change  of  dynasty  produced  new  conditions.  One  of  the  two 
great  parties  was  shattered.  The  interests  of  the  whole  body  of  Whigs 
were  bound  up  with  the  security  of  the  new  dynasty.  The  interests  of  the 
new  dynasty  were  bound  up  with  the  predominance  of  the  Whigs  ;  and 
the  Hanoverian  Tories,  without  hopes  of  themselves  forming  a  dominant 
party,  were  rapidly  absorbed  into  the  Whig  ranks,  more  especially  after  the 
ignominious  collapse  of  the  ''  Fifteen."  The  Crown  had  not  the  will,  and 
would  not  have  had  the  power,  to  choose  ministers  except  from  among  the 
Whigs.  After  the  passing  of  the  Septennial  Act,  Whig  government  was 
never  really  in  danger  ;  even  the  South  Sea  Bubble  confirmed  a  Whig  com- 
bination instead  of  shaking  it.  Instead  of  a  rivalry  of  parties,  there  was 
only  a  rivalry  of  Whig  factions  ;  and  the  long  ascendency  of  the  Whigs 
under  these  conditions  made  it  for  ever  impossible  that  a  working  ministry 
should  be  formed  independent  of  party  lines.  Within  the  party  the  king 
apparently  retained  the  power  of  selection  ;  but  the  prestige  of  the  Crown 
was  very  much  reduced  by  the  fact  that  it  was  worn  by  unattractive  and 
unpopular  German  princes,  while  the  sentiment  of  loyalty,  wherever  it 
survived  at  all,  was  necessarily  attracted  to  the  legitimate  king  "  over  the 
water." 

Thus  if  the  king  was  free  to  choose  any  Whig  ministers  he  liked,  it  still 
remained  necessary  that  he  should  choose  men  who  would  work  together ; 
and  the  personal  influence  of  the  king  proved  to  be  no  longer  sufficient  to 
induce  ministers  to  work  in  political  harmony  when  they  were  personally 
antagonistic  to  each  other.  Politicians  continued  to  intrigue  in  order  to 
obtain  royal  favour ;  but  the  royal  favour  was  wasted  on  any  statesman 
who  could  not  manage  his  colleagues  or  who  could  not  manage  parliament. 
This  managing  capacity  was  possessed  by  Walpole,  and  after  Walpole  by 
Henry  Pelham.  It  was  not  possessed  by  their  rivals,  and  therefore  between 
1720  and  1754  Walpole  was  for  twenty  years  the  inevitable  minister  and 
Pelham  for  ten  years.  And  after  Pelham's  death  government  fell  into 
hopeless  confusion  until  there  was  a  coalition  between  Newcastle  and 
William  Pitt.  The  position  of  a  minister  was  unstable  unless  he  could 
secure  the  royal  favour,  though  the  royal  favour  was  not  sufficient  to  keep 
in  power  even  a  brilliant  politician  who  lacked  the  art  of  managing  his 
colleagues  and  parliament. 

Walpole,  then,  ruled  the  country  for  nearly  nineteen  years,  and  continued 
nominally  at  the  head  of  affairs  for  nearly  three  years  after  he  had  lost 
the  real  control.  With  the  exception  of  Lord  Burleigh  before  him,  and 
the  younger  Pitt  after  him,  no  other  minister  has  held  the  chief  power  in  the 


5^4 


THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 


THE    HANOVERIANS 

George  I.,  1714. 

I 
George  II.,  1727. 

I 


Frederic,  Prince  of 
Wales. 


George  III. , 
1760. 


William. 
Duke  of  Cumberland. 


state  for  so  long  a  time  continuously  or  almost  continuously.  He  retained 
the  support  of  the  Crown  throughout  that  time,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
George  1.  and  his  heir  were  in  constant  antagonism,  and  it  was  generally 
expected  that  the  accession  of  George  II.  would  be  followed  by  a  complete 

change  of  ministers.  Walpole  main- 
tained his  position  because  he  was 
shrewd  enough  to  know  that  the  person 
who  exercised  the  strongest  influence 
over  the  mind  of  George  II.  was  his 
very  able  queen,  Caroline  of  Anspach. 
Walpole's  rivals  made  the  blunder  of 
seeking  alliance  with  the  king  through 
other  ladies  who  enjoyed  the  royal  re- 
gard. But  the  latitude  of  George's  morals  did  not  disturb  his  wife's 
ascendency  ;  Walpole  allied  himself  with  Queen  Caroline,  and. that  alliance 
secured  him  with  the  king.  His  power  was  notably  diminished  when 
Queen  Caroline  died  in  1737. 

Walpole  managed  his  colleagues  by  overriding  them  If  they  set  them- 
selves up  as  rivals  or  attempted 
to  defy  his  authority,  they  ceased 
to  be  his  colleagues.  At  the  end 
of  his  tenure  of  power  every  man 
of  dangerous  abilities  or  overween- 
ing ambition  had  joined  the  Opposi- 
tion, an  Opposition  united  only  in 
its  antagonism  to  the  minister. 
Walpole  wanted  not  colleagues  but 
subordinates,  and  he  was  strong 
enough  to  conduct  the  government 
through  the  mediocre  subordinates 
who  obeyed  orders. 

The  man^igement  of  parliament 
was  more  complicated  ;  the  method 
was  corruption.  Corruption  could 
be  applied  in  one  form  or  another 
to  individual  members  of  parliament, 
to  the  magnates  who  controlled  the 
elections  in  certain  constituencies, 
and  to  the  electorate  itself  in  other 
constituencies.  County  members  were  returned  by  the  independent  votes 
of  landowners,  and  here  direct  corruption  was  hardly  available,  except  so 
far  as  it  might  procure  the  favourable  influence  of  great  county  families. 
Of  the  boroughs  a  great  number  had  already  become  in  effect  the  property 
of  some  great  magnate  whom  the  voters  could  not  venture  to  olfend. 
Both   Tudors  and   Stuarts  had  added  to  the   number   of   boroughs  small 


n  Caroline,  Consort  of  George  II. 


THE   WHIGS   AND    WALPOLE'S   ASCENDENCY     sS^ 

towns  especially  in  Cornwall,  which  practically  acted  under  orders  from 
the  Crown.  In  other  boroughs  of  magnitude  the  parliamentary  elections 
were  virtually  controlled  by  the  corporation,  and  corporations  were  cor- 
ruptible, even  to  the  extent  of  openly  selUng  the  seat  to  the  highest 
bidder.  Individual  membeis  of  parliament  were  corruptible.  "  All  these 
men  have  their  price,"  said  Walpole  as  he  surveyed  the  benches  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  a  remark  which  has  been  popularly  translated  into 
the  saying,  "  Every  man  has  his  price."  The  price  of  course  was  not 
necessarily  cash  ;  but  Walpole  acted  without  scruple  on  the  general 
principle  that  votes  in  the  House  were  to  be  bought,  that  the  support  of 
magnates  was  to  be  bought,  and  that  the  support  of  corporations  was  to 
be  bought.  Ofticial  places  big  and  small  were  distributed  for  the  satisfac- 
tion of  influential  persons.  Hard  cash  passed  when  hard  cash  was  re- 
quired. Walpole  did  not  create  the  system  ;  Danby  has  a  better  title  to 
the  honour  of  having  originated  it  ;  as  compared  with  his  successors, 
Walpole  was  a  mere  dabbler  ;  still  it  was  he  who  educated  the  public 
conscience  into  regarding  corruption  as  a  matter  of  course.  No  man  ever 
bribed  Walpole  himself ;  in  that  sense  his  hands  were  conspicuously  clean  ; 
but  he  was  entirely  without  shame  in  his  corruption  of  others.  And  thus 
he  managed  parliament. 

But  there  still  remained  a  latent  force  which  no  ministry  could  with- 
stand if  it  were  roused  to  activity,  the  force  of  public  opinion.  Ministers 
have  often  achieved  and  not  so  often  retained  power  by  awakening  popular 
enthusiasm.  Walpole  and  his  school  dreaded  popular  enthusiasm  as  a 
disturbing  and  unsettling  factor.  His  great  object  was  to  prevent  ebullitions 
of  sentiment,  to  preserve  an  acquiescent  apathy  in  the  public,  to  "  let  sleeping 
dogs  lie."  For  more  than  eighteen  years  he  carried  out  that  policy  success- 
fully, though  sometimes  at  the  cost  of  surrendering  measures  which  he 
regarded  as  being  in  themselves  for  the  public  good.  After  eighteen  years 
it  was  a  rush  of  popular  feeling  which  swept  him  away,  although  he  would 
not  resign  the  helm  which  he  could  no  longer  control.  During  those  years 
his  policy  had  consistently  preserved  the  country  at  peace,  while  the  storms 
of  war  swept  over  the  continent.  British  commerce  expanded  under  his 
enlightened  financial  administration.  The  nation  piled  up  wealth  which 
was  to  stand  it  in  good  stead.  But  the  pursuit  of  material  wealth  as  the 
siinwmm  boniiniy  the  cultivation  of  moral  indifferentism,  the  total  divorce  of 
politics  from  all  idealism,  threatened  to  debase  the  national  character,  until 
nobler  leaders  than  Walpole  reawakened  a  nobler  spirit. 


586  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 


IV 
THE  RULE   OF  WALPOLE 

Lord  Hervey,  writing  memoirs  of  the  earlier  years  of  George  II.'s 
reign,  apologises  for  their  lack  of  incident.  There  was  no  lack  of  incident 
in  affairs  on  the  continent,  but  Walpole,  in  spite  of  occasional  strong 
pressure,  managed  to  prevent  Great  Britain  from  being  embroiled.  It  was 
in  fact  his  very  particular  business  to  avoid  incidents.  The  country  was  to 
enjoy  the  happy  lot  of  having  no  history.  Nothing  was  to  be  disturbed 
which  could  be  left  undisturbed.  The  French  alliance,  inaugurated  under 
the  Stanhope  regime,  was  the  best  possible  guarantee  of  peace.  Under 
Stanhope  also  the  domestic  question  of  religion  had  been  relieved  of  its 
acuteness  by  the  repeal  of  the  Occasional  Conformity  and  Schism  Acts. 
In  the  abstract  it  was  quite  unreasonable  no  doubt  that  dissent  should  carry 
with  it  any  legal  disabilities  ;  but  the  grievance  was  more  theoretical  than 
practical,  since  the  great  majority  of  Nonconformists  had  no  conscientious 
objection  to  passing  the  very  futile  tests  which  the  law  imposed  ;  and  even 
if  they  did  break  the  law,  they  could  practically  count  upon  the  passing 
of  an  annual  Act  of  Indemnity  which  relieved  them  from  any  penalty. 
Walpole,  therefore,  discountenanced  any  attempts  at  re-opening  a  question 
which  might  arouse  a  slumbering  fanaticism  into  a  dangerous  activity. 

For  a  moment  the  equilibrium  was  in  danger  of  being  disturbed  when 
old  king  George  I.  died  in  1727,  for  it  was  known  that  the  new  king's 
favourite  among  the  statesman  of  the  day  was  Carteret,  who,  at  first  a 
colleague  of  Walpole  and  Townshend,  had  been  driven  from  ofBce  as  a  too 
clever  rival.  The  ice  cracked  but  it  did  not  break  ;  Walpole,  having  won 
the  support  of  Queen  Caroline,  was  soon  more  firmly  established  than 
ever. 

The  main  features  of  Walpole's  policy  were  negative  ;  he  would  not 
provide  a  handle  for  any  one  who  sought  to  create  discontent  and  disturb- 
ance ;  he  would  not  be  seduced  into  a  policy  of  intervention  in  Europe. 
The  one  direction  in  which  he  adopted  a  positive  policy  of  reform  was 
in  that  of  commerce ;  because  he  looked  to  commercial  prosperity  as 
the  surest  guarantee  of  political  quietude.  And  here  he  could  venture  to 
be  a  reformer,  though  an  exceedingly  cautious  one,  because  his  already 
high  financial  reputation  was  convincingly  confirmed  by  his  management  of 
the  South  Sea  disaster.  The  country  was  wedded  to  the  mercantile  system, 
the  doctrine  of  controlling  trade  so  that  British  goods  should  be  exchanged 
for  foreign  money  rather  than  British  money  for  foreign  goods.  Broadly 
speaking,  imports  were  discouraged  except  from  countries  which  took  more 
than  their  value  in  exports,  and  they  were  discouraged  also  as  competing 


THE    WHIGS   AND    WALPOLE'S   ASCENDENCY     587 

with  British  products.  On  the  other  hand,  British  exports  were  taxed 
in  order  to  keep  down  their  prices  in  the  home  market  for  the  benefit 
of  the  consumer,  although  in  other  cases  the  consumer  was  forgotten 
and  the  export  was  encouraged  by  bounties  for  the  benefit  of  the  pro- 
ducer. 

Walpole  saw  that  the  greatest  economic  gain  would  come  from  the 
maximum  development  of  the  volume  of  trade ;  he  wished  to  make  London 
the  great  World  Emporium.  But  he  was  true  to  his  principles,  disturbing 
no  interests  which  were  satisfied  with  the  existing 
order,  but  might  be  dangerously  excited  by  change. 
He  reduced  or  removed  taxes  on  exports,  taxes 
on  imports  which  did  not  compete  with  home  pro- 
ducts, and  taxes  on  raw  materials  which  the  home 
manufacturer  wanted  to  buy  at  the  lowest  possible 
price.  Experience  had  shown  the  risk  and  dis- 
advantages which  arose  from  the  dependence  of 
the  country  on  the  Baltic  trade  for  naval  materials, 
since  hostility  on  the  part  of  the  Baltic  Powders 
tended  to  paralyse  that  trade ;  so  the  production 
of  naval  materials  at  home  and  in  the  "  Plantations  " 
or  colonies  was  fostered  by  bounties.  No  com- 
mercial interests  suffered,  nor  did  the  revenue 
itself  suffer  from  the  reduction  of  tariffs,  because 
while  the  rate  was  lowered  the  corresponding  re- 
duction in  price  brought  an  increased  demand  and 
an  increase  in  the  quantity  of  the  goods  on  which 
the  duties  were  levied. 

Yet  the  moment  of  greatest  danger  to  Wal- 
pole's  administration  came  with  the  financial  pro- 
posal known  as  the  Excise  Bill.  If  it  had  not 
been  called  an  excise  bill  no  danger  would  have 
arisen  at  all.     Excise  is  internal  taxation ;  as   dis- 

tinct  from  customs  duties,  the  taxation  at  the  ports  of  goods  on  their 
embarkation  or  disembarkation.  It  had  been  introduced  by  the  Common- 
wealth government,  but  applied  only  to  the  production  and  sale  of  spirituous 
liquors,  and  was  exceedingly  unpopular,  though  it  was  too  useful  a  source 
of  revenue  to  be  dropped.  Now,  in  accordance  with  the  principle  of  en- 
deavouring to  attract  commerce  and  shipping  to  English  ports,  Walpole 
tried  a  very  successful  experiment  with  tea,  coffee,  and  chocolate.  Such 
goods  were  brought  to  English  ports,  in  part,  not  for  sale  in  England  but 
for  re-export.  They  paid  a  duty  on  being  disembarked,  and  when  they 
were  re-embarked  a  corresponding  rebate  was  allowed.  In  the  case  of 
tea,  coffee,  and  chocolate  under  Walpole's  experiment  the  goods  were 
disembarked  and  stored  at  the  ports  without  paying  a  duty,  and  of  course 
were  re-embarked  without  any  rebate  ;  the  duty,  in   short,  became  charge- 


George  il. 

[From  the  portrait  by  R.  E.  Pine.] 


Costumes  in  the  early  part  of  the  iSth  century. 
[From  NickoU's  "View  of  Hampden  Court."] 


588  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

able  only  when  they  were  withdrawn  from  the  port  for  home  consump- 
tion. It  was  found  that  this  change  was  productive  of  a  substantial  increase 
in  the  revenue.  In  1733  Walpole  proposed  to  extend  the  system  to  other 
goods,  notably  tobacco.  But  he  called  the  measure  an  Excise  Bill.  The 
purpose  of  the  bill  was  generally  to  develop  commerce  and  specifically  to 
obtain  an  increase  of  revenue  whereby  he  would  be  enabled  to  diminish  the 
land  tax,  and  so  to  concihate  the  interests  which  bore  the  main  burdens  of 
the  nation  under  the  system  of  finance  introduced  by  the  Whigs.  But  the 
name  of  excise  spelt  ruin  to  the  measure.  The  Opposition  conjured  up  an 
appalling  picture  of  a  universal  system  of  excise,  under  which  a  vast  army 
of   government   officials  would    penetrate  into  private  establishments  and 

would  subject  the  citizen's 
private  affairs  to  investiga- 
tion. Even  the  landowners 
took  fright,  preferring  the 
burden  of  the  land  tax 
to  the  dreaded  invasion 
which  was  to  deprive  every 
Englishman  of  his  most 
cherished  liberties.  It  was 
of  no  use  to  point  out  that 
the  new  army  of  officials 
would  number  not  much  more  than  a  hundred,  and  that  their  duties  would 
be  practically  confined  to  the  ports.  The  country  lost  its  head  almost  as 
completely  as  in  the  days  of  the  Popish  Plot.  Walpole  had  absolutely  no 
doubt  of  the  value  of  his  proposal  ;  he  could  have  carried  it  in  parliament, 
but  it  was  evident  that  it  could  not  be  put  in  execution  without  much  rioting 
and  bloodshed.  On  such  an  issue  a  modern  ministry  in  like  circumstances 
would  resign  office.  W^alpole  withdrew  the  measure,  but  did  not  resign. 
Common  ministerial  responsibility  is  taken  for  granted  in  modern  times: 
but  this  was  still  so  far  from  being  the  case  in  Walpole's  day  that  some 
of  Walpole's  own  colleagues  took  part  in  the  agitation  against  the  bill. 
Walpole  held  his  own  grip  of  power,  and  turned  those  colleagues,  Pulteney 
and  Chesterfield,  out  of  office.  They  joined  the  ranks  of  the  Opposition 
which  gathered  round  the  inefficient  person  of  Frederick,  Prince  of  Wales, 
who  was  on  the  worst  possible  terms  with  his  father,  as  his  father  had 
been  with  George  I.  The  whole  episode  affords  the  clearest  possible  demon- 
stration of  the  difference  between  modern  conceptions  of  ministerial 
responsibility  and  those  which  prevailed  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 

Not  domestic  but  foreign  affairs  finally  led  to  the  destruction  of 
Walpole's  influence.  We  have  seen  that  the  outstanding  feature  of  the 
Whig  foreign  policy  after  the  death  of  Louis  XIV.  was  alliance  with  France, 
because  the  peculiar  circumstances  made  the  French  court  under  the 
Regent  Orleans  antagonistic  to  the  new  Bourbon  dynasty  in  Spain,  instead 


THE   WHIGS   AND   WALPOLE'S   ASCENDENCY     589 

of  drawing  the  two  Bourbon  powers  together.  The  death  of  Orleans  in 
1723  and  the  domination  of  the  Duke  of  Bourbon  which  followed  it  did 
not  in  effect  change  the  situation.  For  Bourbon  wanted  to  get  the  young 
king  married  and  to  provide  another  heir  to  the  throne,  in  order  to  exclude 
the  new  Duke  of  Orleans  from  the  succession.  But  the  Spanish  princess  to 
whom,  with  another  object  in  view,  the  Regent  Orleans  had  betrothed  the 
youthful  Louis,  was  only  six  years  old — Orleans  had  hoped  that  the  sickly 
king  would  die  before  an  heir  could  be  born  to  him.  Precisely  in  order 
to  prevent  this,  Bourbon  broke  the  Spanish  engagement,  and  married  him 
to  Mary,  a  daughter  of  Stanislaus,  ex-king  of  Poland,  so  that  the  hostility 
of  Spain  to  France  was  intensified  by  the  slight.  But  then  there  came 
a  change.  Louis  in  1726  declared  himself  of  age,  dismissed  Bourbon,  and 
entrusted  the  government  to  the  already  aged  Cardinal  Fleury.  Fleury, 
like  Walpole,  was  an  advocate  of  European  peace  ;  he  believed  in  achieving 
his  ends  by  diplomacy  in  preference  to  war,  and  so  Fleury  and  Walpole 
remained  in  close  alliance.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  Fleury  had  no  reason 
whatever  for  antagonism  to  Spain.  Since  the  king's  marriage  and  the 
growing  improvement  in  his  health,  the  possibility  that  Philip  of  Spain 
would  ever  have  a  chance  of  asserting  a  claim  to  the  Crown  of  France 
became  remote.  The  unostentatious  reconciliation  with  Spain  bore  fruit 
in  1733  in  the  secret '' Family  Compact"  between  the  Bourbon  powers; 
and  the  policy  to  which  that  compact  pointed  was  the  estrangement  of 
Great  Britain  from  Austria  and  the  European  ascendency  of  the  Bourbons^ 
to  be  attained  by  the  humiliation  first  of  an  isolated  Austria  and  then  of  an 
isolated  Britain.  The  scheme  so  far  as  France  was  concerned  required 
the  maintenance  of  friendly  relations  with  Great  Britain  until  Austria 
had  been  dealt  with  ;  but  the  friendliness  to  Great  Britain  was  merely 
assumed  for  ulterior  purposes.  The  public  knew  nothing  of  these  things, 
but  the  Family  Compact  was  known  to  Walpole,  and  the  great  defect  of 
Walpole's  management  of  foreign  affairs  lay  in  his  neglect  to  take  measures 
either  to  counteract  or  to  paralyse  the  Bourbon  conspiracy.  It  was  a 
matter  of  supreme  good  fortune  for  Great  Britain  that  Fleury  also 
neglected  to  provide  the  means  for  carrying  out  the  scheme.  Neither 
Spain  nor  France  developed  a  navy  fit  to  cope  with  the  naval  ascendency 
of  the  island  Power,  whose  supremacy  had  been  so  thoroughly  established 
in  the  last  great  war  and  confirmed  in  the  subsequent  years. 

Fleury's  objects  were  advanced  by  the  War  of  the  Polish  Succession 
which  began  in  1733  and  was  ended  in  1737.  The  kingdom  of  Poland 
was  elective,  and  all  the  European  Powers  ranged  themselves  on  the  side 
of  one  or  other  of  two  opposing  candidates  for  the  throne.  Great  Britain 
alone  kept  clear,  though  King  George,  as  Elector  of  Hanover,  was  extremely 
anxious  to  plunge  into  the  war  in  support  of  the  Imperial  candidate.  The 
result  was  that  Europe  was  deluged  with  blood,  and  all  the  treasuries  were 
exhausted,  while  Britain  remained  at  peace  and  accumulated  wealth.  Other- 
wise, the  points  in  the  redistribution  of  territory  to  be  noted  are  that  the 


590  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

king  of  Spain's  second  son  was  established  as  king  of  the  Two  Sicilies  ;  and 
that  Francis,  Duke  of  Lorraine,  who  was  about  to  marry  Maria  Theresa,  the 
daughter  and  heiress  of  the  Emperor,  received  the  dukedom  of  Tuscany, 
and  in  effect  surrendered  Lorraine  itself  to  France.  To  the  Emperor 
Charles  the  main  satisfaction  was  found  in  the  guaranteeing  by  the  Powers 
of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction,  an  instrument  which,  in  defiance  of  precedent, 
recognised  his  daughter  Maria  Theresa  as  the  heiress  of  the  Austrian 
dominion. 

Six  years  after  the  Family  Compact  the  whole  fabric  of  Walpole's  peace 


A  satire  on  Walpole  and  his  Administration  about  1738. 
[This  print,  called  "  In  Place,"  covers  the  whole  political  situation  of  the  day.] 

policy  had  melted  into  thin  air.  Britain  and  Spain  plunged  into  war,  and  in 
a  very  short  time  all  Europe  was  once  more  in  conflagration.  But  neither 
the  Family  Compact  nor  the  intervening  War  of  the  Polish  Succession  was 
directly  responsible  for  the  Anglo-Spanish  quarrel  or  the  War  of  the  Austrian 
Succession.  British  and  Spaniards  flew  at  each  other's  throats  over  a 
quarrel  which  had  been  standing  for  nearly  two  centuries  ;  neither  people 
knew  anything  about  Family  Compacts.  The  War  of  the  Austrian  Succes- 
sion arose  because  the  Emperor  Charles  VI.  had  neither  a  son  nor  a  brother, 
nor  even  a  nephew,  and  the  king  of  Prussia  discovered  in  the  fact  an 
opportunity  for  rounding  off  his  dominions.     Looking  back  on  the  circum- 


THE    WHIGS    AND    WALPOLE'S    ASCENDENCY     591 

stances  in  the  light  of  later  history,  it  is  easy  to  observe  that  the  two  wars 
between  1739  and  1763  settled  a  question  of  vital  importance  in  the 
world's  history  by  giving  to  the  British  race  a  decisive  supremacy  over  all 
European  rivals  in  North  America  and  in  India  ;  but  obviously,  when  the 
fighting  began,  the  combatants  did  not  realise  the  nature  of  the  stake.  They 
were  not  fighting  for  that  stake.  The  French  government  oughl  to  have 
been  directed  by  the  consciousness  that  there  was  not  room  either  in  North 
America  or  in  India  for  both  French  and  English  ;  the  Bourbon  conspiracy 
ought  to  have  been  one  primarily  for  the  suppression  of  Great  Britain, 
the  appropriation  of  the  Western  Hemisphere  by  the  Bourbons,  and  the 
establishment  of  a  French  Empire  in  India.  The  political  instinct  of  the 
British  race  ought  to  have  led  the  nation  to  force  the  hand  of  a  too  timid 
minister  and  compel  him  to  strike  at  Spain  before  the  conspiracy  was  ripe. 
But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  conspiracy  was  aimed  primarily  against  Austria, 
and  only  in  the  second  place  against  British  maritime  supremacy,  not  con- 
sciously against  British  colonial  expansion.  The  proof  lies  in  the  fact  that  the 
conspirators  made  no  sort  of  preparations  to  challenge  the  British  maritime 
supremacy  in  the  one  conceivably  effective  manner,  namely,  by  the  creation 
of  rival  fleets.  Neither  the  French  nor  the  British  governments  had  given 
a  second  thought  to  the  idea  of  dominion  in  India.  And  the  British  nation 
forced  the  hand  of  the  British  minister,  not  influenced  by  an  instinctive 
perception  of  great  imperial  necessity,  but  because  it  lost  its  temper. 
The  Englishman  who  knew  of  the  Family  Compact,  who  was  convinced 
that  France  would  make  common  cause  with  Spain,  who  believed  that  his 
country  would  not  be  able  to  stand  up  against  the  united  Bourbons,  was 
the  minister  whose  hand  was  forced,  the  minister  who  hated  and  dreaded 
the  war,  Robert  Walpole. 


CHAPTER   XXIV 

THE   FALL   OF  WALPOLE,   AND   THE    PELHAM 
ADMINISTRATION 


THE   WAR    IN    EUROPE 

Ever  since  the  days  of  Elizabeth  EngHsh  seamen  had  persisted  in  a  belief 
that  they  had  a  right  to  trade  with  the  Spanish  settlements  in  Central  and 
South  America  and  in  the  West  Indies,  whether  the  Spanish  authorities 
sanctioned  the  custom  or  not.  The  Spanish  authorities  did  not  sanction 
the  custom  and  punished  offenders  with  a  high  hand,  as  they  had  an 
obvious  right  to  do.  The  Treaty  of  Utrecht  had  at  last  made  some 
limited  concessions  ;  the  British  had  the  right  of  supplying  negro  slaves, 
and  of  sending  one  trading  ship  to  the  South  Seas.  But  this  provided  no 
remedy  for  the  still  extensive  illicit  traffic.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Spaniards 
were  charged  with  exercising  the  right  of  search  not  only  within  the 
proper  area  of  Spanish  waters  but  on  the  high  seas.  Both  sides  broke  the 
law  freely.  A  British  captain  named  Jenkins  declared  that  his  ship  had 
been  boarded  on  the  high  seas  and  his  own  ear  torn  off  by  the  Spanish 
revenue  authorities.  When  further  stories  of  outrage  were  multiplied,  and, 
in  spite  of  the  conciliatory  attitude  of  British  ministers,  no  redress  was 
forthcoming,  the  story  of  Jenkins's  ear  was  resuscitated,  a  storm  of  popular 
indignation  swept  over  the  country,  and  Walpole  found  himself  obliged  to 
choose  between  declaring  war  and  resigning.  He  would  not  resign,  and  in 
October  1739  war  was  declared. 

Walpole's  inefficiency  as  an  organiser  of  war  was  no  less  conspicuous 
than  his  ability  as  a  peace  minister.  Knowing  what  he  knew,  it  was  his 
business  to  have  been  ready  to  strike  and  to  strike  hard  the  moment  that 
war  was  forced  upon  Britain.  The  Spanish  fleet  might  and  should  have 
been  in  effect  swept  off  the  seas  at  once.  Instead  Anson  was  despatched 
on  the  celebrated  expedition  in  the  course  of  which  he  circumnavigated  the 
globe.  Vernon  was  sent  to  the  West  Indies  and  the  Spanish  Main, 
Portobello  was  severely  handled,  but  both  at  Cartagena  and  at  St.  lago  the 
British  were  badly  repulsed  owing  to  the  discords  between  the  naval  and 
the  military  authorities.  No  great  result  could  be  looked  for  from  such 
operations.  But  before  any  one  else  was  drawn  into  taking  part  in  the 
duel — for    France    was   quite    unprepared    for    a    great    naval    struggle — all 

592 


THE    FALL   OF    WALPOLE  593 

the  leading  states  in  Europe  found  themselves  fighting   over  the  Austrian 
succession. 

The  Emperor  Charles  VI.  died.  According  to  the  Pragmatic  Sanction, 
which  every  one  had  guaranteed  more  or  less  solemnly,  Maria  Theresa 
was  to  succeed  to  the  whole  of  the  Austrian  dominion.  Her  husband, 
Francis,  formerly  of  Lorraine,  was  a  candidate  for  the  Imperial  Crown. 
But  the  Elector  of  Bavaria  claimed  the  succession  to  large  portions  of  the 
dominion,  and  was  also  a  candidate  for  the  Empire.  France  and  Spain 
saw  their  advantage  in  the  dismemberment,  Great  Britain  and  Hanover  in 
the  integrity,  of  the  Austrian  dominion.  The  electorate  of  Brandenburg, 
for  some  time  ranking  among  the  more  powerful  of  the  German  principalities, 
had  been  erected  into  the  kingdom  of  Prussia  at  the  beginning  of  the 
century.      Its    second    king,    Frederick 

William   I.,  had  organised  his  army  on       THE  AUSTRIAN   SUCCESSION 
the     hypothesis     that     the     state     was     a  Emperor  Leopold. 

military   machine.       The    country   had  | 1 

not    hitherto    played   the   part  of  a    first-      Emperor  Joseph.  Emperor  Charles  Vl. 

rate     Power;      Frederick     II.,     who     had  Maria  Amelia,  Maria  Theresa, 


just  succeeded  his  father  on  the  throne,  Charles  of  Bavaria  Francis  of  Lorraine 

(Emperor 
Charles  VIL). 


was    now   to    prove    the    efficacy   of    that  ^  (Emperor^  jEmperor 


military  machine,  and  set  Prussia  de- 
finitely in  the  front  rank  of  the  European  Powers.  But  to  give  Prussia 
that  position,  it  was  a  strategic  necessity  for  her  to  absorb  the  Austrian 
province  of  Silesia.  While  other  Powers  were  arguing  and  arming, 
Frederick  acted.  His  troops  entered  Silesia,  for  the  possession  of  which 
he  was  able  to  concoct  a  claim  sufficiently  plausible  for  his  purposes,  and 
announced  that  if  Maria  Theresa  confirmed  him  in  possession  he  would 
defend  the  integrity  of  Austria.  If  not  he  would  naturally  support  the 
claims  of  Bavaria. 

The  permutations  and  combinations,  and  the  withdrawals  and  reap- 
pearances of  the  various  states  who  participated  in  the  war  as  principals 
or  as  auxiliaries  were  complicated  and  confusing.  The  direct  issue  was 
between  Maria  Theresa  and  Charles  of  Bavaria,  who  was  successful  in  the 
imperial  election  and  became  Charles  VII.  Charles  claimed  the  main  suc- 
cession in  right  of  his  wife,  the  daughter  of  the  Emperor  Joseph,  the  elder 
brother  and  predecessor  of  Charles  VI.  Since  the  male  succession  failed 
there  was  a  good  enough  case  for  arguing  that  the  daughter  of  the  younger 
brother  had  no  right  of  precedence  over  the  daughter  of  the  elder  brother. 
Spain  intervened  in  spite  of  her  war  with  Great  Britain,  because  the  oppor- 
tunity offered  of  making  good  her  claims  to  dominions  in  Italy  ;  Frederick 
intervened  because  he  wanted  to  make  good  his  claim  in  Silesia.  Both 
these  were  claims  against  Maria  Theresa  as  the  heiress  of  the  Archduke 
Charles  ;  that  is,  they  were  in  respect  of  possessions  which  had  gone  to 
her  father  as  the  old  Emperor  Leopold's  second  son,  not  as  the  senior 
representative  of  the  Hapsburgs  ;  consequently,  from  the  point  of  view  of 

2  P 


594  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

Charles  VII.  there  was  no  objection.  There  was  in  short  to  be  a  dis- 
memberment of  the  dominion  of  Charles  VI.  in  the  interests  of  Bavaria, 
Prussia,  and  Spain. 

France  tore  up  her  guarantee  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  and  intervened 
in  the  curious  character  of  an  auxiliary,  because  the  disintegration  of  Austria 
was  to  the  interest  of  the  Bourbons.  When  the  war  was  fairly  opened  in 
Silesia  in  the  spring  of  1741,  Great  Britain,  under  Walpole's  guidance, 
would  not  intervene  on  the  continent,  and  Hanover  itself  was  forced  into 
neutrality  by  the  threat  of  a  French  invasion  of  the  Electorate  Saxony 
joined  the  Bavarian  combination ;  and  if  both  France  and  Prussia  had 
acted  energetically  against  Austria  Maria  Theresa  might  have  been  forced  into 
submission.  But  Frederick  held  off,  after  early  successes,  hoping  to  make 
a  separate  compact  of  his  own  with  Austria ;  and  France  held  off  because 
it  did  not  suit  her  that  Charles  should  have  matters  all  his  own  way. 

At  the  beginning  of  1742  Walpole  gave  up  the  hopeless  attempt  to 
keep  the  control  of  British  policy  in  his  own  hands.  He  resigned  ;  in  the 
new  ministry  foreign  affairs  were  managed  by  Cr.rteret,  whose  views  coin- 
cided with  the  king's.  An  energetic  foreign  policy  was  adopted  ;  if  it  had 
not  been  so  the  Opposition  would  have  thundered  against  the  pusillanimity 
of  the  government.  As  it  was,  they  thundered  instead  against  a  policy 
which  was  controlled  by  the  mterests  of  Hanover.  It  is  to  be  observed, 
however,  that  George  always  wanted  Maria  Theresa  to  purchase  the  support 
of  Frederick  by  conceding  his  demands  in  Silesia  ;  and  Frederick  in  fact 
was  bought  off,  after  another  victory  in  May,  by  the  Treaty  of  Breslau, 
which  gave  him  the  better  part  of  the  coveted  province.  But  it  was  not 
till  1743  that  the  British  and  Hanoverian  troops  played  a  conspicuous 
part — at  the  battle  of  Dettingen,  King  George,  who  commanded  in  person, 
blundered  into  a  trap  from  which  the  army  rescued  itself  more  by  sheer 
valour  than  by  skill.  George  himself  displayed  conspicuous  courage. 
This  is  noted  as  the  last  occasion  on  which  a  British  monarch  was  himself 
present  on  the  field  of  battle. 

At  this  stage  some  concessions  on  the  part  of  Maria  Theresa  would  have 
made  possible  a  general  peace,  of  which  George  would  have  had  some  right 
to  regard  himself  as  the  real  author.  But  comparative  success  made  the 
Austrian  queen  disinclined  for  peace  ;  England  was  irritated  against  France, 
which  was  threatening  to  take  up  the  cause  of  the  Pretender,  and  it  was 
easy  to  proclaim  that  the  peace  proposals  were  dictated  in  the  interests  of 
Hanover.  The  negotiations  fell  through,  a  fresh  league  was  formed  for 
carrying  on  the  war,  and  in  the  next  year,  1744,  Frederick  again  intervened, 
having  made  a  compact  with  France,  which  now  dropped  the  fiction  that 
her  troops  were  merely  acting  as  auxiliaries  and  definitely  declared  war. 
For  hitherto,  in  spite  of  all  the  fighting,  Great  Britain  and  France  had  not 
nominally  been  at  war  with  each  other. 

The  character  of  the  contest  was  modified  by  the  death  of  Charles  VII. 
in  January  1745.     The  new  Elector  of  I'avaria  came  to  terms  wWh  Austria, 


The  House  of  Commons  in  1742. 
[From  a  drawing  by  Gravelot  engraved  by  W.  J.  White. 


595 


596  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

and  the  Austrian  queen's  husband,  Francis  of  Lorraine,  became  Emperor. 
But  France  was  now  palpably  playing  for  her  own  hand,  and  once  more 
the  Netherlands  became  the  theatre  of  conflict  between  the  French  armies 
under  Maurice  of  Saxony,  commonly  called  Marshal  Saxe,  an  illegitimate 
son  of  the  Saxon  Elector,  and  the  British  Hanoverian  and  Dutch  troops 
under  the  command  of  the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  the  second  son  of  King 
George.  From  the  British  point  of  view,  the  most  notable  event  was  the 
defeat  of  Cumberland  at  Fontenoy,  a  battle  where  the  mismanagement  of 
the  commander  was  almost  neutralised  through  the  amazing  courage  and 

discipline  displayed  by  the  British  troops, 
which  were,  however,  little  more  admir- 
able than  those  shown  by  their  foes. 

Again,  however,  the  war  was  modified 
by  the  practical  withdrawal  from  it  on  the 
continent  of  one  of  the  combatants  on 
each  side.  The  great  Jacobite  insurrec- 
tion called  British  troops  back  to  England  ; 
and  Frederick  again  retired  in  disgust 
because  France  was  obviously  fighting 
entirely  in  her  own  interest  to  the  com- 
plete neglect  of  his.  The  French  could 
and  did  overrun  the  Netherlands  ;  but 
then  Austria  was  relieved  of  another  enemy 
by  the  accession  in  Spain  of  the  pacific 
King  Ferdinand,  who  was  much  more  in- 
terested in  giving  Spain  itself  a  chance 
of  peace  and  recuperation  than  in  ex- 
tending the  dominions  of  his  half-brothers 
carrying    out    the    ambitions    of    the    Family    Compact    with 


The  despairinj^  Frenchman  at  LrAiisbourg. 

[From  a  French  caricature.] 


in    Italy   or 
France. 

In  fact,  from  the  time  when  the  Jacobite  insurrection  was  over,  and 
France  and  Austria  had  become  practically  the  only  active  belligerents  on 
the  continent,  the  interest  of  the  struggle  for  Great  Britain  is  to  be  found 
in  other  regions.  She  had  begun  in  1739  with  an  ill-conducted  maritime 
war  against  Spain,  in  which  her  greatly  superior  power  was  frittered  away 
with  very  little  result.  In  the  next  stage  she  had  reasserted  her  maritime 
ascendency  in  the  Mediterranean,  paralysing  the  French  and  Spanish  fleets, 
and  thereby  at  least  reducing  Spanish  activity  in  Italy.  In  the  closing 
years  of  the  war  naval  ascendency  was  more  vigorously  asserted  ;  some 
blows  were  struck  at  the  French  fleet  by  Anson  and  H.iwke ;  and  a 
foretaste  was  given  of  the  coming  struggle  with  France  in  North  America 
by  the  capture  of  Louisbourg  on  the  St.  Lawrence.  The  fleet  would 
again  have  turned  the  scale  in  favour  of  the  British  in  the  conflict  which 
had  opened  in  India  had  the  general  war  continued  for  another  year. 
But  by  174H   Britain,  Spain,   France    and   Prussia  all   wanted  to  stop  the 


THE    FALL   OF    WALPOLE  597 

war  from  which  Bavaria  had  long  retired  ;  and  a  peace  on  the  general 
basis  of  a  restoration  of  conquests  was  forced  upon  Austria,  though 
Frederick  of  Prussia  retained  his  acquisitions.  Apart  from  Silesia,  Maria 
Theresa  held  what  she  had  fought  for.  England  restored  Louisbourg  to 
France  in  exchange  for  Madras,  which  the  French  had  captured  in  India. 
Frederick  of  Prussia  alone  had  gained  positively  by  the  war,  by  the  actual 
acquisition  of  territory  and  the  achievement  of  a  great  military  reputation  ; 
and  this  had  been  done  at  the  cost  of  procuring  the  undying  animosity 
of  Austria,  As  for  Spain  and  Great  Britain,  the  cause  of  the  quarrel 
which  had  started   the   original   duel  between   them   was  not   even   alluded 


Europenn  Sovereigns  at  Market,  174S. 

[From  a  print  satirising  the  re-arrangements,  bargainings,  and  restorations  of  European  diplomacy 

at  the  end  of  the  war  of  the  Austrian  Succession,  in  174S.] 


to  in   the  Treaty   of  Aix-la-Chapelle  (1748),  which   brought  the  war  to  a 
close. 


II 


THE   FORTY-FIVE 


The  war  which  lasted  from  1739  to  1748  was,  from  a  British  point  of 
view,  singularly  futile  and  unproductive.  But  out  of  it  arose,  while  it  was 
still  in  progress,  two  episodes  of  signal  importance.  One  was  the  last 
great  effort  of  Jacobitism,  the  failure  of  which  finally  freed  the  country 
from  the  constantly  lurking  spectre  of  -civil  war.  The  other  was  the 
attempt  made  by  the  servants  of  the  French  East  India  Company  to  eject 
their  British  rivals,  an  attempt  which  presently  recoiled  upon  their  own 
heads. 

The  ignominious  collapse  of  the  rising  of  17 15  damped  the  somewhat 
lukewarm   ardour  of    English  Jacobites.      In    Scotland  the    enthusiasm  of 


598  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

loyalty  to  the  Stuarts  remained  alive  among  some  of  the  Highland  clans, 
and  thrilled  the  romantic  hearts  of  many  ladies.  The  hope  that  a  Stuart 
restoration  would  put  an  end  to  the  Union  with  England  was  cherished 
north  of  the  Tweed  by  many  who  cared  nothing  for  the  rights  of  dynasties. 
But  the  real  fervour,  the  real  sanguine  belief  that  "James  III.  and  VIII." 
would  ^yet  come  by  his  own,  was  to  be  found  chiefly  among  the  exiles  or 
the  sons  of  the  exiles  who  had  departed  from  Limerick,  or  had  taken  flight 
after  the  *' Fifteen."  The -king  whose  honest  bigotry,  combined  with  an 
obstinate  stupidity,  lost  him  the  crown  of  England,  was  succeeded  by  the 
unfortunate  prince  who  lives  in  the  pages  of  Thackeray  as  a  voluptuary 
who  threw  away  a  crown  to  gratify  an  amour.  The  real  James  was  a 
meritorious  person  who  habitually  endeavoured  to  do  what  he  believed  to 
be  his  duty.  He  would  not  sacrifice  loyalty  to  his  faith  for  the  sake  of  a 
crown,  though  half  England  would  have  turned  Jacobite  if  he  had  turned 
Protestant.  He  conceived  it  to  be  his  duty  to  regain  the  crown  of  his 
fathers,  but,  not  without  plenty  of  excuse,  he  was  a  melancholy  pessimist, 
painfully  conscious  that  he  was  fighting  a  losing  battle.  He  was  free  from 
the  conspicuous  faults  of  his  father,  of  his  uncle  Charles  II.,  and  of  his  son 
Charles  Edward  ;  unhappily  his  personality  was  not  inspiring  but  chilling. 
For  that  reason  he  was  singularly  ill-fitted  to  undertake  the  role  which  fate 
had  thrust  upon  him. 

Jacobite  plots  and  intrigues  continued  with  varying  activity  during  the 
thirty  years  which  followed  the  "Fifteen."  Half  the  English  Tories  would 
perhaps  have  liked  to  see  a  restoration  ;  many  Tories  and  not  a  few  Whigs, 
•  while  regarding  a  restoration  as  a  disturbing  possibility,  were  anxious  to 
stand  well  at  the  Stuart  court  if  that  possibility  should  materialise.  Sanguine 
exiles  were  easily  persuaded  to  believe  that  the  Stuart  cause  was  really 
popular  in  England,  as  it  in  fact  was  to  a  large  extent  in  Scotland.  Ireland 
was  too  powerless  to  count.  But  Jacobites  in  England  and  Scotland  held 
to  a  firm  conviction  that  no  rising  was  possible  without  active  military 
support  from  beyond  the  Channel.  The  long  period  of  the  French  alliance 
made  any  such  hopes  futile,  at  least  after  Alberoni  was  dismissed  from 
Spain.  Hope  revived  when  Britain  was  again  involved  in  the  War  of  the 
Austrian  Succession.  It  was  encouraged  by  France,  since  the  British 
Government  was  thereby  kept  in  fear  of  a  Jacobite  rising.  In  1644,  when 
France  and  Great  Britain  openly  declared  war,  an  invasion  for  the  avowed 
purpose  of  effecting  a  Jacobite  restoration  was  projected.  Saxe  himself 
was  to  have  been  in  command,  but  at  the  chosen  hour  the  transports  were 
wrecked  ;  the  moment  passed,  and  the  French  decided  not  to  divert  their 
arms  from  the  conquest  of  the  Netherlands. 

But  the  fiery  enthusiasm  and  the  magnetic  personality  in  which  James 
was  wanting  were  present  in  his  son,  Charles  Edward,  who  was  five-and- 
twenty  years  of  age  when  he  played  for  the  great  stake  and  lost.  Hand- 
some, athletic,  generous,  endowed  in  full  measure  with  that  personal 
charm  for  which  so  many  members  of  the  Stuart  family  were  conspicuous, 


THE    FALL   OF    WALPOLE 


599 


we  may,  after  the  event,  still  trace  in  him  warning  signs  of  those  weaknesses 
which,  after  the  great  failure,  hurried  him  to  moral  ruin  ;  yet  it  may  be  that 
they  would  never  have  developed  if  his  venture  had  been  crowned  with 
success. 

The  chance  of  French  help  was  gone  ;  the  prince  resolved  that  at  all 
costs  he  would  strike  his  blow  for  the  crown.  Every  trustworthy  adherent 
of  his  cause  warned  him  that 
the  attempt  would  be  mad- 
ness, that  the  English  Jaco- 
bites would  not  rise,  that  the 
Highland  chiefs  themselves 
would  not  deliberately  thrust 
their  necks  into  a  halter.  In 
defiance  of  all  advice  the 
prince  sailed  from  France 
with  seven  companions,  slipped 
up  the  west  coast,  and  landed 
in  Moidart,  the  south-western 
corner  of  Inverness-shire,  a 
remote  point,  beyond  the  ken 
of  government  officials. 
Thither  he  summoned  the 
chiefs  in  whom  he  trusted. 
Some  were  wise  and  would 
not  come ;  they  wished  the 
cause  well,  but  objected  to  a 
venture  for  which  they  saw  no 
remotest  prospect  of  success. 
Others  came,  each  one  bent 
on  dissuading  the  prince  and 
declaring  that  he  himself 
would  not  be  beguiled  into 
an  act  of  sheer  madness. 
They  might  have  held  out  if 
Donald   Cameron   of  Lochiel 

had  been  able  to  resist  the  prince's  appeal.  But  Lochiel  gave  way.  If  the 
prince  was  bent  on  ruin  Lochiel  would  stand  and  fall  beside  him.  Lochiel's 
action  turned  the  scale;  chief  after  chief  came  in.  The  news  filtered 
through  at  last  to  Sir  John  Cope,  the  commander  of  the  government 
forces.  Cope  marched  into  the  Highlands,  intending  to  throw  himself 
between  Charles  and  the  doubtful  clans  of  the  North  ;  Charles  slipped 
past  him  and  marched  upon  Edinburgh  via  Perth,  while  the  baffled  Cope 
moved  to  Inverness  to  bring  his  forces  back  to  Dunbar  by  sea.  A  party 
of  dragoons  was  sent  out  from  Edinburgh  to  meet  the  advancing  High- 
landers,   but    fled   in    a    panic    without    striking    a    blow — an    exhibition 


The  JacoDite  march  from  the  landing-  at  Moidart  to  the 
battle  of  Culloden. 


6oo  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

known  as  the  Canter  of  Colt  Brigg.  The  city  of  Edinburgh  offered  no 
resistance,  and  in  fact  welcomed  the  prince,  though  the  Castle  defied  him. 
While  Charles  held  his  court  at  Holyrood,  Cope  returned  from  the  North 
and  approached  Leith.  Guided  across  an  intervening  marsh  on  a  night 
march,  the  Highlanders  fell  upon  the  government  troops  as  the  morning 
mists  were  breaking  and  scattered  them  in  a  discreditable  rout  at  Preston- 
pans.     Scotland  was  apparently  in  the  hands  of  the  Jacobites. 

For  five  weeks  Charles  delayed,  beguiled  by  hopes  of  Jacobite  risings 
and  of  a  possible  diversion  from  France.  But  while  he  delayed,  the 
government  in  London  was  recalling  troops  from  the  Netherlands.  The 
one  chance  lay  in  a  dash  to  the  South,  in  demoralising  opposition  by 
sheer  audacity.  Charles  flung  himself  across  the  border  at  the  head  of  his 
six  thousand  Highlanders,  evaded  first  Wade  and  then  Cumberland  by 
sending  each  of  them  off  on  a  false  scent,  and  advanced  as  far  as  Derby. 
London  was  in  a  state  of  complete  panic,  and  it  was  half  believed  that  the 
approach  of  Charles  would  be  the  signal  for  the  troops  which  still  barred  his 
advance  either  to  join  his  standard  or  to  run  away.  Charles  would  have 
dashed  on,  but  less  reckless  counsels  prevailed  with  the  Highland  chiefs. 
No  Jacobites  had  joined  them  on  the  march,  none  had  shown  signs  of 
rising,  no  Frenchmen  had  landed.  They  were  far  from  their  homes ;  if 
they  advanced  the  slightest  check  would  involve  irretrievable  disaster.  In 
bitterness  of  spirit  Charles  yielded,  and  the  army  turned  its  face  northward. 
Perhaps  there  was  one  chance  in  a  thousand  of  success  if  he  had  advanced. 
There  was  no  chance  at  all  when  once  he  had  begun  to  retrace  his  steps. 
Eight  weeks  after  the  Highland  army  had  started  from  Edinburgh  it  was 
back  again  at  Glasgow  (December  26).  The  shrewd  management  of 
Duncan  Forbes  had  kept  the  rest  of  the  clans  quiet. 

In  the  rearguard  skirmishes  which  took  place  during  the  retreat  the 
government  troops  had  come  off  badly  ;  Charles  now  laid  siege  to  Stirling, 
and  at  Falkirk  a  complete  defeat  was  inflicted  upon  General  Hawley,  who 
was  in  command  of  the  pursuing  force,  Cumberland  having  been  detained 
in  the  South.  But  this  was  the  last  success.  Disagreements  and  jealousies 
divided  the  prince's  council,  the  siege  of  Stirling  was  abandoned,  and  the 
insurgents  retired  into  the  Highlands.  Thither  they  were  pursued  as  the 
spring  came  on  by  Cumberland,  who  maintained  his  communications  with 
the  coast,  where  a  supporting  fleet  attended  his  movements.  No  fresh  clans 
joined  the  Stuart  standard.  On  April  15th  the  two  forces  were  in  close 
proximity,  the  government  troops  well  fed  and  in  good  condition,  while 
the  Highlanders  were  on  very  short  rations.  Cumberland's  army  was 
drawn  up  on  Culloden  Moor.  Charles  attempted  to  effect  a  surprise  by  a 
night  march,  but  the  design  was  spoilt  by  delays.  Nevertheless  the  cause 
was  staked  on  a  pitched  battle.  Under  Montrose,  under  Dundee,  under 
Charles  himself,  the  Highlanders  had  repeatedly  routed  larger  bodies  of 
regular  troops  by  the  fury  of  their  onset.  For  this  Cumberland  was 
prepared,   his   superior    numbers    enabling   him    to  draw  up  his   troops  in 


THE    FALL   OF    WALPOLE  6oi 

three  lines.  The  rush  of  the  Highhmders  broke  the  first,  but  their  advance 
was  stopped  and  turned  into  a  rout  by  the  deadly  volleys  from  the  second 
line.  Recovery  was  hopeless.  "  The  clans  of  Culloden  were  scattered  in 
flight,"  and  Cumberland  earned  his  nickname  of  the  Butcher  by  the  savage 
brutality  displayed  on  tiie  field  and  in  the  consequent  penal  operations. 
For  after  Culloden  armed  resistance  was  no  longer  possible,  and  the  prince 
himself  became  a  fugitive.      The   Duke   merely  scoffed  at  the  pacificatory 


A  contemporary  plan  of  the  Battle  of  Culloden. 


wisdom  of  Forbes.  What  followed  was  not  war,  but  a  hunt  for  fugitives. 
Hairbreadth  escapes,  splendid  deeds  of  loyalty  and  devotion,  and  the 
glow  of  romance,  give  a  unique  fascination  to  the  story  of  the  Forty- 
five.  As  a  matter  of  rational  calculation  the  great  adventure  was  doomed 
to  failure  from  the  very  outset,  yet  chivalry,  loyalty,  and  sheer  audacity 
had  actually  brought  some  six  thousand  clansmen  from  the  wild  Highlands 
of  Scotland  within  measurable  distance  of  winning  back  the  British  crown 
for  the  house  of  Stuart. 


6o2  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

III 

DUPLEIX 

In  1740  the  ambitious  Frenchman  who  in  India  was  at  the  head  of  the 
affairs  of  the  French  East  India  Company  w-as  eagerly  awaiting  the  oppor- 
tunity of  a  war  between  Great  Britain  and  France  to  wipe  out  the  rivalry 
of  the  British  East  India  Company.  Twenty  years  later  the  British  East 
India  Company  had  become  no  longer  a  mere  body  of  traders  but  a 
territorial  power,  and  French  influence  had  received  its  coup  dc  grace.  The 
first  stage  of  the  conflict  corresponds  to  the  period  of  open  war  between 
Great  Britain  and  France,  which  was  brought  to  a  close  by  the  peace  of 
Aix-la-Chapelle. 

It  is  not  very  easy  to  disabuse  our  minds  of  the  idea  fixed  therein  by 
Macaulay  that  Clive  with  a  handful  of  Englishmen  overthrew  the  Mogul 
Empire  and  set  up  in  its  place  a  British  dominion  over  India.  What  Clive 
did  perform  in  actual  fact  was  one  of  the  most  astonishing  feats  recorded 
in  history,  but  it  was  an  intelligible  feat,  not  a  miracle. 

In  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  Mogul  Empire  in  India 
was  very  distinctly  more  wanting  in  the  characteristics  of  a  state  than  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire  in  Europe.  During  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  the 
great  Babar,  a  prince  of  mixed  Mongol  or  Mughal  and  Turkish  race,  had 
burst  into  India  from  Afghanistan  and  founded  the  Mogul  dominion  over 
Hindustan  ;  that  is,  roughly  speaking,  the  half  of  India  which  lies  to  the 
north  of  the  river  Nerbudda  and  the  mouth  of  the  Ganges.  The  empire 
was  lost  by  his  son  Humayun  and  again  almost  recovered;  the  re-conquest 
was  completed  by  Humayun's  son  Akbar,  whose  glorious  rule  very  nearly 
synchronises  with  that  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  The  rule  of  Abkar's  three 
successors  covers  the  next  hundred  years  ;  that  is,  in  effect,  the  seventeenth 
century.  Under  the  third,  Aurangzib,  the  great  kingdoms  of  the  South 
which  had  not  been  subject  to  the  Moguls  were  overthrown,  and  the  whole 
Peninsula  from  the  Himalayas  to  the  sea  owned  the  sovereignty  of  the 
"  Padishah,"  who  parcelled  it  out  into  great  vice-royalties  or  satrapies.  But 
when  Aurangzib  died  in  1707  the  control  of  the  empire  by  the  Moguls 
became  merely  nominal.  The  satraps  professed  allegiance,  but  acted 
practically  as  independent  sovereigns.  The  seat  of  the  Padishah,  the 
Great  Mogul,  was  at  Delhi,  the  traditional  capital  of  the  successive 
Mohammedan  dynasties  which  for  centuries  had  dominated  the  mainly 
Hindu  pr)pulations  of  Hindustan  ;  but  their  phantom  dominion  was  made 
yet  more  shadowy  by  the  devastating  invasion  of  the  Persian  conqueror, 
Nadir  Shah,  in  1739. 

Now  w^e  may  take  India  as  falling  into  five  divisions — the  basin  of  the 
Indus   and    its   tributaries   forming    the  Punjab    and  Sindh  ;   the    basin   of 


THE    PELHAM    ADMINISTRATION  603 

the  Ganges  forming  the  Delhi  province,  then  Oudh,  and  then  Behar  and 
Bengal  ;  Rajputana  extending  between  the  Delhi  province  and  Sindh  ; 
Central  India  with  the  corresponding  portion  of  the  west  coast ;  and  the 
great  southern  division  called  the  Deccan.^  The  whole  of  the  Deccan  was 
under  the  sway  of  the  viceroy  called  the  Nizam,  with  his  headquarters  at 
Haidarabad.  Subordinate  to  the  Nizam  was  his  lieutenant-governor,  the 
Nawab  of  the  Carnatic,  the  great  province  which  stretches  along  the 
Eastern  Sea  and  inland  to  the  mountains  of  Mysore.  Presently  we  shall 
find  a  Mohammedan  adventurer  setting  up  for^  himself  an  independent 
kingdom  of  Mysore  ;  but  not  yet.  The  great  central  district  was 
dominated  by  the  Hindu  confederacy  of  the  Marathas,  having  five  centres, 
at  Puna,  Baroda,  Indur,  Gwalior,  and  Nagpur.  Here  and  in  Rajputana 
the  ruling  powers  were  Hindu  ;  in  the  Deccan  and  in  the  Ganges  basin 
the  viceregal  dynasties  were  Mohammedan  ;  the  Indus  basin  was  as  yet  a 
debatable  land  where  organised  government  hardly  existed.  All  over  India 
the  Mohammedan  was  to  the  Hindu  an  alien  conqueror,  Turk  or  Afghan, 
who  had  laid  his  yoke  upon  the  rightful  lords  of  the  Indian  soil ;  and  the 
Hindu  was  to  the  Mohammedan  an  infidel  and  an  idolater.  In  race,  in 
language,  and  in  religion  the  peoples  of  India  were  less  homogeneous  than 
the  peoples  of  Europe,  although  the  hybrid  Hindostani  tongue  had  grown 
up  in  the  camps  as  a  common  language  of  general  intercourse. 

Now,  except  in  Rajputana,  there  was  no  single  dynasty  occupying  a 
throne  of  importance  which  had  been  established  for  more  than  about 
half  a  century.  There  were  minor  Hindu  rajahs,  whose  title  may  be 
translated  prince  or  king,  who  traced  their  descent  to  a  legendary  past ; 
but  the  Marathas  had  only  sprung  into  prominence  during  the  rule  of 
Aurangzib,  and  the  nawabs  and  wazirs,  the  proconsuls,  the  governors  or 
lieutenant-governors  of  great  provinces,  were  the  sons  or  grandsons  of 
Aurangzib's  great  officers  ;  the  aged  Nizam  had  served  Aurangzib  himself. 
The  Mogul  empire  was  a  great  congeries  of  undefined  states  which  had  no 
sense  either  of  a  common  or  of  an  individual  nationality,  and  no  loyalty 
to  a  royal  house  with  a  traditional  title  to  honour  and  obedience.  Each 
ruler  was  watching  for  a  chance  of  self-aggrandisement,  though  the  will  of 
the  Mogul  was  technically  law  and  every  viceroy  was  technically  the 
Mogul's  officer. 

On  the  skirts  of  this  vast  country,  approximately  the  size  of  Europe 
without  Russia  and  Turkey,  were  seated  a  few  small  communities  of 
European  traders.  At  no  great  distance  from  the  two  British  posts,  Forts 
William  and  St.  George,  better  known  afterwards  as  Calcutta  and  Madras, 
were  the  two  main  French  naval  stations  of  Chandernagur  and  Pondichery, 
each  with  some  fortifications,  and  with  a  garrison  of  some  scores  of  white 
troops ;  small  communities,  but  each  in  a  sort  representative  of  the  might 
of  a  great  European  nation  ;  rivals  and  competitors  in  trade,  each  eager  to 

^  See  the  Map  of  India  on  p.  677. 


6o4  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

procure  for  itself  from  tfie  native  powers  privileges  to  be  withheld  from 
the  other.  To  the  Frenchman,  Dupleix,  who  became  governor  of  Pondi- 
chery  in  1741,  the  idea  presented  itself  of  acquiring  a  controlling  influence 
at  the  courts  of  the  great  native  potentates,  with  the  corollary  that  the 
British  rivalry  was  to  be  suppressed  altogether.  The  two  aims  went  hand 
in  hand.  Neither  could  be  accomplished  v/ithout  the  other,  each  was  a 
means  to  the  other. 

The  British  in  India  were  not  indisposed  for  a  duel ;  but  the  con- 
trolling authorities  of  the  two  trading  companies  at  home  saw  only  a  loss 
of  trade  in  any  possible  hostilities ;  and  neither  Dupleix  nor  his  rivals 
could  look  for  much  outside  support.  Dupleix  secured  the  favour  of 
Anwar-ud-Din,  the  Nawab  of  the  Carnatic,  from  whom  both  the  companies 
held  their  "  factories"  as  tenants.  Anwar-ud-Din  (Macaulay's  Anaverdy  Khan) 
forbade  the  British  to  attack  the  French  when  a  British  squadron  appeared 
in  Indian  waters.  The  British  squadron  went  away,  but  Dupleix  con- 
certed his  plans  with  La  Bourdonnais,  the  commandant  at  the  French 
naval  station  of  Mauritius.  In  1746  La  Bourdonnais  appeared  with  a 
squadron  and  compelled  Madras  to  surrender  on  terms.  Anwar-ud-Din 
was  deaf  to  the  British  appeal  for  protection,  because  he  expected  the  town 
when  captured  to  be  placed  in  his  own  hands.  But  Dupleix  now  declared 
that  there  was  no  authority  for  the  terms  which  La  Bourdonnais  had  granted. 
He  took  possession  on  his  own  account;  though  La  Bourdonnais  retired 
in  anger,  feeling  that  his  honour  was  compromised  by  the  repudiation 
of  his  promise. 

Then  came  the  critical  moment  for  Dupleix.  He  refused  to  resign  to 
Anwar-ud-Din.  The  Nawab,  in  wrath,  despatched  an  army  of  ten  thousand 
men  to  give  the  insolent  Frenchman  a  lesson.  But  Dupleix  had  mastered 
the  vital  truth  that  a  handful  of  disciplined  white  troops  were  a  match  for 
ten  times  their  number  of  half  disciplined  oriental  levies  ;  and  further  that 
natives,  when  drilled,  disciplined,  and  led  by  European  officers,  and  stiffened 
by  a  core  of  European  soldiers,  were  not  much  less  efficient  than  European 
troops  in  a  contest  with  native  armies.  Anwar-ud-Din's  great  force  was 
put  to  ignominious  rout  by  a  small  band  of  Dupleix's  sepoys  with  a  few 
P'renchmen.  This  startling  success  at  once  gave  the  French  a  new  and 
tremendous  prestige.  Anwar-ud-Din,  without  condescending  to  be  afraid 
of  the  French,  thought  he  might  make  them  useful,  and  came  to  terms, 
agreeing  to  the  retention  of  Madras  by  Dupleix. 

A  hundred  miles  to  the  south  of  Madras,  beyond  Pondichery,  the 
British  occupied  the  fortified  post  of  Fort  St.  David.  The  French  were 
in  possession  of  Madras  and  of  numerous  British  prisoners  of  war,  taken 
when  that  town  surrendered.  The  capture  of  Fort  St.  David  would  clear 
the  Carnatic;  but  the  garrison  repelled  every  attack  in  1747.  In  the 
following  summer  the  attacks  were  renewed,  and  were  again  repulsed  by 
Major  Stringer  Lawrence,  the  very  capable  soldier  who  had  been  placed 
in  command.      By  this  time  the  British  naval  authorities  had  awakened  to 


THE    PELHAM    ADMINISTRATION  605 

the  benefits  that  might  accrue  from  a  more  vigorous  employment  of  naval 
supremacy.  Admiral  Boscawen  appeared  with  a  squadron  in  August,  and 
now  Pondichery  was  besieged  instead  of  Fort  St.  David.  After  seven 
weeks,  however,  during  which  the  defence  was  brilhantly  conducted,  and 
the  siege  operations  were  not,  Boscawen  had  to  withdraw  his  fleet  because 
the  season  of  the  gales  called  the  monsoon  was  at  hand.  During  that 
season  the  squadron  could  neither  keep  the  seas  nor  find  adequate  har- 
bourage on  the  coast  of  the  Carnatic.  Pondichery  escaped.  It  can  hardly 
be  doubted  that  its  fate  would  have  been  sealed  in  the  following  year  by 
the  presence  of  Boscawen's  squadron  ;  but  before  hostilities  were  renewed 
came  the  news  of  the  peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  and  the  order  that  Madras 
should  be  restored  to  the  British. 

So  closed  the  first  phase  of  the  contest.  All  the  honours  had  fallen  to 
Dupleix.  The  only  success  achieved  by  the  British  had  been  their  stub- 
born defence  of  Fort  St.  David.  The  French,  supported  by  a  squadron, 
had  captured  Madras.  The  British,  supported  by  a  squadron,  had  failed 
to  capture  Pondichery.  Dupleix's  small  forces  had  routed  the  great  army 
of  the  Nawab  of  the  Carnatic.  Madras  was  restored  to  the  British  ;  but 
only  in  consequence  of  orders  from  home,  not  from  any  military  necessity 
apparent  on  the  spot. 


IV 

CLIVE 

Peace  was  signed  between  Great  Britain  and  France,  and  direct  hostili- 
ties between  the  two  companies  in  India  were  precluded.  But  Dupleix 
was  bent  on  carrying  out  his  own  programme.  The  immense  prestige 
which  he  had  already  achieved  promised  him  an  overwhelming  influence 
in  the  native  courts  of  the  Deccan  ;  but  the  British  still  stood  in  the  way, 
and  were  not  yet  prepared  to  own  themselves  beaten.  The  contest  was 
renewed  on  different  lines,  which  avoided  a  formal  breach  of  the  Treaty  of 
Aix-la-Chapelle.  Dynastic  struggles  broke  out  in  the  Deccan  ;  French 
and  British  took  the  field  as  auxiliaries  on  opposite  sides,  and  the  British 
turned  the  tables  on  the  French. 

Anwar-ud-Din,  an  old  and  able  soldier,  had  been  appointed  Nawab  of 
the  Carnatic  by  the  Nizam  in  1740.  During  the  thirty  years  preceding 
the  Nawabship  had  been  held  by  the  able  and  popular  administrator 
Sadutulla,  then  by  his  nephew  Dost  Ali,  and  then  by  Dost  Ali's  son.  The 
assassination  of  this  last  was  the  cause  of  the  appointment  of  Anwar-ud- 
Din.  The  family  of  Sadutulla  was  now  represented  by  an  admirable  and 
popular  prince  named  Chanda  Sahib.  For  some  years  Chanda  Sahib  had 
been  a  captive  in  the  hands  of  the  Marathas.  He  had  been  on  particularly 
good  terms  with  the  French.      Dupleix  now  ransomed  Chanda  Sahib  from 


6o6  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

the  Marathus,  with  the  intention  of  asserting  his  claims  to  the  Nawabship, 
to  which  he,  not  Anwar-ud-Din,  would  have  been  appointed  in  1740  had 
he  at  that  time  been  at  liberty.  The  powerful  old  Nizam  at  Haidarabad 
would  have  had  to  be  reckoned  with  ;  but  at  this  opportune  moment  he 
died.  The  succession  was  seized  by  his  son  Nadir  Jang,  but  was  claimed 
by  a  grandson  Muzaffar  Jang,  on  the  pretext  that  he  had  been  appointed 
to  it  by  the  Lord  Paramount  of  all  India,  the  Mogul  at  Delhi.  The  two 
claimants  to  the  Nizamship  and  the  Nawabship,  Muzaffar  Jang  and  Chanda 
Sahib,  made  common  cause  against  the  Nizam  and  the  Nawab  in  actual 
possession,  Nadir  Jang  and  Anwar-ud-Din. 

Dupleix  gave  the  pretenders  his  active  support,  on  the  plea  of  loyalty  to 
the  Mogul.  The  combined  forces  marched  against  Anwar-ud-Din,  who  was 
defeated  and  slain,  whereupon  his  title  was  taken  up  by  his  son  Mohammed 
All.  The  victory  had  been  largely  due  to  the  services  of  a  French  force 
under  the  command  of  the  able  General  Bussy.  Mohammed  Ali  threw 
himself  into  Trichinopoli  and  appealed  to  the  British  for  support ;  but  the 
latter  could  do  no  more  than  send  him  some  two  hundred  men.  On  the 
other  hand,  they  sent  a  contingent  under  Major  Lawrence  to  join  Nadir 
Jang,  the  de  facto  Nizam,  who  was  now  mvading  the  Carnatic  in  force.  But 
intrigue  and  conspiracy  came  to  the  aid  of  Dupleix.  Nadir  Jang  was 
assassinated.  Muzaffar  Jang  was  proclaimed  Nizam,  and  when  he  was 
killed  in  a  skirmish  his  place  was  taken  by  the  French  nominee  Salabat 
Jang,  who  fell  completely  under  the  control  of  Bussy.  The  new  Nizam, 
accompanied  by  Bussy,  retired  to  Haidarabad  to  establish  his  position,  and 
it  appeared  that  Dupleix  had  only  to  crush  Mohammed  Ali  and  Trichinopoli 
to  be  completely  master  of  the  situation,  with  a  decisively  controlling 
influence  over  both  the  Nizam  of  the  Deccan  and  the  Nawab  of  the 
Carnatic. 

Hitherto  there  had  been  a  singular  absence  of  vigour  and  audacity  on 
the  part  of  the  Madras  authorities.  But  now  there  was  a  new  governor, 
Saunders,  and  Saunders  was  able  to  appreciate  the  need  of  activity.  He 
despatched  reinforcements  to  Trichinopoli  ;  but,  what  was  of  still  more  im- 
portance, he  listened  to  young  Robert  Clive.  The  story  of  Clive's  youth  is 
as  familiar  as  that  of  Alfred  and  the  cakes.  The  naughty  boy,  with  whom 
his  parents  could  do  nothing  at  home,  was  sent  out  to  India  as  a  junior 
clerk  or  "  writer  "  in  the  service  of  the  East  India  Company.  When  the  fight- 
ing began  the  young  clerk  at  once  volunteered.  He  had  found  his  true 
vocation,  and  was  allowed  to  exchange  his  writership  for  a  commission  in 
the  company's  service. 

Trichinopoli  was  now  in  imminent  danger  of  falling  when  Clive  pro- 
posed to  Saunders  to  create  a  diversion  by  attacking  Arcot,  the  capital  of 
the  Carnatic.  Saunders  was  bold  enough  almost  to  denude  Madras  of  its 
garrison,  by  despatching  Clive  with  eight  ofiicers,  of  whom  only  two  had 
been  in  action,  a  couple  of  hundred  British  soldiers,  and  three  hundred 
sepoys,  to  make  the  attempt  upon  Arcot.     The  blow  was  secret,  sudden  as 


THE    PELHAM    ADMINISTRATION  607 

a  thunderbolt.  When  Chve  arrived  before  Arcot  the  amazed  garrison  was 
seized  with  panic  and  fled.  Clive  took  instant  possession  and  prepared  to 
stand  a  siege.  The  desired  effect  was  produced.  Four  thousand  men 
marched  from  Trichinopoli,  gathering  reinforcements  as  they  went,  till  a 
force  of  ten  thousand  men  sat  down  before  Arcot  with  its  little  garrison  of 
five  hundred.  For 
seven  weeks  Clive 
held  out,  defying  the 
efforts  of  the  be- 
siegers, inspiring  his 
own  men  with  the 
magnificent  de- 
votion which  led 
the  sepoys  to  make 
the  spontaneous  sug- 
gestion that  the  rice 
on  which  they  were 
almost  reduced  to 
living  should  be 
reserved  for  the 
British  ;  the  natives 
could  live  on  the 
water  in  which  it 
was  boiled. 

The  fame  of  the 
defence  spread  far 
and  wide  ;  the  pres- 
tige of  the  British 
suddenly  rose  higher 
than  that  of  the 
French.  Rajah 
Sahib,  the  com- 
mander of  the  be- 
siegingf  orce,  Chanda 
Sahib's  son,  feared 
that  if  Arcot  did  not 

fall  at  once  there  would  be  a  great  accession  of  the  natives  to  the  British 
side.  On  the  fiftieth  day  there  was  a  grand  assault.  With  desperate  valour 
the  assault  was  beaten  back.  Rajah  Sahib  raised  the  siege  in  despair  and 
began  to  retreat ;  Clive's  little  band  sallied  forth  in  pursuit,  scattered 
the  great  force  at  Arni,  and  again,  having  been  joined  by  a  force  of 
Marathas,   smote  the  foe  at   Kaveripak. 

The  tide  had  turned.  Major  Lawrence,  the  defender  of  Fort  St.  David, 
was  back  at  Madras  after  absence  on  sick  leave.  Clive  and  Lawrence  together 
effected  the  relief  of  Trichinopoli,  outmanceuvred  the  opposing  force,  and 


Lord  Clive  in  later  years. 
[From  a  portrait  by  Gainsborough  about  1773. 


6o8  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

compelled  it  to  surrender.     Chanda  Sahib  was  murdered,  and  Mohammed 
Ali  was  Nawab  of  the  Carnatic. 

Bussy  was  still  dominant  at  Haidarabad,  and  the  resourceful  Dupleix 
was  still  by  no  means  beaten.  But  Dupleix  was  after  all  a  subordinate  ; 
his  policy  no  longer  found  favour  with  the  authorities  in  France,  and  his 
recall  in  1754  was  a  fatal  blow.  Dupleix  himself  would  not  in  the  long 
run  have  been  able  to  win,  because  when  once  Great  Britain  had  become 
thoroughly  alive  to  the  importance  of  the  struggle  in  India,  a  new  war  with 
France,  which  was  inevitable,  would  enable  her  to  exercise  her  sea  power 
with  decisive  effect.  Even  apart  from  sea  power  the  diplomatic  talents  of 
Dupleix  would  hardly  have  prevailed  against  the  military  genius  of  Clive. 
But  when  the  actual  final  struggle  came  the  French  had  lost  Dupleix ;  and 
the  renewal  of  war  between  France  and  Great  Britain  had  brought  into  the 
field  the  naval  power  which  was  not  available  when  the  two  nations  were 
nominally  at  peace. 


AFTER   THE  WAR 

The  ministry  which  was  in  office  in  England  when  the  peace  of  Aix-la- 
Chapelle  was  signed  was  that  which  had  been  nicknamed  the  Broad  Bottomed 
Administration  on  account  of  its  comprehensive  character.  Walpole  had 
retained  office  on  the  outbreak  of  the  war  nine  years  before  ;  but  his  posi- 
tion became  so  hopelessly  untenable  that  even  he  was  forced  to  resign  at 
the  beginning  of  1742.  The  nominal  chief  who  succeeded  him  was 
Wilmington,  while  the  real  head  of  the  government  was  Carteret.  But 
Carteret  was  absorbed  in  the  game  of  European  politics  which  rarely 
interests,  or  is  understood  by,  the  majority  of  Englishmen.  He  ignored  the 
necessity  of  placating  parliament  and  his  own  colleagues  ;  his  ''  Hano- 
verian "  measures  were  easily  held  up  to  popular  execration  ;  he  had  no 
personal  party ;  his  position  was  undermined  by  the  Pelhams,  of  whom 
the  younger,  Henry  Pelham,  was  a  master  of  the  arts  of  conciliation,  while 
the  elder,  Newcastle,  thoroughly  understood  jobbery,  and  very  little  else. 

Pelham  managed  to  obtain  the  support  of  politicians  whom  no  one  else 
could  reconcile  ;  lie  silenced  the  most  dangerous  critics  by  giving  them 
office,  and  he  clung  to  Walpole's  principle  of  doing  nothing  in  preference 
to  arousing  excited  hostility.  In  fact  he  regarded  it  as  his  business  not 
to  carry  out  any  particular  policy,  but  merely  to  keep  the  machine  running 
with  as  little  friction  as  possible. 

To  the  Pelham  administration,  therefore,  fell  the  important  task  of  the 
pacification  of  Scotland  after  the  "  Forty-five."  The  great  insurrection  had 
been  made  possible  by  the  survival  in  the  Highlands  of  the  clan  system, 
the  Celtic  equivalent  of  the  feudalism  which  was  bred  from  the  contact  of 


THE    PELHAM    ADMINISTRATION  609 

the  Roman  and  the  Teuton.  As  feudahsm  in  Scotland  had  attained  a 
completer  development  than  in  England,  owing  to  the  comparative  weak- 
ness of  the  central  authorities,  so  feudal  law  survived  in  the  Scottish 
Lowlands  and  gave  to  the  great  landowners  the  Heritable  Jurisdictions, 
legal  powers  over  their  tenants  which  overrode  the  ordinary  law,  and 
sometimes  even  powers  of  life  and  death.  But  in  the  Highlands  these 
legal  powers  were  made  very  much  more  formidable,  because  the  land- 
owner was  the  chief  of  a  clan  bound  to  his  service  and  to  his  obedience 
by  the  closest  traditional  ties  of  devotion.  The  Heritable  Jurisdiction 
recognised  by  the  law  was  merely  a  partial  recognition  of  the  relations 
between  the  chief  and  the  clansmen,  which  were  rooted  in  custom  and 
sentiment,  which  counted  for  much  more  than  mere  law.  The  abolition 
of  these  jurisdictions  which,  somewhat  in  despite  of  the  Act  of  Union, 
followed  the  ''Forty-five,"  put  an  end  to  the  authority  of  the  chief  over  his 
clansman  so  far  as  the  law  was  concerned.  But  it  was  not  after  all  the 
most  important  factor  in  the  change  which  took  place.  Some  of  the  chiefs 
lost  their  lands  by  forfeiture,  others  were  driven  by  impoverishment  to  sell 
them  ;  and  there  were  no  bonds  which  linked  the  clansmen  to  the  new 
lords  of  the  soil,  who  were  objects  not  of  devotion  but  of  hostility.  The 
clan  sentiment  was  weakened  by  the  abolition  of  its  outward  and  visible 
sign  when  the  wearing  of  the  tartan  was  prohibited.  With  vigorous  disarma- 
ment, the  improvement  of  roads,  and  the  establishment  of  garrisons,  it 
was  no  longer  possible  to  carry  on  the  old  methods  of  freebooting.  The 
Highlander  who  suffered  what  he  regarded  as  an  injury  could  now  appeal 
for  redress  only  to  the  law,  not  as  in  the  old  time  to  his  own  chief  as  his 
natural  champion.  In  fact,  the  law  at  last  penetrated  into  the  Highlands, 
law  with  the  sanction  of  physical  force  too  strong  for  the  resistance  of  the 
broken-up  clan  organisation ;  custom,  hitherto  more  powerful  than  law, 
had  lost  its  most  vital  sanction,  loyalty  to  the  chief,  and  so  the  strongest 
barrier  which  had  hitherto  kept  the  Highlanders  as  a  people  apart  was 
broken  down,  and  the  way  was  made  ready  for  their  gradual  amalgamation 
with  the  "  Saxons." 

Another  measure  followed  after  an  interval  of  some  years,  which  perhaps 
in  the  long  run  served  still  more  effectively  to  create  a  sense  of  national 
unity.  Not  without  hesitation  on  the  part  of  the  government,  extension 
was  given  to  an  earlier  experiment  by  which  a  regiment  of  Highlanders  had 
been  raised  to  form  part  of  the  regular  army.  The  Highlanders,  with  the 
warrior  tradition  behind  them,  found  a  scope  for  their  martial  predilections 
in  the  new  Highland  regiments  which  were  raised.  Fighting  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  Lowland  Scots  and  English,  they  acquired  a  sense  of 
comradeship  on  the  one  side,  and  on  the  other  created  a  respect  for  their 
military  qualities,  which  transformed  the  old  hostility  into  a  spirit  of  generous 
emulation.  Those  results  were  not  felt  immediately,  but  they  have  made 
their  mark  in  many  a  stricken  field. 

Apart  from  the  pacification  of  Scotland  three  measures   stand  to   the 

2  Q 


6io  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

credit  of  the  Pelham  administration.  The  first  was  the  creation  of  the 
consoHdated  stock,  which  ever  since  has  been  known  as  *'  Consols/'  The 
high  interest  payable  on  the  National  Debt  was  reduced  in  respect  of  some- 
thing over  fifty  millions  to  ^i  ^^^  ^hen  to  3  per  cent.,  and  in  the  following 
year,  1751,  a  group  of  nine  loans  was  consolidated  into  3  per  cent,  stock. 
The  success  of  the  scheme  was  a  demonstration  of  the  prosperity  of  the 
country  and  of  the  credit  of  the  government ;  though  this  latter  must  have 
been  in  part  at  least  due  to  the  fact  that  no  one  was  any  longer  afraid  of 
that  possibility  of  a  Stuart  restoration,  which  for  fifty  years  had  acted  as  a 
deterrent,  however  slight,  to  investment  in  Government  Stock.  Not  only 
was  the  reduced  interest  accepted  by  the  stock-holders,  but  the  stock  itself 
stood  at  a  premium. 

The  second  measure  was  the  reform  of  the  Calendar.  A  century  and 
a  half  before,  the  revised  Gergorian  Calendar,  named  after  Pope  Gregory 
XIII.,  began  to  be  adopted  in  Europe.  It  was  observed  that  twenty-five 
leap  years  in  the  hundred  were  one  too  many,  or  all  but  one  too  many. 
To  bring  matters  right  it  was  necessary  in  the  first  place  to  cancel  some 
days,  and  in  the  second  place  to  omit  the  century  year  from  the  leap 
5^ears  ;  and  in  the  third  place  it  was  held  advisable  to  adopt  the  popular 
New  Year's  Day,  January  i,  in  place  of  the  ecclesiastical  New  Year's  Day, 
the  Feast  of  the  Annunciation,  March  25.  The  reformed  Calendar  was  not 
adopted  in  England  until  1752,  when  the  eleven  days  between  2nd  and  14th 
September  were  dropped  ;  that  is  to  say,  2nd  September  was  the  last  day 
reckoned  in  the  old  style,  the  day  following  it  being  September  14th  new 
style.  From  thenceforth  also  we  escape  the  confusion  caused  by  the  un- 
certainty whether  dates  upon  documents  in  the  first  three  months  of  the 
year  followed  the  old  or  the  new  style.  For  instance,  taking  January  i  as 
New  Year's  Day,  Charles  I.  was  beheaded  on  January  29,  1649  (N.S.).  But 
taking  March  25  as  New  Year's  Day,  he  was  beheaded  on  January  29,  1648 
(O.S.).  Private  practice  varied,  though  officially  "old  style"  was  retained, 
so  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  tell  except  from  internal  evidence  whether 
a  private  paper  dated  January  29,  1649,  was  dated  on  the  day  of  the 
beheading  of  Charles  I.  or  twelve  months  afterwards.  After  1752  there 
was  no  more  ambiguity.  The  carrying  of  the  bill  which  brought  Great 
Britain  into  line  with  nearly  all  Europe  was  largely  due  to  Lord  Chester- 
field, a  peer  best  known  to  posterity  by  the  volume  of  Letters  to  his  Son, 
which  might  be  called  a  vade  mecunt  for  a  young  gentleman  who  was  in- 
tended to  pass  through  life  with  perfect  manners  and  no  morals.  A  higher 
but  less  remembered  title  to  honour  was  derived  from  Lord  Chesterfield's 
brief  tenure  of  the  Irish  Deputyship,  an  office  in  which  he  distinguished 
himself  by  a  complete  disregard  for  the  corrupting  influences  which 
generally  at  that  time  controlled  the  government  of  Ireland. 

The  last  of  Pelham's  measures  which  deserves  notice  is  Lord  Hard- 
wicke's  Marriage  Bill,  which  abolished  in  England  the  opportunities  for 
surreptitious     marriages     by  imposing     heavy    penalities    on     any    clergy- 


THE    PELHAM    ADMINISTRATION  6ii 

man  who  performed  such  ceremonies  without  either  the  pubHcation  of 
banns  or  the  production  of  a  hcence.  From  this  time  Gretna  Green 
assumed  a  romantic  prominence  as  the  refuge  of  young  runaway  couples  ; 
since  once  across  the  Border  the  fugitives  might  celebrate  their  marriage 
under  Scots  law.  The  object  of  course  was  to  prevent  young  girls  from 
being  enticed  into  elopements  by  fortune-hunting  adventurers. 

Pelham  did  what  he  was  fit  to  do.  He  kept  the  machine  running,  not 
brilliantly,  hardly  even  efficiently,  but  with  a  minimum  of  friction.  But  in 
1754  he  died.  The  storm-clouds  were  lowering,  and  Britain  had  great 
need  of  a  strong  and  far-sighted  leadership.  Such  leadership  was  not  to 
be  looked  for  in  the  man  who  succeeded  Henry  Pelham  as  the  head  of  the 
administration,  his  brother  Newcastle. 


CHAPTER   XXV 

EMPIRE 
I 

THE   GROUPING   OF   THE   POWERS 

The  storm-clouds  were  lowering  not  only  for  Great  Britain  but  for  all 
Europe.  For  two  conflicts  were  inevitable.  Frederick  of  Prussia  had 
won  for  his  country  a  new  position  among  the  nations  at  the  cost  of  the 
bitter  hostility  of  Austria,  and  it  was  quite  certain  that  sooner  or  later  he 
would  have  to  fight  for  his  life.  British  and  French  colonists  in  America 
and  British  and  French  traders  in  the  East  had  begun  a  conflict  for 
dominion  which  sooner  or  later  would  have  to  be  fought  out  to  the  bitter 
end.  Whether  those  two  conflicts  would  be  kept  separate  or  would  be 
merged  together,  and  how,  in  the  latter  case,  the  Powers  concerned  would 
combine,  were  the  great  questions  of  the  hour. 

The  question  at  issue  in  America  was  plain  to  view.  From  Nova 
Scotia  on  the  north  to  the  border  of  the  Spanish  Florida  on  the  south  the 
seaboard  and  the  region  inland  to  the  Alleghanies  were  occupied  by  some 
two  millions  of  British  colonists,  constituted  as  a  number  of  independent 
states  having  no  common  central  government,  in  most  respects  autonomous, 
but  all  ultimately  subject  to  the  control  of  the  Crown  and  parliament  at 
Westminster.  Those  two  million  colonists  intended  to  expand  westwards 
until  one  day  they  should  reach  the  Pacific  Ocean.  But  on  the  north  the 
French  occupied  the  basin  of  the  St.  Lawrence  with  their  colony  of  Canada, 
and  in  the  south  they  had  planted  the  colony  of  Louisiana  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Mississippi.  The  French  had  carried  their  exploration  along  the 
Mississippi  itself  and  its  great  tributary  the  Ohio,  which  flows  from  north 
to  south,  its  sources  lying  at  no  great  distance  from  Lake  Erie  and  Lake 
Ontario,  the  most  easterly  of  the  group  of  the  great  lakes  out  of  which  the 
St.  Lawrence  flows.  The  French  claimed  these  two  river  basins  ;  in  other 
words,  the  w^hole  belt  of  territory  running  from  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence 
on  the  north-east  to  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  at  the  south-west.  If 
that  claim  were  admitted  the  British  colonists  would  be  cooped  up  between 
the  French  and  the  Atlantic  ;  the  French  could  expand  westwards  and  the 
British  could  not.  On  the  other  hand,  the  British  claimed  the  rii^ht  of 
free  expansion  westwards,  which  in  effect  would  have  restricted  the  French 
to    expansion    in    the   modern    Dominion   of   Canada,   leaving    them   in    the 


EMPIRE  613 

south  very  little  more  than  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  There  ivas  no 
possibility  of  compromising  these  rival  claims  ;  one  or  other  of  the  parties 
would  have  to  be  driven  off  the  field. 

The  number  of  the  French  colonists  was  much  less  than  that  of  the 
British  ;  prima  facie,  if  the  two  sets  of  colonists  were  left  to  fight  the 
matter  out  between  themselves,  the  British  colonists  ought  to  have  been 
secure  of  victory.  Had  they  enjoyed  a  common  central  government  and  a 
standing  army  there  could  have  been  little  doubt  of  the  issue.  But  they 
were  subject  to  no  common  direction,  and  their  fighting  forces  consisted  in 
the  separate  militias  of  the  separate  colonies,  organised  chiefly  for  defence 
against  the  Redskins,  and  all  having  the  strongest  objection  to  serving 
outside  the  borders  of  their  own  particular  state.  The  French  in  Canada, 
on  the  other  hand,  were  under  a  single  directing  head  ;  and  the  head  at 
this  time  was  a  man  of  genius,  both  military  and  administrative,  the 
Marquis  de  Montcalm.  Moreover,  a  factor  in  the  situation  was  provided 
by  the  Red  Indian  tribes,  who,  for  the  most  part,  were  on  better  terms  with 
the  French  than  with  the  British.  Hence  it  is  by  no  means  clear  that  the 
British  would  in  fact  have  had  the  better  in  a  straightforward  contest. 

But  in  effect,  however  inert  Great  Britain  and  France  might  be, 
however  little  disposed  to  give  serious  attention  to  colonial  questions,  it 
was  not  possible  that  they  should  abstain  altogether  from  intervention  in 
the  quarrels  of  the  colonies.  It  is  obvious  that  if  they  intervened  the  effective 
employment  of  sea-power  would  determine  the  issue  precisely  as  it  would 
determine  the  issue  in  India.  Both  in  the  west  and  the  east  the  rivals  on 
the  spot  were  fairly  well  matched,  and  the  issue,  as  between  them,  would 
turn  very  largely  on  the  comparative  capacity,  diplomatic  and  military, 
of  the  leaders  on  the  spot.  But  in  both  regions,  if  one  party  received 
energetic  support  from  home  and  the  other  party  did  not,  that  support 
would  more  than  counterbalance  any  local  superiority.  In  both  regions 
it  followed  that  nothing  but  flagrant  mismanagement  could  deprive  the 
British  of  ultimate  victory,  if  they  made  use  of  their  naval  ascendency  to 
prevent  the  arrival  of  French  reinforcements  and  to  carry  reinforcements 
to  their  own  people. 

Now  if  we  turn  to  Europe,  the  one  thing  certain  there  was  that  the 
Austrian  government  was  set  on  the  destruction  of  Prussia,  or  at  the 
very  least  on  the  recovery  of  Silesia.  And  Prussia  had  at  least  one  other 
enemy  in  the  Russian  Tsarina  Elizabeth.  By  this  time  both  Holland  and 
Sweden  had  dropped  out  of  the  ranks  of  the  Powers  which  had  to  be 
reckoned  with  as  of  first-class  importance  in  European  complications. 
But  at  the  beginning  of  the  century  Peter  the  Great  had  set  about  the 
organisation  of  the  vast  but  incoherent  Russian  dominion,  at  least  semi- 
barbaric  in  its  composition,  into  an  empire  approximating  to  Western 
models.  The  new  Power  had  not  been  greatly  concerned  with  the  rivalry 
between  Hapsburg  and  Bourbon,  the  "  balance  of  power  "  which  loomed 
so  large  in  the  eyes  of  Western  statesmen.     Still  less  was  she  concerned 


6i4  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

with  the  over-seas  rivalry  between  Great  Britain  and  France,  which  had  not 
yet  been  fully  realised  even  at  Versailles  and  Westminster.  But  she  was 
concerned  with  the  Turks  and  Poland,  and  for  that  reason  was  touched  by 
the  affairs  of  Austria  and  of  Prussia.  Her  power  was  an  incalculable 
quantity,  and  her  intervention  might  weigh  enormously  in  the  scales. 

As  matters  stood  in  1748,  Prussia  and  France  were  in  alliance,  and 
Austria  and  Great  Britain  were  in  alliance.  Austria  and  France  were 
traditionally  hostile.  According  to  all  tradition,  therefore,  it  was  to  be 
anticipated  either  that  France  and  Great  Britain  would  fight  out  their  own 
duel  and  stand  aloof  from  the  Austro-Prussian  quarrel,  or  that  France 
would  support  Prussia  and  England  would  be  on  the  side  of  Austria, 
though  in  a  very  half-hearted  fashion,  since  she  had  no  ill-will  whatever  to 
Prussia.  Austria,  on  the  other  hand,  could  count  on  the  good-will  of  the 
Tsarina  because  of  Elizabeth's  personal  hatred  not  of  the  Prussian  state  but 
of  Frederick  himself,  since  he  had  been  unable  to  resist  the  temptation 
to  make  sarcastic  comments  on  her  morals.  Spain  would  in  no  case  be 
brought  into  the  embroglio  so  long  as  the  present  King  Ferdinand  remained 
on  the  throne. 

At  Vienna  Maria  Theresa  had  for  her  minister  a  clear-sighted  states- 
man, Kaunitz.  At  Berlin  all  things  were  directed  by  the  keenest  brain  and 
the  readiest  hand  in  Europe.  At  Versailles  there  ruled  an  autocrat  who 
neither  had  statesmanship  himself  nor  knew  how  to  choose  statesmen  to 
help  him,  a  king  who  was  completely  under  the  influence  of  his  mistress, 
the  Pompadour.  In  London  the  administration  was  a  mere  chaos  ;  the 
Government  was  incapable  of  framing  a  policy,  or  of  keeping  consistently 
to  any  definite  line.  To  Kaunitz  it  appeared  that  from  the  Austrian  point 
of  view  the  attitude  of  England  was  of  less  consequence  than  that  of 
France.  France,  neutralised  or  brought  into  alliance,  was  worth  more 
than  an  alliance  with  the  British,  who,  in  the  last  war,  had  repeatedly  urged 
Maria  Theresa  to  concede  the  unwelcome  demands  of  the  king  of  Prussia. 
France  might  be  amenable  because,  among  other  reasons,  Frederick  had 
enraged  the  Pompadour  very  much  as  he  had  enraged  the  Tsarina. 
Kaunitz's  plan  was  to  combine  Austria,  Russia,  and  France  for  the 
destruction  of  Prussia.  Saxony  too  would  be  drawn  into  the  net,  and  the 
Hanoverian  connection  was  more  likely  to  be  an  embarrassment  to  Great 
Britain  than  a  help  to  Frederick.  Kaunitz's  diplomacy  was  effecting  a 
revolution  in  the  system  of  European  alliances.  Frederick,  preparing  for 
a  life  and  death  struggle,  preferred  a  British  to  a  French  alliance,  because 
in  the  last  war  the  P^rench  had  very  obviously  neglected  his  interests  to 
pursue  their  own  ends ;  and  British  subsidies,  extremely  useful  to  a  poor 
country  engaged  in  a  costly  war,  would  at  any  rate  be  expended  in  the 
manner  most  useful  to  Prussia.  Great  Britain  merely  drifted,  and 
ultimately  found  herself  in  alliance  with  Prussia  and  at  war  with  the 
European  coalition,  while  ministers  themselves  hardly  understood  how  that 
position  had  been  arrived  at. 


EMPIRE  615 

In  the  two  years  of  drifting  which  passed  between  the  death  oi  Henry 
Pelham  and  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  the  one  international  fact  forced  to 
the  front  was  the  inevitabihty  of  a  contest  in  America.  In  India  affairs 
quieted  down  with  the  recall  of  Dupleix.  Robert  Clive  was  in  England, 
trying  to  get  himself  into  parliament,  while  the  two  companies  had 
agreed  to  abstain  from  meddling  with  the  native  powers  and  were  at  any 
rate  in  a  state  of  truce.  But  in  America  the  Acadian  question  was  acute, 
since  the  French  and  British  frontiers  had  not  been  defined,  and  the 
French  population  within  the  unquestionably  ceded  territory  were  kept 
in  a  state  of  restless  disaffection  towards  the  British  government  by  the 
French  Canada.  Moreover,  the  aggressive  policy  was  in  active  progress  ; 
the  French  had  already  set  to  work  to  create  a  chain  of  forts  extending 
from  the  great  lakes  down  the  line  of  the  Ohio.  The  British  colonists  had 
attempted  to  force  them  back,  but  had  the  worst  of  the  encounter.  In 
1754  Benjamin  Franklin  propounded  a  scheme  for  federating  the  colonies, 
which  would  have  provided  for  united  action  under  a  common  central 
government  ;  but  the  spirit  of  particularism  was  too  strong  and  the 
scheme  was  rejected.  It  became  necessary  therefore  to  appeal  to  the 
home  government. 

The  appeal  was  answered  by  the  despatch  to  America  of  a  couple  of 
regiments  under  the  command  of  General  Braddock,  a  valiant  veteran  who 
understood  the  formal  methods  of  fighting  practised  on  the  European 
continent,  but  knew  nothing  of  backwoods  warfare.  The  French  govern- 
ment responded  by  preparing  and  despatching  reinforcements  to  Canada, 
though  there  was  no  declaration  of  war.  Nevertheless  Admiral  Boscawen 
received  orders  to  cut  off  the  French  expedition  ;  this  was  at  the  end  of 
April  1755.  A  second  fleet  was  also  being  prepared  to  take  the  seas 
under  Hawke.  At  this  time  the  British  ministers  were  still  under  the 
impression  that  what  they  had  to  fear  was  the  alliance,  not  yet  formally 
abrogated,  between  France  and  Prussia.  George  was  desperately  afraid 
that  Frederick  would  be  moved  to  attack  Hanover,  and  the  Government 
negotiated  both  with  the  Tsarina  and  with  Austria  for  the  protection  of 
Hanover  and  the  Netherlands,  in  case  the  colonial  struggle  between  France 
and  Great  Britain  should  issue  in  an  attack  on  those  regions  by  France  and 
Prussia.  The  Tsarina  had  no  objection  to  being  subsidised  for  an  attack 
upon  Prussia  ;  but  Austria  rejected  the  proposals,  which  would  obviously 
have  destroyed  her  own  private  scheme  of  securing  the  neutrality  if  not 
the  actual  co-operation  of  France  in  an  attack  upon  Prussia  itself. 

Bad  news  accumulated.  Boscawen  failed  to  intercept  the  French 
expedition,  and  Braddock,  marching  against  the  French  post  of  Fort 
Duqesne,  was  ambushed  and  killed,  and  his  force  was  cut  to  pieces.  The 
only  British  success,  if  success  it  can  be  called,  was  the  effective  seizure 
of  Acadia  by  the  deportation  of  the  French,  commemorated  a  century  later 
in  Longfellow's  poem  Evangeline. 

Now   the   thing  that   King   George    and  his    ministers   wanted  was   to 


6i6  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

secure  the  neutrality  of  Prussia,  the  supposed  ally  of  France.  To  that 
end  they  had  obtained  the  convention  with  Russia,  which  was  to  expose 
Prussia  to  Russia's  immediate  attack  if  she  moved  against  Hanover  in  the 
French  interest.  To  this  end  also  the  Convention  of  Westminster  was  now 
negotiated  with  Frederick,  directly  binding  him  to  neutrality.  Frederick 
had  no  inclination  at  all  to  be  dragged  into  a  war  for  the  extension  of  the 
French  colonial  empire,  a  war  in  which  he  could  not  choose  his  own  time 
for  action,  and  in  which  he  could  by  no  means  count  on  being  effectively 
defended  by  France  against  Russia  and  Austria,  which  would  quite  certainly 
attack  him  at  their  own  convenience, 

Frederick  accepted  the  convention  in  January  1756  ;  with  decisive,  but 
perhaps  unexpected,  results.  When  the  Tsarina  learnt  of  it  she  became 
extremely  angry,  and  Vienna  was  no  longer  in  doubt  that  Russia  would 
join  actively  in  the  destruction  of  Prussia.  It  was  decisive  moreover  for 
France.  Since  she  could  no  longer  use  Prussia  as  a  weapon  against  Great 
Britain,  she  would  join  Austria  and  secure  herself  against  Austrian  interven- 
tion on  the  side  of  Great  Britain.  Besides,  the  superstitious  Louis  had  an 
idea  that  he  could  compromise  with  Heaven  for  his  private  immoralities  by 
joining  a  Catholic  Power  in  attacking  Protestant  states.  The  old  system 
of  alliances  and  antagonisms  was  completely  broken  up,  and  it  had  be- 
come inevitable  that  Great  Britain  and  Prussia  should  stand  together  in  the 
coming  struggle. 

The  almost  unparalleled  inefficiency  of  the  British  Government  would 
have  been  absolutely  ruinous  if  it  had  not  been  matched  by  that  of  France. 
The  destruction  of  Prussia  was  no  business  of  France.  Her  business  was 
to  maintain  Prussia  in  Central  Europe  as  a  counterpoise  to  Austria,  not  to 
join  in  the  attempt  to  restore  an  overwhelming  Austrian  ascendency.  By 
allowing  herself  to  be  seduced  into  the  Austrian  alliance,  she  was  drawn 
away  from  devoting  her  energies  whole-heartedly  to  the  duel  with  England. 
For  the  purposes  of  that  duel  it  was  imperative  that  she  should  organise 
her  fleets  to  their  highest  capacity,  while  Great  Britain's  actually  very 
superior  sea-power  was  neutralised  by  incompetent  administration.  She 
would  have  had  nothing  to  fear  from  Austrian  intervention  ;  the  real 
question  for  her  was  whether  the  preservation  of  Prussia  called  for  her 
own  intervention  in  spite  of  the  British  duel.  She  chose  instead  to  ex  ■ 
haust  herself  in  an  attack  upon  Prussia,  from  which  she  could  derive  no 
advantage,  while  its  inexpediency  was  certainly  not  counterbalanced  by  any 
moral  considerations.  And  she  neglected  her  navy  until  the  British  ad- 
ministration had  been  permeated  by  a  new  spirit  which  restored  the  British 
fleet  to  the  plenitude  of  vigour  that  made  its  supremacy  unassailable. 

Not  by  far-sighted  policy,  but  by  drifting  along  in  complete  misappre- 
hension of  the  whole  situation,  the  British  Government  blundered  into 
the  alliance  with  Prussia  ;  whereby  in  effect  Great  Britain  got  the  help  of 
Prussia  and  Hanover  in  fighting  France.  F'rance  suftered  more  from  that 
combination  than  she  would  have   suffered  from   a  British    alliance  with 


EMPIRE  617 

Austria ;  but  it  was  not  in  the  least  what  the  British  Government  had  in- 
tended. And  apart  from  this,  although  it  was  perfectly  well  known  that  war 
with  France  for  the  colonies  was  inevitable,  no  proper  precautions  were 
taken.  The  garrisons  of  Minorca  and  Gibraltar  were  inadequate ;  neither 
Port  Mahon  nor  the  Rock  was  in  fit  condition  to  resist  a  strenuous  attack, 
and  the  ficet  which  ought  to  have  been  ready  to  sweep  the  seas  was  not 
made  ready  at  all. 

These  things  were  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  Government  had  no  real 
head,  no  one  to  guide  it,  with  clear  and  definite  aims  or  a  clear  and 
definite  idea  of  methods.  Newcastle's  idea  of  policy  was  party  manage- 
ment ;  not  the  same  thing,  though  a  necessary  means  to  it  He  was  too 
jealous  to  co-operate  even  with  the  men  of  ability  who  were  nominally 
members  of  his  administration.  His  most  formidable  critics  in  the  House 
of  Commons  were  Henry  Fox  and  William  Pitt,  who  both  spoke  from  the 
government  benches,  until  presently  Pitt  went  out  of  office,  and  Fox  was 
silenced  as  a  critic  in  the  House  by  official  advancement  and  in  the 
Cabinet  by  the  fear  of  losing  his  emoluments.  The  man  to  whom  the 
people  of  England  turned  their  eyes  was  Pitt,  whom  neither  Newcastle  nor 
the  king  could  endure  ;  and  Pitt  was  entirely  without  the  qualities  of  a 
party  manager,  nor  would  anything  induce  him  to  condescend  to  the 
business  of  party  management. 


MISMANAGEMENT 

In  the  spring  of  1756  the  Austrian  combination  for  the  destruction  of 
Prussia  was  not  yet  avowed  ;  it  was  not  intended-  that  it  should  be 
unmasked  until  all  the  Powers  concerned  were  ready  to  strike  in  concert. 
But  war  between  France  and  Great  Britain  was  obviously  imminent.  The 
country  was  on  the  verge  of  panic  over  the  expectation  of  a  French 
invasion  ;  and  the  ministerial  idea  of  defence  was  to  bring  over  troops 
hired  from  Hanover  and  Hesse — so  little  care  had  been  given  to  the 
organisation  of  a  fighting  force.  Pitt's  demands  for  a  reorganisation  of 
the  militia  had  been  rejected.  It  was  known  that  a  French  fleet  was  on 
the  point  of  sailing  from  Toulon,  though  its  destination  was  uncertain  ;  and 
Admiral  Byng  was  sent  with  ten  sail  of  the  line  to  take  care  of  the 
Mediterranean.  By  the  time  that  he  arrived,  in  May,  a  slightly  superior 
French  fleet  was  already  engaged  in  besieging  Port  Mahon.  After  an 
indecisive  engagement  on  May  19th,  Byng  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  risks  of  attempting  to  raise  the  siege  were  too  great.  He  retired  to 
protect  Gibraltar,  and,  at  the  end  of  June,  Port  Mahon  surrendered. 

The  loss  of  Minorca  excited  a  wild  storm  of  rage  in  England,  where 
ministers  clutched  at  the  chance  of  diverting  some  of  the  indignation  from 


6i8  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

themselves  by  making  Byng  the  scapegoat.  They  did  not  save  themselves. 
Matters  were  not  improved  for  them  by  unsatisfactory  news  from  America. 
Fox  resigned,  Newcastle  could  not  face  both  Pitt  and  Fox  in  opposition, 
and  under  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  a  ministry  was  formed  in  which  Pitt 
and  a  group  of  his  connections.  Lord  Temple,  Legge,  and  George  Gren- 
ville,  found  places,  by  no  means  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  king.  Byng 
was  court-martialled  and  ordered  to  be  shot,  in  accordance  with  a 
technical  regulation,  although  the  court  entirely  acquitted  hhn  of  cowardice, 
and  accompanied  the  sentence  with  a  protest  against  the  rigour  of  the 
law.  Public  opinion  admitted  no  plea  for  mercy,  though  Pitt  risked  his 
popularity  by  advocating  the  cause  of  the  unlucky  admiral  ;  and  Byng 
was  shot. 

The  Devonshire  ministry  was  moved  to  vigorous  action  by  Pitt.  His 
Militia  Bill  was  passed,  the  army  was  increased,  a  couple  of  Highland 
regiments  were  raised,  and  a  substantial  force  was  despatched  to  America. 
Large  supplies  were  voted,  including  a  subsidy  for  Hanover,  although 
throughout  Pitt's  career  he  had  clamoured  against  the  subsidising  policy. 
Yet  the  ministry  could  not  hold  its  own.  Pitt  was  dismissed  at  the  end  of 
March,  chaos  supervened,  and  after  a  serious  of  abortive  attempts  to  pro- 
duce a  combination  which  could  at  once  command  the  confidence  of  the 
country  and  control  parliament,  George,  Newcastle,  and  Pitt  realised  that 
the  only  possible  Government  was  a  coalition  between  Pitt  and  Newcastle, 
in  which  Pitt  had  a  free  hand  for  action  and  Newcastle  for  patronage.  The 
most  creditable  feature  in  the  not  discreditable  career  of  George  U.  is  the 
loyalty  with  which  he  stood  by  a  minister  whom  he  had  always  detested 
hitherto,  from  the  moment  that  he  learnt  to  trust  him.  Fox,  who  had  been 
Pitt's  most  dangerous  rival  so  far  as  ability  was  concerned,  was  quieted 
by  the  lucrative  post  of  Paymaster.  The  formation  of  the  Pitt-Newcastle 
administration  was  the  beginning  of  the  turning  of  the  tide,  which  till  then 
had  been  setting  unfavourably  enough  for  Great  Britain.  Even  then  some 
months  elapsed  before  the  turn  of  the  tide  made  itself  convincingly  felt. 

The  attack  on  Minorca  had  opened  the  war  between  Great  Britain  and 
France.  But  Frederick  at  Berlin  was  fully  aware  that  his  own  turn  was 
coming,  nor  was  it  his  intention  to  wait  until  the  net  had  closed  round  him. 
He  was  satisfied  that  Saxony,  which  lay  in  on  his  southern  border,  was 
involved  in  the  combination  against  him.  It  was  of  first-rate  importance 
to  him  that  he  should  strike  before  his  enemies  were  ready,  and  force  them 
to  adopt  a  plan  of  operations  imposed  on  them  by  his  action,  instead  of 
leaving  them  the  initiative  and  of  being  himself  forced  to  adapt  his  own 
action  to  their  operations.  But  he  could  not  strike  at  Austria  with  Saxony 
ready  to  attack  his  own  flank.  Frederick  never  hesitated  for  his  own  part 
to  subordinate  the  niceties  of  international  law  to  the  necessities  of  the 
hour.  A  couple  of  months  after  Port  Mahon  had  surrendered  to  the 
French  the  King  of  Prussia  marched  into  Saxonv.  If  he  could  paralyse 
the   Electorate,  or,  still  better,  if  he  could  induce   it   to  support  him,  he 


EMPIRE  619 

designed  an  immediate  invasion  of  Bohemia  and  possibly  a  blow  at  Prague 
before  the  winter  set  in. 

The  plan  was  foiled,  because  the  Saxons  offered  an  unexpected  resist- 
ance. Their  forces  concentrated  in  an  impregnable  position  at  Pirna, 
covering  Dresden.  Frederick  had  no  alternative  but  to  commence  a 
blockade.  An  unsuccessful  attempt  to  relieve  the  Saxons  was  made  by  the 
Austrian  Marshal  Browne — Scottish  and  Irish  family  names  are  notable 
among  the  commanders  of  continental  armies  at  this  period.     The  Saxons 


Map  of  the  Prussian  Area  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  I756-I763» 

were  starved  into  a  surrender,  Frederick  entered  Dresden,  the  Dresden 
Archives  fell  into  his  hands,  and  he  was  able  to  publish  the  evidence  which 
justified  his  action.  Saxon  troops  were  obliged  to  serve  in  the  armies  of 
the  king  of  Prussia,  and  Saxon  money  helped  to  supply  the  Prussian 
treasury.  But  the  resistance  of  Pirna  had  delayed  operations  too  long  for 
Frederick  to  surprise  Bohemia  by  a  sudden  blow. 

Winter  and  spring  were  occupied  in  preparations  and  negotiations  in 
which  the  diplomatic  skill  of  Kaunitz  was  triumphant.  The  Treaty  of 
Versailles,  signed  on  May  i,  1757,  established  the  terms  of  an  alliance 
between  Austria,   Russia,  and  France,  in  which  nearly  all  the  advantages 


620  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

were  to  go  to  Austria.  Prussia  itself  was  to  be  partitioned  between  Austria, 
Russia,  Poland,  and  Saxony,  the  Saxon  Elector  being  also  king  of  Poland  ; 
in  the  event  only  of  complete  success  France  was  to  have  her  own  reward 
in  the  Netherlands.  On  the  other  hand  Hanover,  after  a  vain  attempt  to 
get  her  own  territory  guaranteed  in  return  for  neutrality,  was  obliged  to 
take  part  with  Prussia  and  to  undertake  the  defence  of  the  line  of  the 
Weser  against  the  anticipated  invasion  by  the  French.  The  command 
of  this  force  was  entrusted  to  the  Duke  of  Cumberland. 

The  allies  apparently  reckoned  that  Frederick,  against  so  vast  a  com- 
bination, would  adopt  a  purely  defensive  attitude  and  confine  himself  to 
preparations  for  resisting  attack.  But  for  Frederick  at  least  the  true 
defensive  strategy  lay  in  a  vigorous  offensive.  He  was  overwhelmingly  out- 
numbered ;  his  one  chance  lay  in  striking  crushing  blows  which  should 
keep  the  circle  of  his  enemies  perpetually  broken  ;  and  for  carrying  out 
this  programme  he  had  the  strategical  advantage  of  holding  the  interior 
lines.  That  is,  being  himself  at  the  centre  of  a  semicircle,  he  could  fling 
the  mass  of  his  troops  from  one  point  to  another  on  the  circumference 
much  more  swiftly  than  could  his  foes.  But  taking  the  offensive  involved 
enormous  risks,  and  demanded  a  supreme  audacity  which  lay  outside  the 
calculations  of  strategists  who  practised  warfare  on  orthodox  lines. 

The  Austrians  were  startled  when  suddenly  at  the  beginning  of  May 
Frederick  flung  himself  upon  Bohemia  and  shattered  their  main  force  before 
Prague,  before  a  second  army  could  come  up  to  its  support  and  overwhelm 
him.  But  when  he  attempted  to  repeat  the  blow  against  the  second 
Austrian  army  he  met  with  a  crushing  defeat  at  Kolin  ;  he  was  forced  to 
fall  back  into  Saxony,  leaving  a  column  under  Bevern  to  hold  the  Austrians 
in  check,  when  they  should  have  recovered  from  their  exertions  sufficiently 
to  advance  in  force.  And  meanwhile  the  great  French  army  was  advan- 
cing to  measure  swords  with  Cumberland  on  the  Weser. 

This  was  the  position  of  affairs  when  the  ministerial  coalition,  headed  by 
Pitt  and  Newcastle,  was  formed  in  England  at  the  end  of  June.  It  was  not 
yet  known  in  England  that  events  of  vast  importance  had  been  taking  place 
in  India,  and  that  even  at  that  moment  Robert  Clive  was  master  of  Bengal: 
It  was  indeed  only  quite  recently  that  the  public  had  learnt  of  the  tragedy 
of  the  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta  in  the  previous  July,  for  Indian  news  might 
take  any  time  from  six  months  to  a  year  to  travel.  The  whole  situation 
looked  appallingly  black. 

Nor  were  there  immediate  signs  that  it  would  lighten.  The  Weser  was 
not  in  fact  a  defensible  river.  The  great  French  army  got  across  it 
unopposed,  and  proceeded  to  attack  Cumberland  at  Hastenbeck.  A  battle 
was  fought  which  was  indecisive.  Nevertheless  Cumberland-  instead  of 
holding  his  ground,  fell  back  to  the  north  as  far  as  Stade  on  the  Elbe, 
below  Hamburg.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  in  so  doing  he  was  acting 
against  his  own  judgment  under  orders  from  his  father,  and  that  his  own 
wish  was  to  form  a  junction  with  Frederick.     Whether  that  be  true  or  not, 


EMPIRE  621 

his  retreat  left  the  way  to  Prussia  through  Hanover  open.  But  the  Duke 
of  RicheHeu,  who  was  now  sent  to  take  command  of  the  French  army, 
tarried  to  plunder  the  country,  which  he  did  very  effectively,  and  then 
turned  in  pursuit  of  Cumberland,  who  found  himself  in  a  cut  de  sac  and 
apparently  about  to  be  overwhelmed  by  a  much  larger  army  than  his  own. 
Negotiations  were  opened  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  king  of 
Denmark,  and  a  convention  was  signed  at  Kloster  Seven  on  September 
10.  Under  the  convention  the  non-Hanoverian  troops  under  Cumber- 
land's command  were  to  be  sent  home,  while  the  Hanoverians  themselves 
were  to  be  permitted  to  remain  in  winter  quarters  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Stade.  In  deference  to  Cumberland's  urgency,  Richelieu  consented  to 
waive  the  term  '*  capitulation,"  which  implies  the  act  of  :i  commander  in  the 
field  completely  binding  in  itself,  and  to  call  the  agreement  a  *'  convention," 
an  act  which  requires  ratification  by  a  government. 

It  did  not  apparently  occur  either  to  Richelieu  or  to  Cumberland  that 
the  convention  might  not  be  ratified  ;  it  was  taken  as  a  preliminary  to  the 
neutralising  of  Hanover.  Nevertheless  the  convention  was  not  ratified. 
Richelieu  moved  off  to  occupy  the  south-western  corner  of  Prussia  with  a 
portion  of  his  troops,  while  the  rest  were  despatched  to  join  the  second 
French  army  under  Soubise,  which  was  on  the  point  of  invading  Saxony. 
In  England  the  news  of  the  convention  was  received  with  a  storm  of 
indignation  ;  its  ratification  was  refused  ;  Cumberland  was  recalled  in  dis- 
grace, and  refused  to  defend  himself,  though  he  believed  himself  to  have 
been  acting  under  King  George's  own  orders.  At  the  instance  of  Pitt 
Frederick  was  invited  to  appoint  the  Duke  of  Brunswick's  brother,  Prince 
Ferdinand,  to  the  command  of  the  forces  in  Hanover,  while  all  idea  of 
neutralising  George's  Electorate  was  abandoned. 

The  tale  of  misfortune  was  not  yet  complete.  The  first  fruit  of  Pitt's 
accession  to  power  in  England  was  an  expedition  against  Rochefort,  on 
the  west  coast  of  France  not  far  from  Rochellco  But  the  General  Mor- 
daunt  and  the  Admiral  Hawke  disagreed,  and  the  expedition  returned  at 
the  beginning  of  October,  having  accomplished  practically  nothing.  The 
only  good  news  so  far  was  that  in  India  Clive  had  captured  the  French  fac- 
tory at  Chandernagur  in  March,  for  the  conquest  of  Bengal  was  still  un- 
dreamed of.  American  affairs  still  went  ill.  The  French  under  Montcalm 
had  long  before  cleared  the  line  of  forts  connecting  Lake  Ontario  and  the 
St.  Lawrence  with  the  Ohio  valley  ;  now  they  captured  Fort  William 
Henry  on  the  south  of  Lake  George.  The  British  commander,  Lord 
Loudoun,  relinquished  the  plan  of  attempting  to  capture  Louisbourg  ;  and 
Admiral  Holburne,  attempting  to  strike  at  the  French  fleet,  failed  to  bring 
it  to  action,  while  his  own  force  suffered  so  severely  in  a  hurricane  that  it 
had  to  return  home. 

But  although  defeat  and  failure  still  through  the  closing  months  of 
1757  seem.ed  to  be  the  order  of  the  day  for  the  British  arms,  November 
and  December  saw  two  of  Frederick's  most  brilliant  triumphs.      In  October 


622  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

the  great  French  army  under  Soubise  was  preparing  to  dehver  Saxony 
from  its  captor.  It  was  always  one  of  Frederick's  supreme  difficulties  that 
he  was  precluded  from  playing  a  waiting  game.  It  was  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance to  him  now  to  bring  Soubise  to  an  engagement  and  clear  him 
off  the  field,  so  that  he  himself  might  get  back  to  fight  the  Austrians. 
Soubise  saw  no  reason  to  fight  in  order  to  please  Frederick,  and  Frederick 
could  not  make  a  direct  attack  on  him  ;  but  a  raiding  force  of  Austrians, 
directed  upon  Berlin,  drew  Frederick  with  his  army  to  the  protection  of 
the  capital.  The  Austrians  retreated  again ;  but  Soubise  had  been  tempted 
forward  by  Frederick's  withdrawal,  and  before  he  could  in  turn  draw  back 
again  Frederick  forced  him  to  a  decisive  engagement  at  Rossbach.  Soubise, 
with  an  immensely  larger  force,  attempted  an  enveloping  movement  ;  the 
Prussians  fell  upon  the  extended  line,  broke  it,  and  crumpled  it  up. 

Meanwhile  the  Austrian  main  army  had  entered  Silesia  in  force  and 
was  threatening  to  reduce  it.  It  was  fully  time  for  Frederick  to  hasten 
back  if  the  whole  province  was  not  to  be  lost.  Exactly  one  month  after 
he  had  overthrown  the  French  at  Rossbach  he  was  facing  the  Austrians  at 
Leuthen  with  his  victorious  army.  Even  in  the  interval  Bevern  had  been 
defeated  and  taken  prisoner,  and  the  very  important  fortress  of  Schweidnitz 
had  fallen  to  the  Austrians.  At  Leuthen,  perhaps  the  most  brilliant  of 
all  Frederick's  brilliant  victories,  the  great  Austrian  army  was  shattered  as 
thoroughly  as  the  army  of  Soubise.  By  the  end  of  the  year  Schweidnitz 
alone  was  held  in  Silesia  by  Frederick's  enemies,  and  Schweidnitz  fell  in 
the  following  spring. 


Ill 

PITT 

The  central  object  of  Pitt's  policy  was  the  conquest  of  America  from 
the  French,  together  with  the  assertion  of  an  overwhelming  naval  supremacy. 
But  he  was  fully  aware  that  the  preservation  of  Prussia  was  bound  up 
with  that  policy.  America  might  be  conquered,  but,  if  Frederick  were 
crushed  by  the  alliance  of  Bourbon  and  Hapsburg,  the  conquest  of  America 
might  go  for  nothing,  when  that  alliance  should  be  directed  to  crushing  an 
isolated  Great  Britain.  America  was  to  be  won  in  Germany  as  well  as  on 
the  high  seas  and  the  American  continent.  But  the  method  was  not  to  be 
that  of  Marlborough  and  William  III.  We  were  not  to  place  armies  at 
Frederick's  disposal  ;  our  own  troops  were  wanted  in  America,  which 
would  draw  quite  as  much  fighting  energy  as  could  be  spared  from  the 
development  and  extension  of  naval  expeditions.  Frederick  in  Europe  was 
to  be  supported  not  with  British  soldiers  but  with  British  gold,  gold  which 
would  maintain  Hanoverians,  Brunswickers,  and  other  troops  under  the 
command  of   Prince    Ferdinand,   and  would   help  to  preserve   Frederick's 


EMPIRE  623 

own  treasury  from  depletion.  It  was  not  without  some  reluctance  that 
Pitt  found  himself  obliged  to  strengthen  the  army  in  Hanover  with  some 
British  regiments,  when  Ferdinand  had  justified  his  selection  by  a  victory 
at  Crefeld. 

But  this  was  not  sufficient.  From  the  Rochefort  expedition  onwards 
Pitt  planned  a  series  of  descents  upon  the  French  coast  and  the  French 
ports.  They  were  in  appearance  singularly  unproductive  and  even  aimless  ; 
and  they  have  often  been  condemned  by  critical  historians.  In  that 
condemnation  Frederick  the  Great  did  not  concur.  They  were  a  very 
material  contribution  to  the  defence  of  Prussia.  Immense  numbers  of 
French  troops  were  kept  out  of  action,  out  of  the  French  armies  which 
took  the  field  against  Prussia,  locked  up  in  France  because  they  had  to  be 
in  perpetual  readiness  to  meet  a  British  attack,  at  whatever  point  of  the 
coast  it  might  be  delivered.  Naval  or  military  experts  may  differ  on  the 
question  whether  the  policy  was  right  or  wrong,  while  the  lay  student  is 
apt  to  judge  it  by  the  absence  of  any  obvious  resultant  gain.  But  it  was 
at  any  rate  a  policy  approved  and  commended  both  in  its  intentions  and  in 
its  effects  by  the  greatest  military  authority  of  the  time,  in  whose  interest  it 
was  carried  out.  It  must  be  regarded  as  having  been  in  part  at  least  the 
effective  employment  of  naval  supremacy  to  co-operate  with  the  military 
forces  by  a  constant  diversion  of  the  enemy's  troops  from  their  true 
military  objective. 

In  1757  Great  Britain  had  achieved  no  successes  ;  Frederick's  victory  at 
Prague  had  been  more  than  counteracted  by  his  crushing  defeat  at  Kolin, 
and  he  had  redeemed  his  position  only  by  the  two  extraordinarily  brilliant 
performances  at  Rossbach  and  Leuthen.  But  for  the  inactivity  of  the 
Russian  armies  beyond  his  eastern  frontier — due  to  an  idea  that  the  Tsarina 
was  dying  and  would  be  succeeded  by  a  Tsar  whose  sympathies  were 
entirely  with  Frederick — Prussia  might  even  have  been  crushed  in  that 
year.  In  1758  Frederick  was  able  to  open  a  campaign  in  Moravia,  but  in 
August  he  found  himself  obliged  to  strike  at  an  advancing  force  of  Russians. 
The  hardly  won  victory  of  Zorndorf  drove  them  back  into  Poland  ;  but  it 
was  already  more  than  time  for  Frederick  to  dash  back  to  Saxony,  and 
then  he  was  actually  defeated  by  the  Austrian  commander  Daun.  But 
Daun  rested  on  his  laurels,  and  again  Frederick  had  to  race  off  to  Silesia 
to  give  check  to  another  Austrian  army  and  return  in  time  to  prevent  the 
dilatory  Daun  from  taking  advantage  of  his  temporary  absence.  Mean- 
while Ferdinand  of  Brunswick  had  gradually  forced  the  French  in  the 
North  back  across  the  Rhine  and  put  them  to  rout  at  Crefeld.  But  he 
was  still  threatened  by  a  second  French  army  which  Soubise  had  re-formed; 
and  the  French  prospects  were  very  much  improved  by  the  accession  to 
power  of  the  vigorous  minister  Choiseul,  who  began  to  infuse  a  new  life  and 
energy  into  the  war. 

Frederick,  then,  during  the  year  rather  more  than  held  his  own  ;  but  the 
campaigns  illustrate  the  enormous  difficulties  of  his  position.      He  could 


624  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

never  adopt  the  tactics  of  defence,  the  methods  of  WilHam  of  Orange,  who 
never  won  great  victories  but  always  made  sure  that  defeat  should  not 
mean  disaster.  The  king  of  Prussia  was  always  under  the  necessity  of 
attempting  to  shatter  the  particular  enemy  whom  he  was  for  the  moment 
facing.  He  had  no  time  to  follow  up  a  success  in  one  quarter  or  even  to 
retrieve  a  defeat  ;  because,  the  moment  he  had  struck,  he  had  to  hurry  at 
full  speed  to  another  quarter  to  parry  another  attack.  Whenever  he  was 
in  Silesia  the  French  with  recuperated  forces  were  threatening  Saxony  ; 
whenever  he  was  in  Saxony  the  Austrians  were  recuperating  themselves 
and  threatening  Silesia  ;  and  when  both  French  and  Austrians  had  been 
temporarily  beaten  back,  the  Russians  on  the  north-east  were  threatening 
Brandenburg  itself.  Each  of  the  three  alHes  was  generally  able  to  keep 
in  being  a  couple  of  armies  any  one  of  which  immensely  outnumbered  the 
largest  force  which  Frederick  could  collect  in  any  one  quarter  ;  although, 
happily  for  him,  Ferdinand  of  Brunswick  consistently  proved  himself  able 
to  deal  effectively  with  the  northern  French  army.  As  we  have  seen, 
neither  of  the  French  armies  attained  what  should  have  been  its  maximum 
fighting  strength  because  of  the  forces  which  were  detained  elsewhere  by 
fear  of  British  descents  on  the  coasts  and  ports.  One  such  descent  was 
made  upon  Cherbourg  in  August  w^ith  some  success  ;  stores  and  guns  were 
captured  and  fortifications  w^ere  demolished.  But  two  attacks  upon  St.  Male 
in  June  and  September  were  ineffectual,  and  the  second  was  attended  by  a 
heavy  list  of  casualties. 

But  British  naval  predominance  was  being  definitely  reasserted  ;  the  news 
of  dive's  apparently  miraculous  victory  at  Plassey  was  an  inspiration  to  deeds 
of  prowess,  and  affairs  in  America  took  a  more  satisfactory  turn.  There 
Pitt  planned  a  vigorous  campaign.  Loudoun  was  recalled,  and  the  chief 
command  was  given  to  Amherst,  with  James  Wolfe  as  his  second  in 
command.  They,  in  co-operation  with  the  fleet  under  Boscawen,  were  to 
capture  Louisbourg,  the  great  fort  on  Cape  Breton  commanding  the  estuary 
of  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  were  to  proceed  thence  to  the  reduction  of 
Quebec.  A  second  force  under  James  Abercrombie,  who  had  been 
Loudoun's  senior  subordinate,  was  to  attack  the  French  on  the  Upper 
St.  Lawrence  and  Lake  Champlain,  seizing  Ticonderoga  as  a  preliminary 
to  the  advance  upon  Montreal.  A  third  force  was  to  attack  Fort  Duquesne, 
not  so  much  because  the  fort  was  dangerous  in  itself  as  because  it 
symbolised  the  previous  successes  of  France  on  the  continent.  Although 
Abercrombie  mismanaged  the  attack  on  Ticonderoga,  where  his  troops 
were  cut  up  in  making  a  frontal  attack  upon  a  very  strongly  entrenched 
position,  both  Fort  Duquesne  and  Louisbourg  were  captured.  Amherst, 
however,  did  not  feel  himself  able  to  attempt  the  reduction  of  Quebec 
before  the  winter. 

The  next  year,  1759,  was  the  British  year  of  victories  and  the  French 
year  of  disasters,  while  Frederick  himself  for  the  first  time  definitely  lost 
ground,  and  even  for  a  moment  during  the  course  of  it  lost  heart.     He 


EMPIRE  625 

was  already  becoming  too  exhausted  to  do  more  than  watch  for  the  point 
where  he  must  strike  at  all  costs.  Again  it  was  the  Russian  advance  which 
had  to  be  repelled.  In  August  the  Russian  force  was  descending  upon 
Frankfort  on  the  Oder.  It  was  joined  by  an  Austrian  contingent  before 
Frederick  could  strike  in  and  sever  the  two  armies.  He  attacked  the  foe 
at  Kunersdorf.  The  attack  was  successful,  but  Frederick  attempted  with 
troops  already  exhausted  to  improve  his  victory  into  the  annihilation  of 
the  greatly  superior  force  opposed  to  him  ;  the  tables  were  turned  upon 
him,  and  his  own  force  barely  escaped  annihilation. 

He  was  saved  from  total  destruction  because  neither  Russians  nor 
Austrians  made  any  more  use  of  their  victory,  and  because  only  a  few  days 
earlier  Ferdinand  of  Brunswick  inflicted  a  decisive  defeat  on  the  French 
at  Minden.  The  French  were  rolled  back  with  very  heavy  loss.  The 
disaster  to  them  would  have  been  even  more  overwhelming,  but  for  the 
entirely  unaccountable  refusal  of  Lord  George  Sackville  to  employ  his 
cavalry  in  accordance  with  repeated  orders  from  Prince  Ferdinand, 
conduct  which  ultimately  led  to  his  dismissal  from  the  service.  But  the 
victory  was  admittedly  won  by  the  skilful  dispositions  of  Ferdinand  and 
the  altogether  admirable  conduct  of  the  British  troops  which  bore  the 
brunt  of  the  fighting.  Particular  distinction  was  won  by  the  Marquis  of 
Granby,  who  commanded  the  second  British  line.  His  popularity  in 
England,  it  may  be  observed  in  passing,  is  attested  by  the  number  of  inns 
which  adopted  the  gallant  warrior's  head  as  a  sign.  In  spite  of  Lord 
George  Sackville,  the  battle  of  Minden  redounded  to  the  honour  of  British 
arms. 

But  other  glories  of  the  year  were  exclusively  British.  Choiseul  con- 
centrated his  designs  on  a  plan  for  the  invasion  of  England  ;  nevertheless, 
so  vigorously  had  the  navy  been  developed  that  Pitt  was  able  to  despatch 
expeditions  to  the  West  Indies,  where  Guadeloupe  was  captured,  and  to 
the  St.  Lawrence,  to  co-operate  in  the  plan  of  campaign  against  Canada, 
without  fear  that  the  remainder  of  the  fleet  would  be  insufficient  to  repel 
invasion,  though  another  squadron  was  conveying  reinforcements  to  India. 
Admiral  Rodney  bombarded  Havre,  where. a  flotilla  awaited  the  embarkation 
of  French  troops,  though  with  no  very  great  results. 

The  two  great  French  naval  armaments  lay  at  Toulon  and  at  Brest, 
while  Boscawen  kept  watch  within  the  Mediterranean,  and  Hawke's  fleet 
was  on  guard  in  Tor  Bay.  In  August  La  Clue  slipped  out  of  Toulon,  to 
join  Conflans  at  Brest,  with  ten  ships  of  the  line  and  two  ships  of  fifty  guns. 
Boscawen  caught  them  off  Lagos  Bay  on  the  south  of  Portugal,  and 
destroyed  five  of  them,  while  five  were  blockaded  in  the  harbour  of  Cadiz. 

Hawke's  blockade  of  Brest  kept  the  main  French  fleet  there  completely 
shut  up  until  contrary  winds  forced  the  British  to  shelter  in  Tor  Bay. 
Conflans  started  from  Brest,  intending  to  pick  up  and  convoy  an  invading 
force  to  Scotland.  But  Hawke  too  was  released  from  Tor  Bay  by  the  change 
of  wind.     Conflans,  with  twenty-one  sail  of  the  line,  was  in  pursuit  of  a  small 

2  R 


626  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

squadron  of  British  ships  which  were  cruising  in  the  neighbourhood,  when 
Hawke's  fleet  hove  in  sight.  A  north-westerly  wind  was  rising  to  a  gale, 
and  Conflans  ran  for  Quiberon  Bay  in  the  hope  that  the  pursuing  British, 
who  had  twenty-three  ships  of  the  hne,  would  find  themselves  pounded 
among  the  shoals  and  rocks.  Though  the  gale  was  developing  into  a 
storm,  Hawke  was  not  to  be  baffled.  His  van  overtook  the  French  rear 
and  won  a  victory  not  less  crushing  than  that  of  La  Hogue.  Five  of  the 
French  were  sunk.  Seven,  lightened  by  throwing  guns  and  stores  over- 
board, got  over  the  shallow  entrance  of  the  Vilaine,  though  four  of  them 
were  completely  disabled.  Nine  escaped  to  Rochefort  or  to  the  Loire  ; 
none  had  the  chance  of  coming  out  again.  The  French  line  of  battleships 
were  hopelessly  scatteied  in  threes  and  fours  in  different  ports,  where  it 
\ras  an  easy  matter  to  keep  them  blockaded. 
The  English  lost  in  the  fight  or  in  connection 
with  the  fight  only  a  couple  of  ships,  which  ran 
upon  rocks.  The  year  had  added  to  the 
British  Navy  twenty-seven  French  ships  of  the 
line  and  thirty  French  frigates.  From  that 
time  till  the  end  of  the  war  the  bulk  of  the 
British  fleet  was  available  for  despatch  to  any 
part  of  the  world  where  it  might  be  wanted  ; 
the  balance  was  quite  sufficient  to  prevent  any 
French  squadron  from  taking  the  sea.  The 
dream  of  a  French  invasion  was  finally  dis- 
posed of. 

The  battle  of  Quiberon  Bay  was  fought 
on  November  20th,  two  months  after  the  still 
more  celebrated  but  not  more  decisive  triumph  of  the  British  arms  in 
Canada.  Not  more  decisive,  because  if  Wolfe  had  been  beaten  on  the 
Heights  of  Abraham  Hawke's  destruction  of  the  French  fleet  would 
still  have  enabled  the  British  to  pour  reinforcements  into  Canada  un- 
checked, and  the  French  would  still  have  been  almost  certainly  over- 
whelmed. 

Again  Pitt's  plan  of  campaign  meant  an  advance  in  three  columns — 
one  directed  in  the  farthest  west  upon  Niagara,  the  second  with  the  main 
body  under  Amherst  upon  Ticonderoga,  while  the  third,  of  which  Wolfe 
now  held  the  command,  was  to  proceed  up  the  St.  Lawrence  against 
Quebec  supported  by  the  squadron  under  Admiral  Sanders.  Quebec  had 
received  its  last  small  reinforcement  from  France  in  May,  before  the 
blockade  of  the  French  coast  was  completed.  It  was  intended  that  the 
two  western  forces  should  converge  upon  Quebec  to  join  hands  with 
Wolfe  ;  but  though  they  were  able  to  capture  Niagara  and  Ticonderoga, 
each  found  difficulties  in  the  way  which  prevented  its  further  advance. 

At  the  end  of  June  Wolfe,  with  the  Admirals  Sanders  and  Holmes, 
arrived  before  Quebec.     Quebec  stands  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  on  a  height 


General  James  Wolfe. 


EMPIRE  627 

which  was  accounted  impregnable  on  the  western  side.  On  the  east  the 
river  St.  Charles,  flowing  into  the  St.  Lawrence,  was  secured  at  its  entrance 
by  a  boom  ;  and  the  greater  part  of  the  French  army,  which  outnumbered 
the  British  forces,  lay  entrenched  between  the  St.  Charles  and  the  Mont- 
morenci  river  to  the  east.  Wolfe  occupied  the  southern  bank  and  the 
north  bank  east  of  the  Montmorenci.  Admiral  Holmes,  carrying  twelve 
hundred  British  troops,  moved  up  the  river  above  Quebec,  and  so  gave 
employment  to  a  French  corps  of  observation.  Sanders  made  any  relief 
of  the  French  from  the  eastward  impossible. 

A  complete  investment  of  Quebec  was  out  of  the  question  until  Amherst 
should  arrive  ;  but  there  was   no  sign  of  Amherst  arriving,  and  if  it  held 

out    till    the    winter  

the  St.  Lawrence 
would  no  longer  be 
navigable,  and  the 
ships  would  have  to 
retire.  It  was  Mont- 
calm's business  to 
stand  on  the  defen- 
sive; Wolfe  could 
not  force  his  lines, 
and  the  Frenchman 
was  not  to  be 
tempted  out  of  his 
entrenchments.  An 
attack  on  the  French 
camp  failed,  Wolfe 
himself  becam.e  seriously  ill,  and  at  the  beginning  of  September  his  de- 
spatches to  England  were  full  of  the  gloomiest  forebodings.  Two  days 
after  the  arrival  of  the  most  depressing  of  these  letters  came  an  over- 
whelming revulsion.  Quebec  had  fallen,  and  Wolfe  too  had  fallen  in  the 
hour  of  victory.  He  had  conceived  the  desperate  design  of  scaling  the 
Heights  of  Abraham  on  the  western  side  of  Quebec.  Success  was  possible, 
if  at  all,  only  by  effecting  a  complete  surprise  ;  defeat  would  mean  disaster  ; 
but  Wolfe  resolved  to  take  the  risk.  On  December  i?.th  Holmes  moved 
up  the  river,  threatening  an  attack  from  a  higher  point  and  drawing  off  the 
French  detachment  of  Bougainville,  whose  task  it  was  to  prevent  a  landing 
on  that  side,  A  heavy  bombardment  of  the  French  camp  on  the  east  was 
opened  by  Admiral  Sanders  as  the  prelude  to  a  grand  attack  in  that  quarter. 
Both  movements  were  feints,  intended  to  withdraw  the  attention  of  the 
French  from  the  real  point  of  attack.  Wolfe,  in  the  night,  with  four  thousand 
men  in  boats,  dropped  down  the  river  to  the  point  chosen  ;  he  had  shifted 
camp  to  facilitate  embarkation  above  Quebec.  No  sentries  were  on  guard 
at  the  foot  of  the  precipitous  height  which  the  force  scaled  undetected  ;  the 
leaders  surprised  and  caught  the  small   guard  at  the  top.      By  daybreak 


ns   JV 


Plan  of  the  Capture  of  Quebec,  1759. 


628  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

something  over  three  thousand  men  were  beginning  to  be  formed  in  order 
of  battle.  Montcalm's  forces  were  rapidly  brought  up  ;  how  much  they 
outnumbered  the  British  is  not  known.  At  about  nine  o'clock  the  French 
swept  forward  to  drive  the  English  over  the  cliff  ;  the  British  reserved  their 
fire  till  the  enemy  were  thirty  yards  off.  At  the  first  deadly  volley  the 
French  checked  and  reeled  ;  at  the  second  they  broke  and  fled,  while  the 
British  charged  with  the  bayonet,  and  were  stopped  only  by  the  fire  of  the 
artillery  from  the  town  walls.  Montcalm  had  received  his  death  wound  ; 
but  Wolfe  himself  "died  happy"  on  the  field.  The  victorious  British  en- 
trenched themselves  in  the  position  they  had  won,  and  four  days  later 
Quebec  capitulated. 

During  1760  the  main  feature  of  the  war  was  the  completion  of  the 
conquest  of  Canada,  together  with  the  final  blow  dealt  to  the  collapsing 
French  power  in  India  at  the  battle  of  Wandewash.  Frederick  through- 
out the  year  was  in  great  straits.  Prussia  was  almost  drained  of  fighting 
material  ;  all  Prince  Ferdinand's  skill  and  all  his  men  were  required  to 
hold  back  the  still  very  much  larger  force  which  the  French  were  able  to 
put  in  the  field.  Already  at  the  close  of  1759  the  coalition  had  made  good 
their  footing  in  Saxon)',  and  were  in  possession  of  Dresden.  But  for  the 
British  subsidies  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  maintain  in  the  field 
armies  which  could  now  only  be  scraped  together  with  the  utmost  difficulty. 
Frederick  could  indeed  hardly  have  been  saved  but  for  the  incomparable 
sluggishness  of  the  Austrian  Daun  and  the  stolid  immobility  of  the  Russians. 
Thus  aided  he  was  enabled  in  the  autumn  to  defeat  Laudon  at  Liegnitz, 
and  then  Daun  himself  at  Torgau,  while  the  Russians  did  nothing.  But 
Frederick's  victories  were  no  longer  shattering  blows  ;  they  were  reverses 
for  his  enemies,  not  disasters  ;  and  before  the  year  was  over  his  prospects 
were  seriously  affected  by  the  death  of  George  II.,  and  the  accession  to  the 
British  throne  of  a  young  king  who  was  determined  to  rid  himself  of  Pitt's 
ascendency. 

To  Pitt's  loyalty  Frederick  owed  it  that  he  was  not  left  to  his  fate. 
For  during  the  first  month  of  the  year  Choiseul  was  doing  his  best  to 
induce  Pitt  to  enter  on  a  separate  negotiation.  But  in  the  first  place 
nothing  would  induce  Pitt  to  desert  his  ally  ;  and  in  the  second  he  was  fully 
satisfied  that  in  spite  of  his  own  enormous  war  expenditure,  the  strain  on 
France  was  much  more  severe,  that  she  was  becoming  thoroughly  exhausted, 
and  that  the  longer  the  war  wx-nt  on  the  more  completely  she  would  be 
prostrated.  He  was  undeterred  by  the  suspicion  already  awakening  in  his 
mind  that  Spain  under  a  new  king  might  join  the  coalition.  For  the 
pacific  Ferdinand  was  dead  and  had  been  succeeded  by  his  half-brother, 
Charles  IV.,  who  had  resigned  the  throne  of  Naples  to  occupy  that  of  Spain. 
ChoiseuTs  negotiations  with  Britain  were  therefore  fruitless. 

Those  negotiations,  though  they  led  to  a  temporary  suspension  of 
hostilities  in  the  western  theatre  of  the  war  in  Europe,  did  not  check  the 
progress    of  events    in    Canada.       The    British    now  held  Quebec,  under 


o     ^ 
■J       c. 


EMPIRE  629 

command  of  General  Murray,  as  well  as  Louisbourg.  Amherst  was  again 
setting  forward  his  converging  movement  on  the  west.  The  French  sought 
to  strike  the  first  blow  by  attacking  Quebec,  where  the  garrison  could  not 
obtain  the  support  of  a  British  squadron  until  the  St.  Lawrence  became 
navigable  again.  For  this  purpose  they  were  able  to  despatch  a  force  which 
was  double  that  under  Murray's  command  ;  and  at  the  end  of  April  the 
British,  after  a  sharp  encounter  at  Sainte  Foy,  were  driven  within  the  walls 
of  Quebec.  But  ten  days  later  came  the  news  that  a  British  squadron  was 
now  making  its  way  up  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  the  French  retreated.  All 
that  was  left  for  them  was  the  attempt  to  maintain  themselves  at  Montreal  ; 
but  Murray  was  free  to  take  his  own  share  in  the  converging  movement, 
advancing  from  Quebec.  The  three  British  columns  united  before 
Montreal  on  September  7th,  and  the  next  day  the  town  capitulated.  The 
whole  Canadian  dominion  was  surrendered  to  the  British  Crown  under  a 
guarantee  that  property  was  not  to  be  disturbed  and  that  religious  liberty 
was  to  be  secured,  while  the  French  troops  with  their  officers  laid  down 
their  arms  and  were  sent  back  to  France  under  promise  of  not  again  serv^ 
ing  during  the  war. 

The  crisis  of  the  struggle  was  over.  In  America  and  India  the  French 
had  been  beaten  out  of  the  field  as  rivals  of  the  British,  and  the  supremacy 
of  the  British  race  was  assured.  More  than  two  years  were  to  pass  before 
peace  was  signed,  a  peace  which  in  effect  confirmed,  as  far  as  the  British 
Empire  was  concerned,  the  position  which  had  already  been  won  when  the 
old  king  died  in  October  1760.  The  reign  of  Pitt  practically  ended  with 
the  reign  of  George  II.  The  control  was  taken  from  his  hands,  and  the 
last  phase  of  the  war  forms  the  first  phase  of  new  poHtical  and  international 
conditions.  It  remains  in  this  chapter  to  complete  the  story  of  the 
establishment  of  the  British  power  in  the  East. 


IV 

BENGAL 

In  1754  the  two  leading  actors  in  the  Anglo-French  struggle  in  India 
were  withdrawn  from  the  scene — Dupleix  to  suffer  from  shameful  ill- 
treatment  at  the  hands  of  his  countrymen,  the  victor  of  Arcot  to  seek 
parliamentary  honours,  which,  happily,  he  failed  to  obtain.  The  strife  had 
been  restricted  to  the  Carnatic ;  and  the  British  and  French  governors  in 
that  province  came  to  an  amicable  agreement  that  they  would  leave  native 
politics  alone  and  fight  no  more.  Siill  it  was  anticipated  that  when  France 
and  Britain  went  to  war  again  there  would  be  some  difficulty  in  preserving 
the  peace  in  India.  In  1756  Clive  was  returning  to  the  East,  and  there  was 
a  small  British  squadron  in  Indian  waters  under  the  command  of  Admiral 
Watson.     In    conjunction    with   the    admiral,    Clive    destroyed    a    pirate's 


630  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

stronghold  at  Gheriah  on  the  west  coast  and  then  proceeded  to  take  up  his 
command  at  Fort  St.  David.  No  active  steps  against  the  French  were 
possible  under  the  existing  agreement,  and  it  must  be  noted  that  the  declara- 
tion of  war  between  England  and  France  was  not  known  in  India  until 
early  in  1757. 

But  in  August  there  came  to  Madras  the  news  of  a  ghastly  tragedy  at 
Calcutta. 

The  events  in  the  Carnatic  had  attracted  little  attention  in  Hindustan. 
The  Mogul  reigned  at  Delhi,  but  in  effect  the  whole  north-west  was 
dominated  by  Ahmed  Shah,  the  master  of  Kabul.  From 
Central  India  the  Western  Marathas  had  pushed  their 
power  up  to  the  banks  of  the  Jumna,  the  river  on  which 
stand  the  Mogul  cities  of  Delhi  and  Agra.  The  whole 
Maratha  confederacy  recognised  as  its  head  the  hereditary 
Peishwa,  a  sort  of  mayor  of  the  palace,  who  was  nominally 
the  minister  of  the  royal  house  of  the  Marathas,  The 
peishwa's  headquarters  were  at  Puna.  The  chief  of  the 
Eastern  Marathas  was  the  Bhonsla,  the  Rajah  of  Berar 
or  Nagpur,  which  is  as  nearly  as  possible  the  central  point 
of  the  Peninsula  ;  and  the  eastern  Marathas  raided  the 
Ganges  provinces  as  far  down  the  river  as  Calcutta  itself. 
Between  Ahmed  Shah  on  the  north-west  and  the  Marathas 
on  the  south  the  Mogul  was  practically  without  power  at 
all,  and  the  two  nawabs  of  the  great  Ganges  provinces,  of 
which  the  upper  was  Oudh  and  the  lower  Bengal  with 
Behar,  had  made  themselves  independent  princes.  The 
Nawab  of  Oudh,  however,  claimed  the  title  of  Wazir  or 
Chief  Minister  of  the  Mogul. 

Now  at  the  beginning  of  1756  Ali  Vardi  Khan,  the  old 
experienced  Nawab  of  Bengal,  died,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  grandson 
Suraj  ud-Daulah,  a  half  mad  youth  of  nineteen,  full  of  an  inordinate  vanity 
and  a  lust  for  blood,  very  much  like  the  Roman  Emperor  Caligula.  Suraj 
ud-Daulah,  possibly  at  the  instigation  of  the  French,  chose  to  take  offence 
because  the  British  at  Fort  William  were  strengthening  their  fortifications 
in  case  they  should  find  themselves  involved  in  hostilities  with  their  French 
neighbours  at  Chandcrnagur.  The  nawab  ordered  them  to  demolish  their 
fortifications,  the  governor  replied  with  a  remonstrance;  and  the  nawab 
responded  by  despatching  an  army  to  Calcutta.  The  governor  and  some 
others  fled  on  some  British  ships  which  were  in  the  Hugh;  those  who 
remained  behind  had  no  choice  but  to  surrender.  The  unhappy  prisoners, 
one  hundred  and  forty-six  in  number,  were  packed  into  a  chamber  twenty 
feet  square,  three  human  beings  to  the  square  yard,  with  one  small  grating 
to  let  in  air,  on  a  sultry  July  night  in  Calcutta.  Then  Suraj  ud-Daulah 
forgot  them  till  next  morning,  when  twenty-three  of  the  hundred  and  forty 
six  were  found  to  be  still  alive.     Such  was  the  tragedy  of  the  Black  Hole. 


Suraj  ud-Daulah, 
Nawab  of  Bengal. 

[From  a  painting  of  the 

Nawab  and  his  sons, 

by  Kettle.] 


EMPIRE  631 

One  course  only  was  possible  for  the  British  in  Madras.  At  whatever 
cost  the  perpetrator  of  so  ghastly  an  outrage  must  be  punished.  Clive, 
with  the  company's  forces  and  Watson's  naval  squadron  of  ten  ships,  were 
despatched  to  the  Hugh.  In  the  first  week  of  January  Clive  had  stormed 
and  captured  the  forts  of  Baj-Baj  and  Hugh,  and  had  driven  the  nawab's 
troops  out  of  Calcutta.  The  nawab,  who  was  beginning  to  discover  that 
traders  were  more  use  to  him  alive  than  dead,  was  surprised  to  find  that  the 
British  could  fight  as  well  as  trade.  He  had  collected  an  army  to  wipe 
them  out,  but  that  army  in  turn  was  scattered  ;  he  began  to  treat. 

But  while  he  was  making  promises  to  Clive  of  restitution  and  compen- 
sation, he  was  secretly  imploring  the  French  at  Chandernagur,  and  even 
Bussy  at  Haidarabad,  to  come  to  his  aid.  The  w'ay  was  cleared  for  Clive 
by  news  of  the  declaration  of  war  betv^^een  France  and  Great  Britain.  He 
gave  no  time  for  a  combination  to  be  formed  against  the  British,  but  at 
once  struck  at  Chandernagur,  which  fell  on  March  23rd.  All  the  military 
stores  and  five  hundred  prisoners  of  war  fell  into  his  hands.  That  settled 
the  question  of  French  intervention  in  Bengal,  and  decided  Bussy  to 
confine  his  activities  to  the  south.  The  question  now  was  whether  Clive 
had  done  enough  for  British  honour  and  should  return  to  the  south,  where 
the  Carnatic  was  threatened  with  a  French  war.  If  he  did  so,  Calcutta 
would  be  left  defenceless,  and  there  was  every  probabihty  that  Suraj  ud- 
Daulah,  free  from  the  immediate  terror  inspired  by  the  presence  of  the 
British  forces,  was  sufficiently  insane  to  seek  revenge. 

The  call  to  remain  in  Bengal  came  from  the  natives  themselves.  The 
nawab's  rule  was  a  reign  of  terror  ;  his  principal  ministers  resolved  to  get 
rid  of  him,  and  to  set  on  the  throne  Mir  Jafar,  the  commander-in-chief  of 
his  army.  They  applied  to  Clive  to  assist  them.  Mir  Jafar  as  nawab  of 
Bengal,  established  there  by  aid  of  the  British,  would  be  a  puppet  of  the 
British  as  completely  as  the  nawab  of  Arcot.  Clive  and  the  Calcutta 
Council  entertained  the  proposal.  While  they  amused  Suraj  ud-Daulah  with 
empty  negotiations,  terms  were  arranged  with  the  conspirators  through 
their  Hindu  agent,  Amin  Chand.  In  the  course  of  the  negotiations  with  the 
conspirators  Clive,  with  the  support  of  the  Council,  committed  the  one  act 
of  his  public  career  which  is  seriously  open  to  censure.  When  all  was 
ready  except  the  formal  completion  of  the  agreements,  Amin  Chand  (or 
Omichund,  as  Macaulay  calls  him)  demanded  the  insertion  in  the  treaty  of 
a  clause  engaging  to  pay  him  ^300,000.  Every  detail  of  the  plot  was  known 
to  him,  and  would  be  betrayed  to  Suraj  ud-Daulah  if  his  demand  were 
refused.  He  was  tricked  by  a  fraud  such  as  he  might  have  invented  him- 
self. Two  copies  of  the  treaty  were  drawn  up,  one  upon  red  paper,  con- 
taining the  required  promise  which  was  omitted  from  the  other.  He  was 
satisfied  when  he  was  shown  the  red  treaty  with  the  British  signatures 
attached  to  it.  He  did  not  know  that  one  of  the  signatures  was  a  forgery. 
Admiral  Watson  had  refused  to  append  his  name,  though,  when  the  thing 
was  done,  he  became  a  party  to  it.      But  it  was  the  other  treaty  without 


632  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

the  blackmailing  clause  which  was  signed  by  the  conspirators.  Clive  to 
the  day  of  his  death  asserted  that  he  was  justified;  but  on  no  other 
occasion  did  he  depart  from  the  one  sound  rule  for  Europeans  in  dealing 
with  Orientals,  of  holding  fast  not  by  the  Eastern  but  by  the  Western 
standard  of  morals.  For  no  Oriental  would  have  been  shocked  by  the 
deception  practised  upon  Amin  Chand. 

When  the  treaty  was  signed,  Clive  no  longer  considered  it  necessary 
to  play  with  Suraj  ud-Daulah.  He  sent  to  the  nawab  a  despatch,  setting 
forth  the  whole  of  the  British  grievances,  and  announced  that  he  was 
coming  with  his  men  to  the  nawab's  capital  of  Murshidabad  to  receive  his 
answer.  He  followed  his  letter  at  the  head  of  his  troops — something  over 
three  thousand  men,  of  whom  two  thousand  were  sepoys,  and  ten  guns. 
The  letter  was  despatched  and  the  advance  began  on  13th  June.  The 
nawab  moved  to  meet  him  with  sixty  thousand  men  at  his  back.  On  the 
fifth  day  the  British  halted  at  Kutwa.  There  was  no  sign  of  Mir  Jafar 
carrying  out  his  promises,  and  the  march  was  checked  by  stormy  weather. 
On  the  eighth  day  Clive,  for  the  first  and  last  time  of  his  life,  held  a  council 
of  war.  An  advance  must  mean  either  a  victory  against  unparalleled  odds  or 
annihilation.  Would  it  be  better  to  take  the  risk,  or  to  entrench  themselves 
where  they  were  at  Katwa  and  invite  aid  from  the  Marathas,  which  might 
involve  indefinite  delay,  and  the  intervention  of  Bussy  on  the  other  side  ? 
dive's  own  opinion  was  given  in  favour  of  the  more  cautious  course  ; 
eleven  of  the  council  of  war  supported  him,  seven  voted  for  the  advance. 
The  council  was  broken  up  and  Clive  withdrew  by  himself  to  meditate  on 
the  situation.  The  result  was  that  he  reversed  the  decision  of  the  council, 
and  the  advance  was  renewed  in  the  morning. 

The  next  night  the  British  force,  wet  and  weary,  bivouacked  in  the 
grove  of  Plassey  ;  and  with  the  dawn  of  June  23  they  were  drawn  up  face 
to  face  with  twenty  times  their  own  number  of  the  nawab's  troops.  The 
morning  passed  in  cannonading  ;  as  the  afternoon  advanced  a  small  body 
of  fifty  Frenchmen,  who  were  with  the  nawab's  army,  were  seen  to  move ; 
one  of  the  British  ofiicers  at  once  without  orders  occupied  the  spot  where 
they  had  been  posted.  The  nawab's  guns  were  put  out  of  action,  Clive's 
line  advanced,  and  the  whole  vast  army  broke  before  it  and  fled.  So  slight 
was  the  resistance  offered  that  the  vanquished  lost  only  a  few  hundred  men, 
the  victors  only  seventy.  Suraj  ud-Daulah,  fleeing  in  disguise  from  Murshi- 
dabad, was  caught  and  murdered  by  the  son  of  Mir  Jafar.  Clive,  according 
to  promise,  proclaimed  Mir  Jafar  nawab,  but  would  allow  no  bloodshed. 
To  the  natives  Clive  became  at  once  a  sort  of  demi-god  ;  and  he  found 
himself  not  only  effective  master  of  Mir  Jafar  himself,  but  for  all  practical 
purposes  responsible  master  of  all  Bengal  ;  while  the  fame  of  his  miraculous 
powers  spread  over  half  India.  It  never  occurred  to  the  new  nawab  to 
regard  himself  as  independent  of  the  power  which  had  placed  him  on  the 
throne,  and  which  would  in  no  wise  permit  him  to  play  the  despot.  It  was 
manifestly  impossible  to  pretend  that  effective  government  could  be  assumed 


EMPIRE  633 

by  any  one  except  Clive  and  the   British,  whose   Hghtest  word  none  durst 
disobey. 

Above  all,  it  was  out  of  the  question  that  Clive  should  leave  the  province 
until  some  system  had  been  organised  for  preserving  the  British  control. 
Without  any  such  design  on  their  part  the  East  India  Company  had  become 
at  a  stroke  a  territorial  power,  lords  of  the  richest  province  in  India.  In- 
structions for  the  formation  of  a  government  were  sent  out  by  the  directors 
from  London,  who  understood  so  little  of  the  situation  that  Clive  himself 
was  not  included  in  the  commission  ;  perhaps  it  was  assumed  that  his 
military  services  would  be  in  requisition  elsewhere.  The  British  on  the 
spot,  however,  had  no  doubts,  and  deliberately  placed  themselves  at  their 


^    ^,-<-<A^L  A^  of  ^c  'B^A'tTl'e^  Of  ^  a9 S  E^^-v-v-^ 


Clive's  victory  at  Plassey 
[From  a  plan  published  in  176c 


great  chief's  orders,  A  little  later  the  directors  sent  revised  instructions, 
which  made  Clive  officially  what  he  already  was  in  actual  fact.  It  was  not 
till  the  end  of  1760  that  he  felt  able  to  retire  from  the  scene  of  his  triumphs 
and  returned  to  England. 

During  the  two  and  a  half  years  of  Clive's  personal  rule  in  Bengal  the 
struggle  between  French  and  British  was  fought  to  a  finish  in  the  south; 
when  he  left  India  the  French  were  cooped  up  in  Pondichery,  and  were  on 
the  point  of  surrendering  their  last  stronghold.  In  the  conflict  with  them 
Clive  took  no  further  personal  part  ;  Bengal  gave  him  enough  to  do.  Six 
months  after  Plassey  the  Oudh  Wazir  threatened  an  invasion,  but  his 
armies  melted  away  at  the  mere  threat  of  Clive's  approach.  In  1758  the 
enormous  prestige  he  had  won  enabled  him  almost  to  denude  Bengal  of 
British  troops  in  order  to  despatch  an  expedition  to  seize  Masulipa^am,  a 


634  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

city  on  the  east  coast  situated  in  the  district  called  the  Sarkars,  just  south  of  the 
river  Godavery,  an  episode  which  belongs  to  the  last  phase  of  the  struggle 
with  the  French.  The  departure  of  the  troops  induced  the  Nawab  of  Oudh 
to  contemplate  another  invasion,  this  time  in  conjunction  with  the  «  Shah- 
zada,"  the  heir  to  the  throne  of  the  Mogul.  Clive  could  only  collect  some 
four  hundred  British  and  about  six  times  as  many  sepoys.  With  this  small 
force  he  covered  in  twenty-three  days  the  four  hundred  miles  which 
separate  Calcutta  from  Patna,  to  which  the  Shahzada  had  laid  siege. 
The  siege  was  raised,  and  the  hosts  of  the  Shahzada  and  the  Wazir  scattered 
in  hasty  flight. 

Yet  once  more  Clive  had  to  display  his  promptitude  and  energy  in 
emergency.  The  Dutch  had  played  no  important  part  in  India,  but  they 
too  had  a  factory  at  Chinsura,  on  the  Hugli.  Towards  the  end  of  1759 
seven  of  the  Dutch  company's  ships  appeared  in  the  river.  There  was  no 
quarrel  between  Dutch  and  British,  but  in  fact  the  Dutchmen  were  not 
profiting  by  the  sudden  development  of  the  British  ascendency,  and  they 
had  given  ear  to  the  appeal  of  Mir  J  afar,  who  was  growing  secretly  restive 
in  his  position  of  subordination.  Clive's  suspicions  were  aroused,  and 
became  certainty  when  the  Dutch  seized  some  English  vessels.  Forde,  the 
trusted  officer  whom  Clive  had  sent  against  Masulipatam,  was  now  back  at 
Calcutta,  having  achieved  his  task.  He  was  at  once  despatched  against 
Chinsura,  while  three  English  ships  under  the  command  of  Captain  Wilson 
attacked  and  captured  the  seven  Dutchmen.  Mir  Jafar  promptly  turned 
against  his  intended  allies,  who  had  to  appeal  to  Clive  himself  for  the  pro- 
tection which  he  extended  to  them.  And  so  collapsed  the  last  extraneous 
attempts  at  intervention  in  Bengal. 

Eighteen  months  earlier  the  French  had  revived  the  contest  by  sending 
to  the  Carnatic  some  troops  under  the  command  of  Lally,  the  son  of  an 
Irish  father  who  had  been  one  of  the  gallant  defenders  of  Limerick.  A 
brave  and  efficient  soldier  himself,  he  was  absolutely  devoid  of  tact  in 
dealing  with  his  own  officers,  his  own  men,  or  with  natives.  Also  he  was 
under  positive  orders  to  have  no  dealings  with  the  native  courts,  whereas 
such  chance  as  the  French  had  lay  almost  entirely  in  the  influence  which 
Bussy  exercised  at  the  court  of  the  Nizam.  Now  the  Nizam  had  bestowed 
upon  the  French  the  coast  district  known  as  the  Northern  Sarkars,  from 
which  supplies  ought  to  have  been  procurable.  But  Lally  proceeded  to 
summon  Bussy  from  Haidarabad,  and  the  troops  from  the  Sarkars,  in 
order  to  besiege  Madras.  Madras  held  out  under  Stringer  Lawrence,  and 
the  appearance  of  a  British  squadron  sent  the  besiegers  hurrying  back  to 
Pondichery,  to  the  wrath  of  their  commander.  And,  meanwhile,  Forde's 
expedition  from  Calcutta  was  attacking  Masulipatam,  which  fell  in  April 
(1759).  The  Nizam,  no  longer  under  Bussy's  personal  control,  found  the 
British  victory  convincing,  and  granted  the  Sarkars  to  the  British  instead 
of  to  the  French.  The  British  successes  were  crowned  in  the  following 
January,  when   Lally  was  defeated  at  Wandewash  by  Eyre  Coote,  one  of 


EMPIRE  635 

the  officers  who  had  voted  in  the  audacious  minority  in  CHve's  council  of 
war  before  Plassey.  By  October  the  French  were  swept  up  into  Pondi- 
chery,  and  Pondichery  itself  surrendered  in  January  1761.  So  ended  the 
struggle  between  French  and  British  in  India  with  the  complete  loss  of  the 
French  power,  confirmed  by  the  peace  two  years  later  ;  and  so  was  the 
British  East  India  Company  established  as  a  territorial  power  in  Bengal. 


CHAPTER    XXVI 
THE   THIRD    GEORGE 

I 
THE   NEW    RING 


George  III.  was  twenty-two  years  of  age  when  he  succeeded  his  grand- 
father. The  old  king  had  always  been  on  the  worst  of  terms  with  Frederick 
Prince  of  Wales  and  his  wife  ;  their  residence,  Leicester  House,  had  habi- 
tually been  the  headquarters  of 
opposition  to  the  king's  govern- 
ment ;  and  young  George  was 
brought  up  to  hold  his  grand- 
father in  contempt,  and  to  set 
before  himself  very  different 
monarchical  ideals  from  those 
which  George  II.  had,  though 
not  without  reluctance,  learnt 
to  accept.  Young  George's 
mind  was  full  of  ideas  of  the 
"patriot  king"  who  ruled  the 
destinies  of  his  subjects  with  a 
beneficent  hand.  Every  leading 
European  government — every 
government  except  those  of 
Poland,  Holland,  and  Switzer- 
land— was  absolutist,  with  only 
very  slight  modifications  ;  in 
Great  Britain  alone  the  system 
of  constitutionalism  or  limited  monarchy  had  prevailed.  Strafford  and 
Charles  I.  had  paid  with  their  heads,  and  James  II.  had  paid  with  his 
crown,  for  attempting  to  establish  in  England  a  monarchy  on  the  lines 
which  triumphed  on  the  continent.  There  was  no  possibility  of  reviving 
the  Stuart  theory  ;  the  Crown  would  never  again  be  able  to  override 
parliament.  But  parliament  itself  was  not  the  free  expression  of  the 
popular  will  ;  it  was  in  the  hands  of  managers,  the  group  of  great  Whig 
families  who,  so  long  as  they  held  together,  could  control  majorities  and 
dictate  to  the  Crown.  It  was  the  young  king's  design  to  break  up  tiie 
Whig  connection  and  to  form  a  party  of  his  own  which  should  dominate 

636 


George  III.  in  1767. 

[Erom  the  painting  by  Allan  Ramsay  in  the  National 
Portrait  Gallery.] 


THE   THIRD    GEORGE  637 

parliament.  After  a  ten  years'  struggle  his  efforts  were  crowned  with 
success.  He  formed  a  party  which  commanded  a  safe  parliamentary 
majority  and  took  its  orders  from  the  king. 

There  was  another  enemy  to  the  existing  government  by  the  Whig 
connection.  Pitt,  who  refused  to  be  bound  by  party  shackles,  hated  the 
system  as  heartily  as  George.  But  merely  to  substitute  the  ascendency 
in  parliament  of  a  court  party  for  the  ascendency  of  the  Whig  families, 
which  was  practically  the  aim  of  George  IIL,  would  have  been  no 
improvement  in  the  eyes  of  the  great  minister.  The  ultimate  solution 
was  to  be  found  in  a  reform  of  the  representation  which  should  make 
parliament  responsible  neither  to  an  oligarchy  nor  to  the  Crown,  but  to 
a  free  electorate;  but  this  solution  still  lay  in  the  remote  future.  In  the 
meantime  the  king  was  no  more  disposed  to  submit  to  Pitt's  ascendency, 
won  by  the  sheer  force  of  his  personality,  than  to  the  ascendency  of  the 
Whig  connection.  The  success  of  the  Crown  was  to  be  achieved  by  setting 
the  Whigs  at  odds  with  each  other  and  with  Pitt,  and  by  rallying  to  the 
support  of  the  Crown  the  forces  which  had  been  kept  in  abeyance  by  the 
fear  of  Jacobitism,  and  the  sentiment  of  loyalty  to  the  king's  person  which 
had  been  concentrated  upon  the  *'  king  over  the  water  "  during  the  last 
two  reigns.  That  sentiment  could  be  attracted  to  the  new  king,  who  was 
born  and  bred  in  England  under  the  influence  of  English  and  Scottish 
preceptors,  and  could  declare  that  he  "gloried  in  the  name  of  Britain" 
(not  "  Briton,"  as  is  commonly  stated).  George  I.  had  been  an  uncompro- 
mising German  who  could  not  even  converse  in  English  ;  George  II.  was 
thirty  before  he  had  set  foot  in  England;  George  III.  was  the  fellow- 
countryman  of  his  subjects.  Moreover,  now  there  was  scarcely  a  flicker  of 
Jacobitism  to  divert  the  sentiment  of  loyalty  from  a  British  king.  James, 
now  past  seventy,  had  alienated  the  once  ready  devotion  of  his  followers, 
and  the  promise  of  the  youth  of  Charles  Edward  Stuart  had  already  been 
drowned  in  debauchery  and  despair. 


IT 

BUTE 

After  George's  mother  the  most  intimate  personal  influence  over  the 
young  king  was  exercised  by  the  Earl  of  Bute,  a  gentleman  of  some 
accomplishments,  eminently  respectable,  and  without  any  qualifications  for 
statesmanship.  George  intended  to  get  rid  of  Newcastle,  the  manipulator 
of  offices,  and  of  Pitt,  who  could  command  but  would  not  serve.  Bute 
was  to  be  the  minister  who  would  carry  out  his  policy  ;  but  nothing  could  be 
done  while  the  ministry  was  united.  There  were  openings  for  dissension, 
because  Pitt  despised  Newcastle,  and  Newcastle  was  both  afraid  and  jealous 
of  Pitt.     The  "  Great  Commoner  "  had  carried  the  nation  through  a  crisis  to 


638  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

triumph  ;  British  victories  had  become  a  matter  of  course  ;  but  the  war 
expenditure  had  been  enormous,  and  the  rewards  of  the  struggle  already 
secured  appeared  to  be  sufficient.  A  peace  party  was  growing  up  among 
the  ministers. 

At  the  first,  however,  the  new  influences  were  brought  to  bear  not  for 
the  displacement  of  Pitt,  but  to  encourage  and  develop  his  antagonism  to 
the  Whig  control.  Although  the  king  expressed  himself  strongly  as  to  the 
war  and  his  desire  for  peace,  no  attempt  was  made  to  check  the  vigour 
of  the  operations.  In  the  early  summer  a  British  expedition  captured  and 
occupied  Belle  He,  an  island  off  the  French  coast  which  was  of  no 
particular  importance  in  itself,  but  an  extremely  useful  asset  for  purposes 
of  negotiation,  being  actually  French  soil.  British  troops,  led  by  Granby, 
again  achieved  brilliant  distinction  under  Prince  Ferdinand  at  the  battle  of 
Wellinghausen.  In  the  West  Indies  the  island  of  Dominica  was  taken 
from  the  French,  and  from  India  came  the  news  of  the  fall  of  Pondi- 
chery. 

Meanwhile,  however,  negotiations  were  passing  with  France,  though 
with  very  definite  assertions  from  Pitt  that  Great  Britain  would  not  desert 
the  king  of  Prussia.  Moreover,  he  was  extremely  suspicious  of  the  sincerity 
of  the  French  proposals,  believing  with  justice  that  France  was  in  fact 
working  not  for  immediate  peace  but  to  bring  Spain  into  the  field.  On  the 
one  side  Pitt's  demands  stiffened,  while  on  the  other  France  began  to  make 
demands  on  behalf  of  Spain,  and  Spain  on  behalf  of  France ;  and  before 
the  end  of  the  summer  Pitt  had  information  of  the  existence  of  a  new 
Family  Compact,  though  the  details  were  as  yet  unknown.  Newcastle, 
however,  had  already  brought  Bute  into  office  as  a  Secretary  of  State. 
Pitt  came  to  the  conclusion  that  although  there  was  no  real  casus  belli,  war 
must  be  declared  at  once  against  Spain.  He  failed  to  carry  the  rest  of  the 
ministers  with  him  in  that  view,  v/hereupon  in  October  he  and  his  brother 
in-law.  Lord  Temple,  resigned,  since  he  declined  to  retain  office  if  the 
direction  of  affairs  were  taken  out  of  his  hands. 

Spain  had  denied  the  imputation  that  she  was  acting  in  concert  with 
France  ;  she  had  in  fact  been  anxious  to  avoid  a  breach  before  the  arrival 
of  the  annual  Plate  Fleet.  When  the  fleet  came  in  the  mask  was  dropped 
and  the  new  Family  Compact  was  published  ;  Pitt's  attitude  was  justified, 
but  he  was  already  out  of  office.  At  the  beginning  of  1762  Bute,  as  the 
king's  representative,  dominated  the  ministry,  and  a  fcv/  months  later  was 
able  to  force  the  resignation  of  Newcastle,  who  found  his  favourite  business 
of  exercising  patronage  entirely  taken  out  of  his  hands. 

During  the  past  year  it  had  seemed  that  Frederick's  stubborn  resistance 
must  be  gradually  worn  down.  The  Russians  were  in  Pomerania,  and  the 
Austrians  were  slowly  gaining  ground  in  Silesia.  It  was  fortunate  for  him 
that  tliree  months  after  his  best  supporter,  Pitt,  had  lost  the  direction  of 
affairs  in  England,  the  pressure  from  Russia  was  suddenly  withdrawn  by 
the  death  of  Elizabeth  and  the  accession  to  the  Russian  throne  of  a  Tsar 


THE   THIRD    GEORGE  639 

who  idealised  him  as  much  as  the  Tsarina  had  hated  him.  For  Bute  had 
no  perception  of  the  national  obligations  of  honour  to  the  indomitable 
ally  who  had  held  Europe  at  bay  while  Britain  destroyed  her  rival's  power 
in  America  and  in  India. 

But  when  the  Family  Compact  was  published,  even   Bute  could  not 


THE-BOOT^^  mE^LOCK-imAD 


evade  war  with  Spain, 
and  even  Pitt's  retirement 
could  not  check  the  tide 
of  British  victories.  In 
fact  Spain  had  merely  de- 
livered herself  as  a  prey 
to  the  power  whom  the 
Bourbons  called  the 
Tyrantof  theSeas.  Britain 
could  strike  where  she 
would  and  when  she 
would.  The  Bourbons 
tried  to  compel  Portugal 
to  join  them;  Portugal  re- 
fused, and  British  troops 
were  despatched  to  aid 
her  in  successfully  defying 
Spanish  coercion.  A 
British  fleet  was  engaged 
in  appropriating  one  after 
another  the  French  islands 
in  the  West  Indies  ;  one 
expedition  deprived  Spain 
of  Havanna,  and  another 
in  the  East  Indies,  directed 
against  the  Philippine 
Islands,  captured  Manilla. 
Bute  refused  to  renew 
the  subsidies  to  Prussia,  but  Frederick  was  more  than  compensated  by 
the  change  in  the  attitude  of  Russia. 

If  Pitt  had  been  in  power  he  would  have  dictated  what  terms  he  chose 
to  France  and  Spain,  and  Austria  would  have  been  placed  on.  the  defensive. 
But  Bute  was  too  zealous  for  peace  to  dictate  terms,  and  the  Bourbons 
got  from  him  a  bargain  very  much  better  than  was  at  all  pleasing  to  the 
British  nation.  Preliminaries  of  peace,  signed  in  November,  were  ratified 
by  the  Peace  of  Paris  in  February  1763.  Frederick,  deserted  by  his  ally, 
was  still  enabled  by  the  recent  progress  of  his  arms  to  make  for  himself  a 
satisfactory  treaty  at  Hubertsburg,  though  he  never  forgave  what  he  and 
others  regarded  as  the  treachery  of  the  British  Government.  Bute  had 
achieved    the    isolation   of    Great    Britain    by    deliberately  throwing    away 


A  satire  of  1762  on  Bute  and  his  Administration. 

[From  an  etching  by  the  Marquis  Townshend,  who,  in  1767,  became 
Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland,] 


640  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

Prussia's  goodwill.  And  for  Great  Britain  herself,  he  threw  away  practi- 
cally the  whole  of  the  fruits  of  the  last  twelve  months  of  the  war.  Had  his 
course  been  dictated  by  magnanimity,  by  a  belief  that  policy  and  chivalry 
combined  to  forbid  the  victor  making  too  merciless  a  use  of  his  triumph, 
he  would  have  been  justified;  but  the  attempts  of  the  Government  to 
portray  the  Treaty  of  Paris  as  a  diplomatic  triumph  merely  stamped  it  as  a 
diplomatic  defeat.  Great  Britain  could  have  well  afforded  to  be  magnani- 
mous, but  magnanim.ity  played  no  part  in  the  concessions  made  by  Bute's 
Government. 

The  general  principle  of  the  treaty  was  the  retention  or  exchange  of 
conquests  made  during  the  war  ;  but  by  a  somewhat  remarkable  concession 
conquests  which  had  been  made,  but  of  which  no  official  information  had 
arrived  at  the  moment  when  the  treaty  was  signed,  were  surrendered. 
Consequently  the  capture  of  Manilla  went  for  nothing.  France  had  made 
a  single  conquest,  that  of  Minorca  at  the  opening  of  the  war  ;  this  was 
exchanged  for  Belle  He.  Minorca  was  extremely  useful,  while  Belle  He 
was  very  little  use  to  Great  Britain  ;  but  French  amour  proprc  was  so  deeply 
concerned  in  its  recovery  that  the  exchange  could  not  be  regarded  as 
unequal.  Spain,  which  had  intervened  without  provocation  in  the  last 
stage  of  the  quarrel,  escaped  almost  scot-free ;  since  Britain  accepted 
Florida  in  place  of  the  infinitely  more  valuable  Havanna,  and  France 
compensated  Spain  for  this  minor  loss  by  ceding  to  her  Louisiana,  which 
remained  in  her  hands  till  the  end  of  the  century,  when  it  w^as  retroceded 
to  France,  and  was  sold  three  years  afterwards  to  the  United  States  by 
Napoleon.  For  no  very  sufficient  reason,  Guadeloupe  and  Martinique  in 
the  West  Indies  and  Goree  on  the  African  coast  were  given  back  to  France. 
This  completes  the  tale  of  the  mere  surrenders,  for  Bute  himself  could 
hardly  give  back  what  had  actually  been  won  before  Pitt's  retirement,  though 
he  gave  way  on  points  of  detail  where  Pitt  would  undoubtedly  have  held 
firm,  such  as  leaving  to  the  French  the  fishing  rights  off  Newfoundland 
which  they  had  retained  under  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht — ill-defined  rights 
which  were  to  be  a  source '  of  complications  down  to  the  close  of  the 
nineteenth  century. 

But  the  acquisitions  confirmed  by  the  treaty  were  sufficient.  All  the 
French  claims  on  the  American  continent  were  withdrawn  ;  there  was  no 
check  on  the  British  expansion  westward  to  the  Pacific.  The  whole  of 
Canada  was  ceded,  and  the  French  population,  otherwise  practically  un- 
disturbed, passed  under  the  sovereignty  of  Great  Britain  instead  of  the 
sovereignty  of  France.  In  India  the  French  factories  were  restored,  but 
as  factories  and  nothing  more.  No  French  troops  were  to  be  admitted 
beyond  the  very  small  number  required  for  what  were  in  effect  police 
purposes,  nor  were  the  French  to  be  permitted  to  enter  into  relations  with 
the  native  courts.  Political  power  in  the  peninsula,  so  far  as  the  European 
states  were  concerned,  was  entirely  restricted  to  the  British,  In  the  East 
and  in   the  West  a   British  Empire  was  established  at  the  Peace  of  Paris, 


THE   THIRD    GEORGE  641 

not  side  by  side  with  a  French  Empire,  but  to  the  total  exckision  of  all 
European  rivals. 

By  the  simultaneous  Peace  of  Hubertsburg,  Britain's  deserted  ally, 
Frederick,  secured  to  Prussia  all  that  she  had  held  before  his  invasion  of 
Saxony  in  i  756. 


Ill 

GEORGE   GRENVILLE 

The  Peace  of  Paris  was  very  unpopular,  and  Bute's  personal  unpopu- 
larity was  still  greater,  partly  because  he  was  a  Scot,  partly  because  he  was 
looked  upon  as  a  ''  favourite,"  partly  because  he  had  ousted  Pitt,  and  partly 
because  his  statesmanship  was  regarded  as  pusillanimous.  A  couple  of 
months  after  the  Peace  of  Paris  he  resigned,  although  for  some  time  to 
come  the  public  at  large  continued  to  believe  that  he  was  the  real  director 
of  the  government.  The  king  had  got  rid  of  Pitt  and  of  Newcastle,  but 
he  had  not  got  rid  of  the  domination  of  that  strong  section  of  the  Whigs, 
which  disliked  equally  the  personal  ascendency  of  Pitt  and  Newcastle's 
monopoly  of  patronage.  George  found  himself  compelled  to  submit  to 
the  tyranny  of  this  group,  headed  by  George  Grenville  and  the  Duke  of 
Bedford,  because  the  only  alternative  was  to  recall  Pitt  himself,  and  Pitt 
would  only  return  upon  impossible  terms.  Moreover,  except  in  the  desire 
to  break  up  the  Whig  connection,  the  king's  political  views  were  diametri- 
cally opposed  to  those  of  the  fallen  minister,  and  were  in  agreement  with 
those  of  the  Bedford  group  ;  the  trouble  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  chiefs  of 
the  Whig  group  made  themselves  personally  intensely  obnoxious  to  the 
king.  For  two  years  he  had  to  bear  the  yoke,  though  he  was  restive 
enough  under  it  ;  and  at  the  end  of  two  years  he  could  only  free  himself 
by  calling  to  office,  without  Pitt  himself,  a  group  of  Whigs  whose  most 
earnest  wish  was  to  serve  under  Pitt,  and  who  sought  to  carry  out  a  policy 
to  which  the  king  himself  was  intensely  antagonistic. 

George  Grenville,  who  became  the  real  head  of  the  administration  on 
Bute's  retirement,  was  a  capable  official,  but  at  the  same  time  an  incarna- 
tion of  official  pedantry,  to  whom  the  letter  was  everything  and  the  spirit 
nothing.  His  absorption  in  details  entirely  prevented  him  from  taking 
comprehensive  views,  or  from  realising  the  existence  of  forces  which  could 
not  be  tabulated  in  Blue  Books.  He  was  wholly  devoid  of  that  tact  which 
is  born  of  a  sympathetic  understanding  of  divergent  points  of  view,  and  he 
lacked  also  that  sense  of  perspective  which  distinguishes  between  the  im- 
portance of  what  is  trivial  and  the  importance  of  what  is  fundamental. 
Consequently  during  his  administration  the  trivial  blazed  into  prominence, 
and  the  fundamental  was  overlooked,  with  disastrous  results.  An  un- 
scrupulous adventurer   was   enabled  to  pose  as  the  martyr  of  Liberty  in 

2  s 


642  THE   BRITISH   EMPIRE 

order  to  salve  the  susceptibilities  of  the  Government  and  the  House  of 
Commons,  while  the  vital  question  of  the  relations  between  the  mother 
country  and  the  colonies  was  dealt  with  offhand  as  a  mere  byway  of 
official  routine. 

John  Wilkes  was  a  clever  scamp,  with  the  loosest  of  morals  and  a  passion 
for  notoriety,  which  was  not  satisfied  by  a  wide  reputation  for  reckless  and 
indecent  dissipation.  Wilkes  had  started  a  paper  called  the  North  Briton^ 
chiefly  devoted  to  abuse  of  Bute,  the  Scots,  and  the  Government.  The  king's 
speech  at  the  opening  of  parliament  claimed  applause  for  the  Peace  of 
Paris,  and,  with  a  singular  audacity,  for  the  satisfactory  terms  obtained 
by  Frederick.  Wilkes  in  "  Number  45  "  of  his  paper  very  justly  stigmatised 
this  profession  as  a  lie  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  king  by  his  ministers. 
George  and  the  ministers  were  alike  furious.  A  general  warrant  was  issued 
for  the  arrest  of  the  author  printers  and  publishers  of  the  paper,  without 
mentioning  the  names  of  the  parties.  Wilkes  was  arrested,  and  his  papers 
vv^ere  searched  without  the  formality  of  obtaining  formal  proof  of  the  author- 
ship, and  he  himself  was  rigorously  confined  and  forbidden  the  use  of  pen 
and  ink. 

But  when  the  matter  came  before  Chief  Justice  Pratt,  he  ordered  the 
release  of  Wilkes  on  the  ground  that  members  of  parliament  were  immune 
from  arrest,  except  for  treason,  felony,  or  breach  of  the  peace,  categories 
under  which  Wilkes's  offence  could  by  no  means  be  brought.  Moreover, 
the  Chief  Justice  pronounced  that  general  warrants  were  illegal.  The 
ministers,  not  content  to  let  ill  alone,  went  on  to  demand  in  the  House  of 
Commons  that  Number  45  should  be  burnt  by  the  public  hangman  as  a 
"false  scurrilous  and  seditious  libel"  ;  and  the  House  of  Lords  carried  an 
address  praying  that  Wilkes  should  be  prosecuted  as  the  author  of  a  certain 
obscene  work  entitled  an  Essay  on  Woynan,  which  was  produced  by  one  of 
his  old  partners  in  debauchery  and  iniquity.  Lord  Sandwich,  although 
the  thing  had  never  been  published  at  all.  Meanwhile  Wilkes  had  betaken 
himself  to  France  to  escape  the  consequences  of  a  duel  ;  in  his  absence  he 
was  outlawed  and  the  House  of  Commons  expelled  him.  At  the  same 
time  the  courts  awarded  him  heavy  damages  for  false  imprisonment,  and 
riots  attested  his  popularity  with  the  mob.  The  whole  of  the  proceedings 
gave  Wilkes  an  entirely  fictitious  importance,  and  at  the  same  time  brought 
into  prominence  the  arrogant  claims  of  the  House  of  Commons,  or  of  a 
temporary  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons,  to  assert  its  own  authority 
as  overriding  that  of  the  common  law.  The  privileges  of  the  Commons, 
the  rights  of  the  electorate,  and  the  right  of  free  criticism  outside  the  House 
of  Commons,  were  again  a  few  years  later  to  provide  a  battlefield  between 
the  champion  of  liberty  and  the  champions  of  privilege.  For  the  moment 
the  victory  rested  with  the  Commons,  because  it  was  not  safe  for  the  outlaw 
to  reappear  in  England  ;  but  it  was  at  the  cost  of  their  dignity  and  credit, 
and  at  the  second  encounter  five  years  later  they  were  very  thoroughly 
worsted. 


THE   THIRD    GEORGE  643 

But  even  from  :i  ministerial  point  of  view  the  Wilkes  affair  was  no  more 
than  an  accident,  though  it  was  one  to  which  their  own  conduct  had  given 
a  preposterous  importance  in  the  eyes  of  the  public.  George  Grenville's  real 
business  was  retrenchment  after  the  portentous  expenditure  on  the  war. 
The  National  Debt  had  swelled  to  alarming  proportions,  and  it  appeared  to 
Grenville  first  that  there  must  be  an  end  of  the  long  prevalent  laxity  in 
applying  the  revenue  laws,  and,  secondly,  that  the  American  colonies  in 
whose  interests  primarily  Great  Britain  had  entered  upon  the  war,  ought  to 
make  a  substantial  contribution  to  the  expenses;  propositions  which  were  in 
themselves  manifestly  just.  Therefore  he  proceeded  to  assert  the  technical 
rights  of  the  mother  country.  Past  governments  had  deliberately  shut 
their  eyes  to  the  immense  illicit  traffic  carried  on  by  the  Americans,  their 
persistent  disregard  of  the  navigation  laws,  and  their  evasion  of  the  customs 
duties.  Instructions  were  issued  that  the  smuggling  was  to  be  stopped,  and 
ships  of  the  Royal  Navy  were  employed  in  the  preventive  service.  The 
colonies  were  invited  to  consider  and  suggest  proposals  for  laying  them 
under  contribution,  but  unfortunately  Grenville  had  already  made  up  his 
own  mind  that  the  contributions  were  to  be  obtained  through  the  imposition 
of  taxes  by  the  British  parliament — a  scheme  which  took  definite  shape  in 
the  famous  Stamp  Act  of  1765. 

Now  the  colonists  occupied  the  colonies  under  specific  charters  which 
reserved  controlling  powers  to  the  Crown,  The  reservation  of  powers 
was  admittedly  a  technical  necessity  ;  emergencies  might  arise  when  their 
exercise  would  be  imperative.  On  the  other  hand,  it  could  plausibly  be 
maintained  that  they  were  intended  to  be  used  only  on  emergency  ;  that 
apart  from  emergencies  the  colonies  were  entitled  to  regard  themselves 
and  to  be  regarded  as  autonomous  states.  In  one  respect  at  least  that  claim 
had  never  been  admitted  in  England  ;  it  had  at  all  times  been  assumed 
that  the  mother  country  was  entitled  to  impose  trade  regulations  on  the 
colonists  for  her  own  protection,  though  the  colonists  might  suffer.  Also 
from  time  to  time  the  Crown  had  interfered  with  the  governments  of 
particular  colonies;  but  its  doing  so  had  alw^ays  been  resented,  though  the 
colonists  had  found  themselves  obliged  to  submit. 

In  fact  the  consciousness  had  hitherto  been  ever  present  with  them, 
that  they  depended  on  the  mother  country  for  security  against  their  French 
rivals.  Detached  from  each  other  and  without  any  central  government, 
they  might  still  have  held  their  own  against  the  French  colonists  in  actual 
occupation  of  Canada  and  Louisiana  ;  but  if  France  herself  took  up  the 
cause,  they  would  be  overwhelmed  unless  they  could  rely  on  British  fleets 
and  British  regiments  to  support  them.  Therefore  although  they  had 
grumbled,  and  on  occasion  had  gone  beyond  grumbling,  they  had  still  on 
the  whole  accepted  the  control  exercised  from  the  old  country  as  something 
which  must  be  endured. 

But  the  situation  had  been  fundamentally  changed  by  the  war.  The 
militia  of  the  several  colonies  felt  themselves  able  to  cope  with  the   Red 


644  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

Indians,  and  now  they  had  nothing  to  fear  from  France.  It  ceased  to  be 
tacitly  assumed  that  the  protection  of  the  mother  country  was  a  necessity 
which  was  worth  purchasing  at  the  price  of  a  subjection  which  only  made 
itself  felt  intermittently.      It  was,  in  fact,  certain  that  the  colonists  would 


very  soon  demand  a  relaxation  even  of  the  technical  authority  asserted  by 
the  home  government,  laid  down  by  the  charters,  and  confirmed  by 
practice  throughout  the  century  and  a  half  which  covered  the  lifetime  of 
every  colony  except  Virginia. 

Now  although  there  were  already  revolutionaiy  spirits  who  would  have 


THE   THIRD    GEORGE  645 

been  by  no  means  reluctant  to  demand  complete  independence,  the  great 
bulk  of  the  Americans  would  have  indignantly  repudiated  the  idea  of  sepa- 
ration. They  were  in  fact  aware  that  they  were  very  much  indebted  to 
the  mother  country  for  deliverance  from  the  French  menace,  and  in  the 
abstract  they  were  even  quite  willing  to  admit  a  moral  obligation  to  repay 
a  little  of  what  Great  Britain  had  spent  primarily  on  their  behalf.  But 
there  was  no  technical  obligation  to  do  so,  and  it  was  not  difficult  to  main- 
tain that  the  mother  country  was  after  all  fairly  compensated  by  the  benefits 
that  would  accrue  to  it  from  the  acquisition  of  Canada.  A  minister  at 
Westminster  with  any  real  grasp  of  the  situation  would  have  used  the 
occasion  to  encourage  the  sentiment  of  loyalty  to  the  Empire  by  every 
means  in  his  power,  while  appealing  to  colonial  patriotism  and  gratitude  to 
lighten  the  financial  burden  which  the  recent  war  had  entailed  upon  Great 
Britain.  Unhappily,  Grenville  could  think  of  nothing  but  the  relief  of  that 
burden.  He  did  not  believe  that  appeals  to  patriotism  and  loyalty  would 
meet  with  an  adequate  response  in  hard  cash.  The  states  might  feel  con- 
scious of  their  obligations  as  a  body,  but  individually  each  would  discover 
very  good  reasons  why  its  neighbours  were  in  duty  bound  to  pay  a  much 
larger  proportion  than  itself  ;  and  there  was  no  common  authority  to  lay 
down  a  general  principle  of  contribution  or  to  assess  the  respective  shares 
of  the  different  states.  Grenville  then  having  rejected  the  idea  of  a  volun- 
tary thank-offering,  and  having  no  idea  of  conciliating  popular  feeling, 
there  remained  to  him  the  technical  power  of  imposing  and  enforcing 
taxation  for  the  purposes  of  revenue.  In  order  to  provide  revenue  the 
existing  customs  were  enforced,  and  the  new  Stamp  Act  was  passed,  almost 
unnoticed  in  England. 

In  effect  the  minister  at  one  breath  informed  the  colonists  that  he  had 
no  confidence  in  their  loyalty  or  gratitude,  laid  on  them  a  new  burden, 
which,  while  trifling  in  itself,  was  galling  in  the  method  of  its  application, 
and  emphasised  precisely  what  was  most  irritating  to  the  colonists  in  the 
relations  between  them  and  the  mother  country.  In  dealing  with  the 
colonies  the  British  parliament  claimed  to  override  what  for  England  the 
English  parliament  had  asserted  to  be  the  elementary  right  of  English 
citizenship  in  that  last  palladium  of  English  liberties,  the  Bill  of  Rights. 
No  one  should  be  taxed  save  by  consent  of  a  representative  parliament, 
and  the  parliament  at  Westminster  was  in  no  conceivable  sense  represen- 
tative of  the  colonies.  There  was  an  immediate  outcry  that  such  taxation 
was  a  monstrous  and  unprecedented  innovation,  in  defiance  of  the  base 
principles  of  English  citizenship. 

Perhaps  we  are  apt  at  first  sight  to  wonder  why  the  new  tax  was  treated 
as  a  monstrous  innovation.  The  colonies  were  accustomed  to  duties  paid 
at  the  ports  imposed  by  the  home  government  ;  why  should  they  have 
resented  the  imposition  of  the  Stamp  Tax,  which  required  a  stamp  to  be 
purchased  and  affixed  to  give  validity  to  legal  documents  ?  The  explanation 
is  that  a  "tax  "  in  the  technical  sense  was  taken  to  mean  an  impost  levied 


646  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

for  the  purpose  of  raising  revenue.  The  customs  at  the  ports  were, 
theoretically  at  least,  levied  not  with  the  intention  of  raising  a  revenue,  but 
in  order  to  control  trade  and  develop  trade  in  the  national  interest.  Thus, 
for  instance,  French  wines  were  heavily  taxed  in  British  ports  not  because 
the  toll  upon  them  brought  money  into  the  treasury,  but  in  order  to  check 
the  purchase  of  French  wines.  Portuguese  wines  were  lightly  taxed,  not 
because  a  larger  revenue  came  in  from  lightly  taxed  goods  than  from  heavily 
taxed  goods,  but  in  order  to  encourage  the  Portuguese  trade.  The 
Americans  had  been  subjected  to  the  payment  of  customs  duties  on  the 
same  principles.  In  the  same  way  in  the  Plantagenet  times  the  "  ancient 
customs "  for  the  regulation  of  trade  were  levied  by  the  king  by  royal 
prerogative  ;  parliament  resisted  any  extension  of  the  tolls  by  royal  pre- 
rogative precisely  because  extension  was  attempted  in  order  to  provide 
revenue.  The  continued  regulation  of  colonial  trade  by  the  king  in  parlia- 
ment at  Westminster  was  no  breach  of  the  established  principles,  for  the 
king  had  merely  handed  over  to  parliament  certain  particular  functions, 
theoretically  as  a  matter  of  administrative  convenience.  Trade  regulation 
was  a  burden  which  the  colonies  would  not  have  borne  much  longer  in 
any  case ;  but  a  new  and  suspicious  aspect  was  given  to  the  existing  system 
when  the  revenue  laws  began  to  be  rigorously  enforced  avowedly  for  the 
purpose  of  increasing  the  revenue  ;  and  a  definite  innovation  declared  itself 
when  an  unmistakable  tax  was  imposed,  an  internal  tax  for  which  there 
was  no  precedent,  a  tax  which  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  regula- 
tion of  trade,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  raising  revenue.  Here  at  last  was 
actual  taxation  without  representation.  Even  if  the  right  did  legally  exist, 
even  if  it  was  a  right  of  which  the  home  government  could  not  with 
safety  technically  deprive  itself,  its  actual  exercise  was  without  precedent, 
and  provided  the  colonists  with  precisely  that  technical  ground  of  complaint 
which  had  before  been  lacking.  The  colonists  were  presented  with  a 
constitutional  formula,  "  No  taxation  without  representation,"  a  formula  to 
which  it  was  difficult  for  Whigs,  who  professed  to  be  the  guardians  of  the 
principles  of  the  Revolution  of  1688,  to  close  their  ears. 

Ministers  were  wholly  unconscious  of  the  importance  of  the  issue  which 
they  had  raised.  The  amount  of  the  tax  was  not  great,  and  it  was  taken 
for  granted  that  opposition  would  be  merely  superficial.  There  was  no 
practical  possibility  of  giving  colonists  direct  representation  in  the  parlia- 
ment at  Westminster  ;  no  adequate  response  could  be  anticipated  to  an 
appeal  for  a  voluntary  contribution  ;  and  they  had  followed  the  merely 
obvious  course  in  exercising  a  right  which,  as  an  actual  matter  of  law,  they 
did  possess.  The  colonists  would  soon  find  that  the  burden  imposed  was 
too  slight  to  be  ;i  real  grievance.  The  colonists  took  a  different  view. 
One  after  another  their  assemblies  passed  resolutions  denying  the  power 
of  taxation.  At  the  instance  of  Massachusetts  the  various  assemblies  sent 
delegates  to  a  general  congress  at  New  York,  where  the  unanimity  of 
colonial  feeling  found  expression.     Associations  were  formed  for  the  boy- 


I 


THE   THIRD    GEORGE  647 

cotting  of  imported  goods  until  the  Stamp  Act  should  be  repealed.  Riots 
took  place  in  Boston  and  elsewhere  ;  the  officials  nominated  for  the 
administration  of  the  Stamp  Act  refused  the  appointments  or  were  threatened 
into  resigning  ;  when  the  stamps  themselves  arrived  it  was  obvious  that 
they  would  never  be  distributed  ;  for  the  most  part  they  were  seized  and 
destroyed.  In  England  the  mercantile  community  at  once  suffered  from 
the  pressure  of  the  boycott,  and  was  strongly  in  favour  of  the  repeal  of 
the  Act. 

Meanwhile,  other  events  brought  the  antagonism  of  the  king  and  the 
ministry  to  a  head,  for  on  the  colonial  question  itself  King  George  was 
practically  at  one  with  Grenville.  George  developed  symptoms  of  the  brain 
trouble  which  so  completely  darkened  the  last  years  of  his  life.  It  became 
necessary  to  provide  for  a  regency  in  case  the  king  should  be  incapacitated. 
Ministers  were  bent  on  excluding  George's  mother,  the  Dowager  Princess 
of  Wales,  believing  that  if  she  became  regent  Bute  would  recover  his 
ascendency.  They  persuaded  the  king  to  approve  the  omission  of  her 
name  from  the  list  of  eligible  persons  by  declaring  that  the  House  of 
Commons  would  certainly  demand  it,  and  a  very  awkward  situation  would 
be  created.  The  king  assented  with  reluctance;  the  Regency  Bill  was 
brought  in — and  the  House  of  Commons  proceeded  to  add  the  Princess 
of  Wales  to  the  list  of  possible  regents.  The  king,  who  recovered  his 
health  for  a  time,  was  furious  with  the  ministers,  and  determined  to 
dispense  with  their  services  at  any  price.  Twice  he  sent  for  Pitt  and 
entreated  him  to  form  a  government ;  twice  Pitt  refused,  because  his 
brother-in-law.  Lord  Temple,  insisted  upon  impossible  terms,  and  he 
would  not  separate  himself  from  Temple.  George  had  no  alternative  but 
an  appeal  to  the  Whigs  who  associated  themselves  with  Pitt's  principles, 
and  a  ministry  was  constructed  in  July  (1765)  by  the  Marquis  of 
Rockingham. 


IV 

THE   ROCKINGHAMS    AND   THE    EARL   OF   CHATHAM 

The  old  Whig  connection  which  for  a  time  had  worked  successfully  in 
the  days  of  the  coalition  between  Pitt  and  Newcastle  had  been  broken  up. 
Even  in  those  days,  when  its  ranks  included  several  men  of  marked  ability 
and  experience  in  affairs,  it  had  not  been  productive  of  leaders.  The 
Rockingham  group  represented  the  survival  of  that  Whig  tradition,  but  the 
individuals  who  formed  it  were  for  the  most  part  comparatively  young 
men  of  talent  which  could  at  the  best  be  called  respectable,  and  they 
were  wanting  in  experience.  More  conspicuously  than  ever  the  Govern- 
ment rested  upon  family  connection  ;  it  carried  little  weight,  and  was 
regarded  with  little  confidence.      It  was  a  makeshift  Government,  brought 


648  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

into  being  and  preserved  by  the  reluctant  support  of  the  king  and  the 
court  party  which  the  king  had  created,  a  support  which  was  certain  to  be 
withdrawn  as  soon  as  the  downfall  of  the  ministry  should  be  compatible 
with  some  alternative  to  the  return  of  Grenville  and  Bedford.  Pitt, 
although  it  was  his  own  fault  that  he  was  not  at  the  head  of  the  govern- 
ment, chose  somewhat  ostentatiously  to  express  mistrust  of  the  men  who 
for  the  most  part  would  have  been  only  too  willing  to  submit  themselves 

to  his  direct  guidance. 

The  ministers  did  not 
formulate  a  definite  pro- 
gramme ;  it  was  not  till 
the  end  of  the  year  that 
they  decided  to  reverse 
Grenville's  American 
policy.  In  this  decision 
they  were  guided  mainly 
by  the  opinions  of  Pitt 
himself,  who  laid  it  down 
that  the  British  parlia- 
ment had  no  right  to 
impose  taxes,  though  it 
had  the  power  of  legis- 
lation for  the  colonies. 
Parliament  did  not  meet 
till  January  1766,  when 
for  the  first  time  a  new 
and  notable  figure  ap- 
peared among  its  mem- 
bers —  Rockingham's 
secretary,  Edmund  Burke. 
With  the  support  of  Pitt, 
the  Government  brought 
in  and  carried  by  substantial  majorities  a  bill  for  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp 
Act  ;  and,  in  spite,  of  his  opposition,  an  accompanying  Declaratory  Act 
affirming  the  legal  authority  of  parliament  to  impose  taxation.  The  latter, 
in  fact,  was  passed  merely  in  order  to  save  the  self-respect  of  parliament  ; 
it  was  a  purely  formal  declaration,  intended  to  be  in  practice  a  dead  letter. 
During  their  brief  tenure  of  power  the  ministry  applied  to  America  Walpole's 
principle  of  reducing  tariffs,  of  which  the  Americans  certainly  could  not 
complain,  while  its  wisdom  was  demonstrated  by  the  increased  revenue 
which  accrued.  Smuggling  in  order  to  evade  the  reduced  duties  was  not 
worth  while ;  the  lowered  price  following  the  lower  duties  extended  the 
demand,  and  there  was  a  very  substantial  increase  in  the  quantity  of  goods 
on  which  duty  was  paid. 

But  there  was    no  confidence  between   the  Crown   and   the   ministers. 


William  Pill,  Earl  uf  Chatham. 
[I'rom  tlie  painting  by  R.  Brompton.  ] 


THE   THIRD    GEORGE  649 

King  George  in  the  course  of  a  single  week  had  authorised  first  Rockingham 
to  say  that  he  was  in  favour  of  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  and  then  a 
member  of  the  court  party,  now  known  as  the  "  king's  friends,"  to  say  that  he 
was  opposed  to  it.  He  explained  the  matter  to  Rockingham  by  saying  that 
while  he  was  in  favour  of  repeal  as  opposed  to  the  simple  retention  of  the 
Act,  what  he  desired  was  not  its  repeal  but  its  modification.  But  the  incident 
was  a  most  unmistakable  sign  that  he  had  no  intention  of  giving  the 
ministry  his  countenance  longer  than  he  could  help. 

.  It  became  known  that  Pitt  was  ready  to  resume  office  on  his  own 
terms,  and  no  longer  on  terms  dictated  by  Temple.  But  Rockingham,  on 
approaching  him,  found  that  his  terms  meant  a  dictatorship,  and  a  recon- 
struction of  the  ministry  to  which  Rockingham  could  not  with  honour  make 
himself  a  party.  Pitt  would  not  recognise  the  Whig  connection  ;  he 
would  not  work  in  conjunction  with  Newcastle,  who  was  no  longer  a  power, 
or  with  some  other  members  of  the  ministry,  and  he  would  bring  in  other 
men  who  could  not  assimilate  with  the  Rockingham  group.  Some  of  the 
warmer  personal  adherents  of  Pitt  resigned,  the  administration  came  to  an 
end,  and  once  more  Pitt  returned  to  the  helm. 

Pitt's  desire  was  to  rule  without  party,  to  ignore  party  ties  altogether  ; 
and  he  collected  round  him  a  singularly  heterogeneous  group  of  ministers 
gathered  from  every  quarter — members  of  Rockingham's  ministry,  personal 
adherents  of  his  own,  king's  friends,  and  others.  What  he  might  have 
done  with  such  a  body  in  the  plenitude  of  his  powers  we  cannot  say. 
Assuredly  he  had  large  designs.  The  American  question  appeared  to  have 
been  cleared  out  of  the  way.  He  would  certainly  have  sought  to  re- 
invigorate  the  public  services,  which  had  achieved  such  a  splendid  efficiency 
under  his  previous  regime,  but  had  drifted  rapidly  towards  decay  under  the 
Grenville  policy  of  extreme  retrenchment.  He  was  certainly  meditating 
the  transfer  to  the  Crown  of  the  territorial  sovereignty  which  the  East 
India  Company  had  acquired  in  India.  But  within  a  few  months  of  his 
assumption  of  office  the  direction  passed  out  of  his  hands.  His  popularity 
in  the  country  and  his  personal  effectiveness  in  parliament  suffered 
grievously  when  the  "Great  Commoner,"  as  he  had  hitherto  been  called, 
accepted  a  peerage,  and  was  transferred  from  the  representative  chamber  to 
the  House  of  Lords  with  the  title  of  Earl  of  Chatham.  But  more  serious 
still  was  the  breakdown  of  his  physical  and  intellectual  powers,  brought  on 
by  the  gout  of  which  he  was  an  unhappy  victim.  His  sufferings  exaggerated 
his  natural  arrogance  and  irritability  until  he  became  almost  intolerable  as 
a  colleague,  and  then  incapacitated  him  altogether  for  taking  any  part 
in  public  business.  After  the  first  month  of  1767  the  ministry,  of  which 
Lord  Grafton  was  the  figurehead,  ceased  to  be  in  any  sense  Chatham's 
ministry.  The  things  that  Chatham  would  have  done  were  left  undone ; 
the  things  that  were  done  were  precisely  the  things  that  Chatham  would  have 
condemned, 


650  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 


TOWNSHEND'S   TAXES   AND    JOHN   WILKES 

Chatham  in  1766  had  no  time  to  do  more  than  take  the  first  steps 
towards  carrying  out  the  foreign  poHcy  which  he  desired.  The  Family 
Compact  had  been  a  warning  that  neither  France  nor  the  new  government 
in  Spain  had  forgotten  the  old  scheme  for  advancing  the  Bourbons,  and 
the  Peace  of  Paris  had  dealt  with  these  powers  tenderly  enough  to  make 
the  revival  of  those  schemes  a  possibility.  Chatham  designed  a  general 
alliance  of  the  Northern  Powers,  which  would  have  very  thoroughly 
bridled  Bourbon  ambitions.  Frederick,  however,  was  not  greatly  troubled 
by  Bourbon  ambitions ;  he  was  now  intent  rather  upon  the  dismemberment 
for  his  own  advantage  of  the  kingdom  of  Poland.  Also,  while  he  had  the 
highest  admiration  for  Chatham,  he  had  no  sort  of  security  that  that  states- 
man would  remain  in  power  in  England,  and  he  was  not  at  all  disposed  to 
risk  a  repetition  of  the  treatment  he  had  experienced  in  1762.  It  is  likely 
therefore  that  Chatham  would  in  any  case  have  failed  in  achieving  his 
Northern  Alliance. 

But  failure  in  this  direction  would  not  have  induced  him,  as  it  induced 
the  Grafton  ministry,  to  forget  that  British  interests  might  be  affected  by 
affairs  in  Europe.  British  interests  perhaps  did  not  suffer  in  consequence, 
at  least  directly.  But  the  isolation  of  Great  Britain,  for  which  Bute  had 
been  primarily  responsible,  was  intensified,  and  one  curious  result  of  her 
indifference  to  European  affairs  is  to  be  noted.  The  island  of  Corsica  was 
subject  to  the  republic  of  Genoa;  but  the  subjection  was  very  much  against 
the  will  of  the  Corsicans.  Corsican  patriots,  led  by  Paoli,  resisted  the 
Genoese  government  and  defied  all  efforts  to  suppress  them.  The  insur- 
gents offered  the  sovereignty  to  Great  Britain.  Great  Britain  declined  it  ; 
Genoa  ceded  the  sovereignty  to  France,  and  Napoleon  Buonaparte  was  born 
a  few  months  afterwards  a  French  instead  of  a  British  subject. 

Chatham  was  no  sooner  incapacitated  than  his  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  Charles  Townshend,  took  the  leading  place  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  and,  with  a  light  heart,  conducted  it  along  a  path  which  it  was  quite 
willing  to  tread,  but  upon  which  Chatham  would  never  have  allowed  it  to  set 
foot.  In  America  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  had  allayed  the  public  excite- 
ment, but  had  scarcely  produced  the  effect  hoped  for.  The  colonials  in 
fact  conceived  not  that  the  British  Government  had  made  a  magnanimous 
concession  for  which  they  ought  to  be  grateful,  but  that  it  had  been  forced 
to  give  way.  Their  tone  irritated  English  sentiment,  which  before  had 
been  rather  favourably  disposed  towards  them.  Townshend  at  once 
proposed,  as  a  practical  corollary  to  the  Declaratory  Act  of  the  Rocking- 
ham ministry,    to   impose   new   taxes — taxes  upon  imports,  and  therefore 


THE   THIRD    GEORGE  651 

not  without  ample  precedent,  but  taxes  for  revenue,  and  therefore  entirely 
obnoxious. 

The  taxes  themselves  were  trivial  ;  the  revenue  expected  to  be  derived 
from  them  was  only  some  forty  thousand  pounds.  Glass,  red  and  white 
lead,  painters'  colours,  paper  and  tea  were  the  imports  upon  which  the  new 
duties  were  laid.  Of  the  whole  group  none  was  of  the  slightest  importance 
except  the  last,  and  the  tea  tax  was  actually  so  arranged  as  to  reduce  the 
cost  of  the  tea  to  the  American  consumers.  In  the  ordinary  course  tea 
could  only  be  carried  to  America  after  paying  duty  at  a  port  in  Great  Britain. 
The  duty  now  imposed  at  the  American  ports  was  not  added  to  the  duty  at 
the  British  ports,  but  was  a  lower  duty  substituted  for  the  latter.     Financially 


"  A  View  of  the  Town  of  Boston  in  New  England,  and  British  Ships  of  War  landing  their  troops." 
[From  a  print  engraved  and  published  by  Paul  Revere  at  Boston  in  1768.] 

the  thing  was  a  boon  rather  than  a  grievance.  But  a  principle  was  at 
stake,  not  pounds  shillings  and  pence.  All  the  mollifying  effects  of  the 
repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  were  swept  away,  all  the  latent  irritation  broke 
out  with  renewed  vehemence.  In  plain  terms,  the  public  at  large  and 
nearly  all  the  leaders  both  in  Great  Britain  and  in  America  lost  their 
tempers,  and  therewith  the  capacity  for  appreciating  what  was  leasonable  in 
the  attitude  of  the  other  side. 

When  once  mutual  distrust  has  been  generated  the  smallest  points  of 
friction  become  exaggerated,  and  the  utmost  tact  and  skill  are  always 
needed  to  bring  about  a  satisfactory  adjustment.  But  the  difficulties  are 
indefinitely  increased  when  the  parties  are  remote  from  each  other  and 
communication  is  slow.  Knowledge  of  the  mother  country  in  the  colonies 
was  limited ;  knowledge  of  the  colonies  in  the  mother  country  was  infini- 


652  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

tesimal.  Despatches  from  colonial  agents  in  London  and  from  government 
officials  in  the  colonies  took  a  very  long  time  in  passing  ;  between  the 
forwarding  of  a  document  and  the  receipt  of  a  reply  there  was  time  for  the 
whole  situation  to  become  completely  changed.  It  is  difficult  enough  even 
at  the  present  day,  when  a  trip  to  the  remotest  parts  of  the  Empire  pro- 
vides a  holiday  amusement  for  persons  of  leisure,  when  the  speech  of  a 
statesman  in  London  may  be  printed  and  discussed  in  Melbourne  and 
Montreal  twenty-four  hours  after  its  delivery,  for  the  British  public  to  gauge 
accurately  the  views  of  Canadians  and  Australians,  and  vice  versa.  A  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago  it  was  infinitely  more  difficult  for  Westminster  to  be 
really  in  touch  with  Massachusetts  and  Virginia.  The  quarrel  between 
Great  Britain  and  the  colonies  may  have  been  actually  incapable  of  adjust- 
ment ;  but  conditions  of  the  time,  w'hich  we  of  necessity  have  the  utmost 
difficulty  in  realising,  made  the  chances  of  adjustment  infinitely  less. 

In  America,  then,  the  associations  for  exclusive  dealing  at  once  revived 
the  activities  which  they  had  suspended  when  the  Stamp  Act  was  repealed. 
Illicit  traffic  and  the  evasion  of  customs  became  laudable  aims  for  respect- 
able, law-abiding  citizens,  while  the  officers  of  the  law  became  the  minions  of 
tyranny.  And  at  the  same  time  in  the  eyes  of  the  British  public  in  general 
the  Americans  appeared  to  be  revolutionary  anarchists,  with  whom  it  was 
hardly  possible  for  the  law-loving  Briton  to  sympathise,  and  for  whom  it 
was  not  easy  even  to  make  allowances.  There  was,  indeed,  a  strong  body 
of  enlightened  opinion  which  appreciated  the  reality  of  the  American 
grievance,  and  perhaps  weakened  its  own  case  with  the  public  by  the 
vigour  of  its  expressions  of  sympathy  ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
great  mass  of  public  opinion  in  Great  Britain  was  entirely  on  the  side  of 
ministers. 

The  arch  mischief-maker,  Charles  Townshend,  died  three  months  after 
he  had  fired  the  train.  His  place  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  was 
taken  by  the  Tory  Lord  North,  with  whom  allegiance  to  the  king  was  a 
first  principle.  The  ministers  who  were  most  inclined  to  maintain  Chatham's 
views  carried  the  least  weight  in  a  ministry  to  which  were  now  admitted 
some  members  of  the  old  Bedford  connection,  who  showed  themselves  en- 
tirely ready  to  bow  to  the  king's  direction,  while  in  the  nature  of  things 
they  were  at  one  with  the  Crown  on  the  real  question  of  the  hour.  In 
1768  parliament  was  dissolved  and  ministers  returned  with  renewed  strength, 
while  there  was  still  no  sign  of  a  recovery  of  health  on  Chatham's  part 
which  would  enable  him  to  emerge  from  his  retirement. 

The  general  election  provided  a  fresh  excitement  which  absorbed  much 
popular  attention.  John  Wilkes,  though  still  under  sentence  of  outlawry, 
reappeared  and  stood  for  the  City  of  London  ;  being  there  rejected,  he 
came  forward  as  a  candidate  for  the  county  of  Middlesex,  and  was  returned 
by  a  large  majority.  Unfortimatcly  King  George  was  vindictive,  and  he 
was  irritated  by  Wilkes's  popularity  with  the  mob.  Wilkes  was  arrested 
upon  the  sentence  of  outlawry  ;  there  were  riots,  collisions   between  the 


THE   THIRD    GEORGE  653 

mob  and  the  soldiery,  who  fired  upon  the  rioters  and  killed  or  wounded  a 
few.  Wilkes,  in  prison,  procured  a  copy  of  the  order  from  the  Secretary  of 
State,  Lord  Weymouth,  under  which  the  soldiery  had  acted.  He  published 
it  with  comments,  accusing  Weymouth  of  having  planned  the  "massacre." 
The  publication  was  followed  by  a  motion  for  the  expulsion  of  Wilkes  from  the 
House,  based  on  the  old  charges.  In  spite  of  the  remonstrances  of  Grenville 
as  well  as  of  Burke  the  expulsion  was  carried  by  a  large  majority.  A  fortnight 
later  Wilkes  was  re-elected.  The  House  annulled  the  election,  and  declared 
him  incapable  of  sitting  in  the 
present  parliament ;  never- 
theless he  was  again  elected 
for  the  third  time,  for  it  was 
an  entirely  novel  claim  that 
the  House  should  by  its  own 
authority,  without  colour  of 
any  law,  declare  any  one 
incapable  of  election.  The 
House  again  annulled  the 
election.  A  certain  Colonel 
Luttrell  was  procured  to 
stand  for  Middlesex  against 
Wilkes,  and  when  Wilkes 
was  again  returned  wath  a 
big  majority  over  Luttrell, 
the  House  nevertheless  pro- 
nounced that  Luttrell  was 
the  duly  elected  member. 
The  House  of  Commons 
had  asserted  the  right  of 
overriding  the  will  of  the 
electorate  by  the  mere  re- 
solution of  a  party  majority. 
Wilkes  was  erected  into  the 
against  the  arbitrary  privileges  of  the 
cisively  than  in  the  earlier  encounter. 

The  Crown  of  old,  by  straining  prerogative  beyond  limits  for  which 
there  was  clear  precedent,  had  brought  upon  itself  the  curtailment  of  pre- 
rogative. The  Commons  now  by  an  extravagant  insistence  on  their  own 
privileges,  not  as  against  the  Crown  but  as  against  the  general  public, 
brought  upon  themselves  a  curtailment  of  privileges.  Wilkes,  the  rejected 
of  the  House,  was  made  an  alderman  of  the  City  of  London,  which  gave 
expression  to  the  popular  antagonism.  A  conflict  on  a  question  of  juris- 
diction between  the  House  and  the  City  was  mixed  up  with  the  general 
question  of  the  liberty  of  the  press,  and  the  result  of  the  conflict  was  the 
victory  of  the  press. 


Wilkes  assuring  George  III.  that  he  had  never  been  a  Wilkite. 

[From  the  caricature  by  Gillray.] 

position  of  the  champion  of  popular  liberties 
House  of  Commons,  far  more  de- 


654  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

There  were  two  questions  involved  ;  one  concerned  parliamentary 
privilege,  the  other  the  law  of  libel.  Technically,  until  this  time  parlia- 
mentary debates  had  been  private ;  their  publication  was  forbidden  as  a 
breach  of  the  privileges  of  the  Houses,  while  anything  in  the  nature  of 
comment  was  liable  to  be  construed  as  libel.  Nevertheless  reports  under 
very  flimsy  disguises  found  their  way  into  print,  and  the  press  of  the  day 
was  frequently  both  caustic  and  scurrilous.  The  House  of  Commons 
sought  to  protect  itself  by  a  rigorous  application  of  the  law  of  libel, 
and  it  was  laid  down  by  Lord  Mansfield  that  juries  were  concerned  only 
with  the  fact  of  publication,  while  everything  else  lay  in  the  province  of  the 
judge.  The  general  result  was  that  juries  refused  to  convict  even  in  the 
face  of  unmistakable  evidence ;  it  became  obvious  that  the  publication  of 
distorted  reports  and  of  comment  thereon  could  not  be  prevented  ;  and  not 
less  obvious  that  in  the  circumstances  it  would  be  very  much  safer  to 
permit  the  open  and  avowed  publication  of  reports,  which  would  at  least 
ensure  approximate  accuracy  instead  of  deliberate  distortion.  A  later  result 
was  the  definite  transfer  of  the  decision  as  to  the  character  of  publications 
from  the  judge  to  the  jury  ;  and  thus  in  effect  the  quarrel  between  Wilkes 
and  the  Commons  secured  the  liberty  of  the  press  at  least  within  the  limits 
approved  by  public  opinion.  And  at  the  same  time  the  exercise  of  the 
undisputed  right  of  the  House  of  Commons  to  decide  questions  concerning 
elections  was  first  delegated  to  a  non-partisan  committee  instead  of  to 
the  decision  of  a  party  vote,  and  wtls  ultimately  transferred  to  the 
judges. 

At  the  end  of  1768  Shelburne,  the  minister  most  favourable  to  the 
colonists,  was  driven  from  office,  and  this  was  shortly  followed  by  the 
formal  resignation  of  Chatham,  who  was  recovering  from  his  illness  only  to 
find  that  he  was  completely  opposed  to  his  nominal  colleagues  in  their 
policy  with  regard  both  to  Wilkes  and  to  the  colonies.  Grafton,  the 
nominal  head  of  the  government,  sought  again  to  conciliate  American 
opinion  by  repealing  Townshend's  duties  ;  but  matters  were  only  made 
worse  when  his  colleagues  insisted  on  retaining  that  upon  tea.  The 
Americans  did  not  in  the  least  careaboutthe  specific  articles  which  To  wnshend 
had  taxed  ;  from  their  point  of  view  there  was  just  as  much  reason  for 
resisting  the  tax  on  one  article  as  on  half-a-dozen.  On  the  top  of  this 
the  Bedford  group  proposed  to  act  upon  a  statute  of  Henry  VIII.  which 
had  not  been  applied  for  a  couple  of  centuries,  and  to  transfer  the  trials  of 
rioters  in  America  to  a  part  of  the  coinitry  where  there  was  no  disaffection 
— in  other  words,  to  England.  Chatham,  now  back  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
flung  his  thunderbolts  at  the  government ;  Campden,  followed  by  Grafton, 
resigned  ;  and  so  in  1770  the  king  was  able  to  form  an  administration 
entirely  after  his  own  heart  witli  Lord  North  at  the  head  of  it. 


THE   THIRD    GEORGE  O55 


VI 

INDIA 

During  the  first  ten  years  of  King  George's  reign  changes  of  importance 
were  taking  place  in  India.  There  were  fresh  developments  in  the  expan- 
sion of  the  native  powers,  while  the  British  were  making  their  first 
experiments  as  rulers,  at  first  de  facto  and  then  de  jure,  over  great  provinces 
in  the  dominions  of  the  Mogul.  In  the  twenty  years  between  the  appoint- 
ment of  Dupleix  as  governor  of  Pondichery,  and  the  capture  of  Pondichery 
which  signalised  the  complete  overthrow  of  French  power  in  India,  the 
potentates  directly  affected  by  the  struggle  were  the  Nizam  of  the  Deccan, 
his  lieutenant  the  Nawab  of  the  Carnatic,  and  the  Nawab  of  Bengal.  Both 
the  nawabs  had  become  merely  puppets  in  the  hands  of  the  British,  the 
nizam's  power  had  become  greatly  curtailed,  and  the  power  of  the 
Marathas,  over  whom  the  old  nizam  had  exercised  an  appreciable  dominion, 
had  grown  very  greatly.  It  was  the  first  time  for  centuries  that  a  great 
Hindu  power  was  getting  itself  organised  in  the  peninsula,  of  which  much 
the  greater  part  had  habitually  been  dominated  by  dynasties  of  Moham- 
medan conquerors  of  Turkish  or  Afghan  descent,  until  the  Moguls  had  won 
for  themselves  recognition  as  lords  paramount  of  the  whole. 

The  Maratha  confederacy  threatened  to  convert  the  Mogul  into  its 
puppet  and  to  dominate  all  India,  since  the  solidarity  of  the  Mogul  Empire 
had  become  a  transparent  fiction.  But,  naturally  enough,  it  did  not  as  yet 
occur  to  the  Marathas  that  the  weakening  of  the  nizam  could  be  of  anything 
but  advantage  to  them  ;  that  they  were  to  find  far  more  dangerous  rivals 
and  antagonists  in  the  British,  whose  fighting  qualities  were  wholly  unknown 
before  Clive's  defence  of  Arcot,  From  time  immemorial  the  Hindu  had 
turned  his  eyes  to  the  north-west  and  the  mountain  passes  of  Afghanistan 
as  the  region  whence  attack  was  to  be  expected  ;  and  the  plan  of  the  Marathas 
was  to  dominate  the  Mogul  and  carry  their  sway  up  to  the  Indus.  In 
Central  India  their  supremacy  was  already  assured  ;  and  the  potentates  of 
Oudh  and  Bengal  stood  in  awe  of  them,  and  generally  paid  them  the 
tribute  or  black-mail  called  chaiith. 

Now  the  Maratha  expansion  towards  the  north-west  was  a  direct 
challenge  to  the  ruler  of  Kabul,  who  looked  upon  the  north-west  as  his  own. 
In  176 1  Ahmed  Shah  came  down  from  Kabul  with  a  mighty  army  and 
smote  the  Marathas  on  the  favourite  battlefield  of  Paniput,  in  the  Delhi 
district.  The  Afghan  was  a  mighty  raider,  but  no  organiser  of  govern- 
ment ;  and  when  he  had  shattered  the  Marathas  he  went  back  across  the 
hills.  But  the  practical  effect  of  the  conflict  was  to  reduce  the  Maratha 
power  and  check  its  attempts  at  aggression  for  some  years,  and  this  in  itself 
facilitated  the  sudden  growth  of   a  new  power  in  the  south.     A   Moham- 


656  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

medan  military  adventurer  of  genius,  Haidar  Naik,  afterwards  known  as 
Haidar  Ali,  having  obtained  the  command  of  the  armies  of  the  Hindu 
state  of  Mysore,  seized  the  throne  for  himself  in  1762,  and  so  developed  the 
military  organisation  that  in  a  very  short  time  Mysore  was  fully  a  match  for 
any  of  its  native  rivals. 

It  is  sufBciently  obvious  that  there  was  no  Empire  of  India  for  Clive 
or  any  one  else  to  overthrow,  except  in  the  sense  that  various  potentates 
professed  to  acknowledge  the  common  sovereignty  of  the  Mogul,  and  gave 
a  colour  of  legality  to  their  own  actions  by  doing  them  in  his  name  when 
they  thought  it  worth  while.  But  this  fiction  of  the  Mogul's  sovereignty  was 
preserved  as  carefully  by  the  British  as  by  any  one  else  until  the  nineteenth 
century.  What  the  British  did  during  the  eighteenth  century  was  merely  to 
establish  themselves  as  one  among  several  territorial  powers  among  whom 
their  intention  was  to  preserve  a  balance.  But  because  each  of  the  native 
powers  saw  in  the  British  the  most  serious  obstacle  to  its  own  achievement 
of  ascendency,  one  after  another  they  forced  contests  on  the  British, 
whereby  their  own  power  was  diminished  and  that  of  the  British  was  in- 
creased until  it  grew  into  an  acknowledged  ascendency. 

When  Clive  returned  to  England  in  1760  the  British  were  a  territorial 
power  de  facto  in  Bengal  and  in  the  Carnatic,  because  the  nawabs  in  both 
those  provinces  were  completely  under  their  control.  But  de  jure  they 
were  still  in  possession  of  nothing  but  the  districts  immediately  round 
Madras  and  Bombay,  together  with  the  Sarkars,  which  they  held  as  a  fief 
from  the  nizam.  The  British  government  at  home  had  not  taken  charge, 
the  British  authority  was  that  of  the  East  India  Company.  There  could  be 
no  permanence  about  an  irregular  control  such  as  existed  in  Bengal,  where 
Mir  Jafar  had  to  obey  the  orders  of  the  company's  officers  forming  the 
council  at  Calcutta,  while  the  council  itself  declined  all  responsibility  for 
the  administration.  They  demanded  for  themselves  privileges  and  exemp- 
tions, accepted  the  presents  which  were  lavished  upon  them  after  the 
oriental  fashion,  and  practically  extorted  a  good  deal  more.  It  was  not 
strange  that  when  Clive's  strong  mastery  was  withdrawn  the  British  in 
Bengal  abused  their  position.  The  subordinates  in  a  commercial  company, 
suddenly  placed  in  a  position  of  immense  actual  power  without  official 
responsibility,  would  hardly  have  been  human  if  they  had  not  abused  their 
position  ;  they  had  behind  them  no  tradition  to  live  up  to,  and  the  tempta- 
tions were  overwhelming. 

Mir  Jafar  found  himself  unable  to  meet  the  demands  which  were  made 
upon  him  ;  the  council  deposed  him,  and  made  his  finance  minister,  Mir 
Kassim,  nawab.  Mir  Kassim  laid  his  plans  to  free  himself  from  the 
British  tyranny,  which  the  governor,  Vansittart,  a  person  of  good  intentions, 
was  unable  to  check.  The  result  was  another  revolution.  Mir  Kassim 
fled  to  Shujah  Daulah,  the  Nawab  of  Oudh,  and  Mir  Jafar  was  set  up 
again.  Then  once  more  Shujah  Daulah  prepared  to  invade  Bengal  and 
subject  it  to  Oudh  ;  but  Major  Hector  Munro,  by  a  brilliant  feat  of  arms 


THE   THIRD    GEORGE  657 

worthy  of  Clive  himself,  inflicted  upon  him  a  decisive  defeat  at  Buxar,  and 
convinced  him  of  the  wisdom  of  seeking  British  friendship.  Buxar  was 
hardly  less  important  than  Plassey  in  the  establishment  of  the  British 
power  in  Bengal. 

But  by  this  time  the  directors  in  England  had  become  impressed  with 
the  necessity  for  putting  an  end  to  the  misrule  which  their  representatives 
in  India  were  turning  to  their  private  account  and  not  to  the  benefit  of  the 
company.  Once  more  Clive  was  sent  out  to  India  with  full  powers  to  take 
matters  in  hand  and  organise  the  government.  He  set  himself,  on  his 
arrival  in  1765,  to  cure  the  existing  evils  by  drastic  measures,  and  to 
remove  the  worst  of  the  causes  from  which  they  sprang.  The  receiving 
of  presents  and  all  private  trading  by  the  company's  servants  were  im- 
peratively forbidden  ;  while  the  profits  of  the  salt  monopoly,  which  had  been 
conceded  to  the  company,  were  appropriated  to  the  increase  of  the  hitherto 
despicable  salaries  of  the  company's  servants.  This  measure,  however,  was 
unfortunately  modified  by  the  directors,  with  the  result  that  the  private 
trading  and  the  receiving  of  presents  revived.  The  army  in  Bengal  was 
reorganised,  and  its  control  was  officially  taken  over  by  the  company  ;  and, 
further,  the  collection  and  administration  of  the  revenue,  what  is  called 
the  diwajii,  in  Bengal,  was  conferred  upon  the  company  by  a  decree  of  the 
Mogul  as  suzerain,  procured  by  Clive.  The  position  of  the  British  was 
regulated  ;  they  were  not  only  rulers  de  facto  but  were  thenceforth  re- 
sponsible dejtire.  The  Diwani  of  Bengal,  the  cession  of  the  Sarkars  to  the 
British,  and  the  formal  separation  of  the  Carnatic  from  the  nizam's  juris- 
diction, were  all  obtained  under  the  sanction  of  the  Mogul's  authority  in 
August  1765.  The  British  East  India  Company  had  become  a  legally 
constituted  territorial  power,  and  the  repudiation  of  its  authority  could  be 
accurately  represented  as  an  act  of  rebellion  against  the  Mogul. 

Before  leaving  India  Clive  also  laid  down  the  general  principles  of 
foreign  policy.  There  was  to  be  no  attempt  at  the  extension  of  dominion. 
Oudh  was  not  penalised,  but  was  to  be  strengthened  into  a  buffer  state 
against  Maratha  aggression  in  the  north.  In  like  manner  the  nizam  was 
to  be  supported  against  Maratha  aggression  in  the  south.  At  the  beginning 
of  1767  Clive  again  retired  to  England.  The  foundations  of  British  power 
had  been  laid,  but  a  working  political  system  still  had  to  be  evolved. 
Chatham's  scheme  for  transferring  the  sovereignty  in  England  from  the 
company  to  the  Crown  came  to  nothing  ;  but  it  was  impossible  for  the 
British  nation  long  to  ignore  its  responsibilities.  The  next  experimental 
phase  is  represented  by  the  ministry  of  Lord  North  in  England  and  the 
rule  of  Warren  Hastings  in  India. 


2  T 


CHAPTER    XXVII 

CLEAVAGE 

I 

THE   BREACH   WIDENS 

With  the  formation  of  Lord  North's  ministry,  King  George's  victory  in 
pariiament  was  complete.  The  most  definite  dividing  line  between  Govern- 
ment and  Opposition  was  fixed  by  colonial  policy,  and  the  Opposition 
included  the  whole  of  the  Rockingham  connection,  together  with  Burke, 
the  great  exponent  of  Whig  political  philosophy,  Chatham  and  all  those 
who  still  revered  him,  and  some  even  of  those  Vv^hom  Charles  Townshend 
had  dragged  with  him  more  or  less  reluctantly.  The  king  had  secured 
the  solid  support  of  Toryism,  of  the  group  who,  by  whatever  name  they 
called  themselves,  regarded  it  as  their  first  duty  to  carry  out  the  king's 
wishes,  and  of  the  bulk  of  the  Bedford  Whigs  who  had  brought  the  quarrel 
with  America  to  a  head  and  were  rigid  in  their  demands  for  a  firm 
and  uncompromising  attitude.  The  king  was  not  possessed  of  a  merely 
accidental  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  between  boroughs  whose 
vote  was  under  direct  control  and  constituencies  which  had  been  fairly 
bought,  the  majority  was  secure.  There  was  no  risk  of  the  Government 
being  defeated  in  parhament,  and  practically  none  that  it  would  be  defeated 
on  appealing  to  the  country.  And  virtually  the  majority  was  pledged  to 
carry  out  the  king's  wishes. 

There  were  three  questions  with  which  North's  Government  had  to  deal 
between  1770  and  1775.  The  first  has  already  been  discussed  in  con- 
nection with  Wilkes.  The  second  was  India,  which  for  the  present  we 
defer ;  and  the  third  was  the  quarrel  with  the  colonies. 

The  partial  repeal  of  the  obnoxious  taxes  failed  entirely  to  produce  the 
effect  intended.  Rioting  did  not  cease,  and  the  worst  kind  of  agitators  in 
America  found  a  help  to  infiaming  popular  feeling  in  the  "  Boston  massacre," 
an  affray  between  the  soldiers  and  the  mob  in  which  three  of  the  latter 
were  killed  and  a  half-a-dozen  more  were  wounded.  A  Boston  jury 
acquitted  the  soldiers  of  blame,  but  when  passions  have  been  excited  such 
occurrences  acquire  a  fictitious  colour  and  a  fictitious  importance.  Still, 
for  some  time  the  agitation  only  simmered  ;  the  colonials,  for  the  most 
part,  contented  themselves  with  refusing  to  drink  tea.  Then  in  1772  the 
royal  schooner  GaspeCy   engaged  on  preventive  service,  was  decoyed  into 

658 


CLEAVAGE  659 

shallows,  where  she  grounded  and  was  then  boarded  and  burnt  ;  nor  could 
any  information  be  obtained  as  to  the  perpetrators.  The  resistance  to 
the  importation  of  the  boycotted  goods  was  more  carefully  organised  ; 
the  Americans  who  supported  the  home  government  were  subjected  to  a 
persistent  persecution.  Ship  loads  of  tea  when  they  arrived  at  American 
ports,  if  disembarked  at  all,  found  no  purchasers,  and  for  the  most  part 
the  ships  sailed  away  again  without  unloading,  At  the  end  of  1773  such  a 
consignment  of  the  East  India  Company's  tea  arrived  in  Boston  harbour. 
The  consignees  were  the  sons  of  the  British  Governor,  Hutchinson. 
Hutchinson  forbade  the  ships  to  sail  till  they  had  paid  the  duties  ;  the 
Bostonians  refused  to  allow  the  tea  to  be  landed.  One  evening,  after  a 
great  public  meeting,  a  party  of  pretended  Red  Indians  boarded  the  tea 
ships  in  the  presence  of  an  applauding  multitude  which  watched  operations 
from  the  shore,  and  emptied  the  tea  chests  into  the  sea.  No  one  revealed 
the  identity  of  the  "  Indians  "  ;  the  entire  city  of  Boston  shared  the  responsi- 
bility. >       .       ^ 

Meanwhile  public  sentiment  had  been  inflamed  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic  by  the  publication  of  certain  letters  written  to  a  private  correspondent 
in  London  by  Hutchinson  the  Governor  and  Oliver  the  Chief  Justice  of 
Massachusetts.  Both  men  were  honest  supporters  of  the  British  government, 
and  expressed  their  opinions  with  the  natural  freedom  of  private  letters. 
Those  letters,  by  some  means  unknown,  fell  into  the  hands  of  Benjamin 
Franklin,  who  was  in  London  as  agent  for  several  of  the  colonies.  In 
America  the  publication  infuriated  the  colonials  against  the  writers  of  the 
letters,  while  in  England  it  infuriated  most  people  against  the  men  re- 
sponsible for  an  entirely  unjustifiable  divulgence  of  a  private  correspon- 
dence. A  bitter  attack  was  made  upon  Franklin,  which  he  never  forgave* 
Hitherto  he  had  at  any  rate  believed  in  the  possibility  of  an  honourable 
adjustment ;  henceforth  he  was  to  be  numbered  amongst  the  irreconcil- 
ables.  The  letter  incident  and  the  Boston  '< tea-party"  between  them  had 
an  exasperating  effect,  which  perhaps  destroyed  the  last  chance  of  a  peaceful 
solution. 

For  now  the  British  Government,  with  British  sentiment  behind  it, 
resolved  upon  penal  measures  directed  against  Massachusetts.  Boston 
harbour  was  closed,  the  seat  of  the  government  was  removed  from  Boston 
to  Salem,  the  constitution  was  suspended  ;  the  venue  for  trials  of  officers 
of  the  Crown  on  capital  charges  was  transferred  to  England,  and  troops 
were  ordered  to  be  quartered  upon  the  town,  which  was  required  to  pay 
compensation  to  the  East  India  Company  for  the  tea  destroyed. 

At  the  same  moment  an  entirely  admirable  Act  was  passed  for  the 
government  of  Canada.  It  emanated  not  from  the  brains  of  George's 
ministers,  but  from  the  statesmanship  of  Sir  Guy  Carleton,  afterwards 
Lord  Dorchester,  who  had  for  some  years  been  Governor  of  Canada. 
While  the  Quebec  Act  extended  the  boundaries  of  Canada,  it  secured  for  the 
Roman  Catholics  complete  freedom  of  worship  and  preserved  their  endow- 


66o  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

ments,  nine-tenths  of  the  Canadians  being  of  the  religion  which  was  pro- 
scribed in  Ireland  and  in  Great  Britain.  It  is  an  extraordinary  paradox 
that  Chatham  opposed,  while  King  George  supported,  this  surprisingly 
liberal  measure.  But,  further,  the  government  was  placed  in  the  hands 
of  a  Governor  and  a  Legislative  Council  of  Crown  nominees,  the  right  of 
taxation  was  expressly  reserved  to  the  parliament  of  Great  Britain,  and  the 
English  Criminal  Law  was  introduced  while  the  old  French  Civil  Law 
was  retained.  The  religious  and  social  institutious  of  the  French  popula- 
tion were  thus  fully  protected,  and  they  had  no  desire  for  an  extension  to 
them  of  political  rights  which  they  had  never  possessed  under  the  French 
flag.  Nevertheless  this  excellent  measure  was  an  additional  source  of 
irritation  to  their  neighbours  in  British  colonies.  To  the  New  Englanders 
in  particular,  with  their  Puritan  tradition,  and  to  the  Virginians  with  their 
Anglican  Cavalier  tradition,  the  latitude  allowed  to  the  Romanists  was  a 
scandal ;  while  the  political  constitution  was  looked  upon  as  ominious  cf 
what  the  British  Government  intended  to  impose  upon  the  old  British 
colonies. 

Again  the  assemblies  of  the  thirteen  colonies,  or  of  twelve  of  them, 
since  the  youngest,  Georgia,  did  not  yet  associate  itself  with  the  rest,  sent 
delegates  to  a  general  "  Continental  Congress,"  which  met  at  Philadelphia 
in  September  (1774).  In  that  Congress,  although  there  were  as  yet  few 
who  had  brought  themselves  to  welcome  the  idea  of  separation,  the  dominant 
voices  were  those  of  the  men  who  had  already  made  up  their  minds  to 
work  for  that  object,  and  with  them  lay  the  skill  of  political  organisation. 
The  Congress  demanded  the  repeal  of  the  whole  series  of  obnoxious  Acts, 
endorsed  a  policy  of  something  more  than  passive  resistance  to  the  carry- 
ing out  of  the  laws  imposed  by  the  British  parliament,  sanctioned  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  boycott,  drew  up  a  new  Declaration  of  Rights,  and  addressed 
a  petition  to  the  king,  and  what  may  be  called  an  open  letter  to  the  people 
of  England.  They  claimed,  in  short,  a  return  to  the  position  as  it  was 
before  1763;  but  at  the  same  time  they  expressly  repudiated  the  idea  that 
they  desired  separation.  Congress  voted  by  states,  and  the  states  voted 
solidly  together  with  the  exception  of  New  York.  It  need  hardly  be  re- 
marked, however,  that  the  congress  had  no  legal  powers,  the  sanction  for 
its  authority  residing  only  in  the  Assemblies  of  the  several  states. 

Massachusetts,  which  had  taken  the  lead  in  the  agitation  and  had  been 
singled  out  for  punishment,  took  the  lead  also  in  preparation  for  armed 
resistance.  The  new  governor  and  commander-in-chief.  General  Gage, 
refused  to  summon  the  Assembly  of  the  province  ;  nevertheless  it  was 
elected  and  met,  and  was  obeyed  precisely  as  if  it  had  been  a  legal  body. 
Volunteer  corps  were  organised  and  drilled,  and  military  stores  were 
collected.  Gage,  who  had  four  British  regiments  at  his  disposal,  for  the 
most  part  massed  in  Boston,  urged  the  home  government  to  send  him 
more  troops.  He  did  not  get  his  troops,  and  North's  Government  made 
a  belated  offer  which  was  intended  to  be  conciliatory — the  offer  to  exempt 


CLEAVAGE  66 1 

from  taxation  any  colony  which  elected  to  make  such  a  contribution  of  its 
own  to  the  Imperial  Exchequer  as  satisfied  the  Imperial  parliament.  At 
this  stage  the  proposal  was  worse  than  useless,  and  it  was  accompanied  by 
other  retaliatory  measures  against  the  colonists,  closing  American  ports, 
excluding  all  American  trade,  and  voting  an  increase  of  troops  for 
Boston.  It  was  in  vain  for  Burke,  Chatham,  and  the  Rockinghams  to 
present  the  case  for  the  colonies  to  parliament.  They  were  completely 
out-voted,  and  the  majority  in  parliament  was  supported  by  the  great  body 
of  popular  opinion. 


II 


FROM   LEXINGTON   TO   SARATOGA 

The  War  of  American  Independence  was  opened  by  the  skirmish  of 
Lexington  on  April  i8,  1775.  General  Gage  sent  a  party  of  soldiers  to 
seize  and  destroy  military  stores  which 
w-ere  being  collected  at  Concord,  eighteen 
miles  from  Boston.  The  immediate  pur- 
pose was  accomplished  more  or  less  success- 
fully, but  the  troops  were  attacked  on  the 
march  by  the  Massachusetts  militia,  and 
had  sufficiently  the  worse  in  the  encounter 
to  encourage  the  colonials  in  the  conviction 
that  the  volunteers  could  hold  their  own 
against  the  regulars.  Also  it  v.'as  felt  that 
matters  had  now  been  fairly  brought  to  the 
arbitrament  of  the  sword.  The  Massachu- 
setts men  began  to  muster  in  force,  Gage's 
regiments  were  for  the  time  shut  up  in 
Boston,  and  a  party  of  insurgents  under 
Ethan  Allen  captured  the  fort  of  Ticon- 
deroga.  Before  the  end  of  May  two  thousand  men  were  added  to  the 
British  force  in  Boston  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Congress  at  Phila- 
delphia, which  was  now  accepted  as  the  common  directing  authority  of  the 
colonists,  took  measures  for  raising  a  force  of  fifteen  thousand  men,  and 
nominated  as  commander-in-chief  George  Washington,  a  highly  respected 
landowner  of  Virginia,  who  had  served  with  credit  as  a  young  man  in 
Braddock's  day,  and  whose  force  of  character  had  won  for  him  the  confi- 
dence of  Congress. 

Then  on  June  17th  occurred  the  first  important  engagement.  An 
American  column  occupied  a  height  called  Breed's  Hill  (not  the  neighbour- 
ing Bunker  Hill  itself)  to  the  north  of  Boston,  from  which  they  could 
command  the  British  qua'ters.     A  strong  British  column  only  succeeded 


George  Washington. 
[After  the  painting  by  Trumbu'.L] 


662  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

in  driving  them  out  after  being  twice  repulsed  and  at  the  cost  of  heavy 
losses.  The  battle  of  Bunker  Hill  or  Bunker's  Hill  u^as  in  actual  fact  a 
British  "victory  ;  but  it  was  won  so  hardly  and  in  such  circumstances  as  to 
be  a  real  moral  victory  for  the  colonials  ;  because,  on  a  much  larger  scale 
than  at  Lexington,  they  had  faced  the  regulars  and  inflicted  punishment 
much  more  severe  than  they  had  suffered. 

The  colonials  were  tolerably  unanimous  in  their  determination  to  fight, 
but  they  were  without  military  discipline,  without  established  organisation, 
badly  supplied  with  stores,  and  very  short  of  money.  The  British,  on  the 
other  hand,  had  complete  command  of  the  sea,  officers  of  experience, 
regular  troops,  and  abundant  resources.  But  they  remained  consistently 
inert,  apparently  under  the  conviction  that  the  resistance  of  the  Americans 
w^ould  perish   of  sheer   inanition.     General    Sir   William    Howe  took   the 


^       <^HIS  BILL  entitles  the  Bearer  to0 

^   or^ceive  £rm'S  9f'9'%f  S^^amMmm  Q 

i^0tt<2^^<^,  or  the  Value  thereof 6 

jin  ffoCd  or  Sitvcr,  according  to  the  Refo-  § 

jjlmons  of  the  0O9Pggi6c9S,  held  at  0 

J /P0fljdf>juiif  the  lotlijaf  otlmu  117';.    § 

An  American  20  dollar  bill  dated  prior  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 


place  of  Gage  as  commander  of  the  forces  ;  his  brother  Admiral  Lord 
Howe  was  in  command  of  the  fleet.  But  the  fleet  was  not  allowed  to  do 
anything,  and  General  Howe  preferred  to  do  nothing.  His  army  was  con- 
centrated in  Boston,  while  Washington's  was  concentrated  outside.  Else- 
where, the  governors  of  the  southern  colonies  had  to  take  refuge  in  British 
ships,  which  were  unassailable,  though  in  the  circumstances  useless  for 
purposes  of  offence.  Washington  spent  the  winter  in  a  long  effort  to 
organise  and  instil  discipline  into  an  army  which  was  only  held  together  at 
all  with  the  utmost  difticulty. 

Active  operations  were  restricted  to  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the 
Americans  to  attach  Canada  to  the  rebellion.  The  first  force  of  invaders 
led  by  Montgomery  was  on  the  whole  favourably  received  by  the  French, 
and  Montreal  was  captured.  But  the  most  persistent  defect  of  th?.  American 
armies  immediately  made  itself  felt.  The  men  only  enlisted  for  short  terms, 
and  the  moment  their  time  was  up  they  went  off  home,  much  after  the 


CLEAVAGE  663 

fashion  of  their  Saxon  ancestors  n.  thousand  years  before.  Meanwhile 
Benedict  Arnold  had  been  despatched  against  Quebec,  where  he  arrived  in 
December  with  a  body  of  troops  ragged,  barefoot,  half-starved.  When  the 
remnant  from  Montreal  joined  them  the  whole  body  barely  numbered  a 
thousand.  Such  a  force  had  no  possible  chance  of  capturing  Quebec.  An 
attempt  to  storm  the  place  was  repulsed  with  heavy  loss  and  Montgomery 
himself  was  killed.  For  some  three  months  the  besiegers  hung  on  with  a 
somewhat  fantastic  heroism  which  refused  to  recognise  impossibilities. 
The  wavering  attitude  of  the  French  Canadians  turned  into  one  of  hostility 
to  the  Americans,  the  siege  was  at  last  raised  in  March,  and  thenceforward 
Canadian  loyalty  to  the  Crown  was  never  in  doubt. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  the  same  month,  March,  General  Howe  made  up 
his  mind  that  Boston  was  a  bad  military  centre  for  his  purposes,  so  he 
put  his  troops  on  board  ship  and  sailed  for  Halifax,  which  became  his 
headquarters  for  the  time.  Such  was  the  ignominious  position  twelve 
months  after  the  outbreak  of  the  war.  The  British,  with  complete  com- 
mand of  the  sea,  with  nothing  to  check  the  supply  of  reinforcements,  with 
no  foreign  complications  on  hand  to  distract  them,  had  retired  from  their 
one  real  foothold  in  the  thirteen  colonies  in  the  face  of  an  untrained  army 
which  was  short  of  guns  and  ammunition,  and  was  only  preserved  from  dis- 
solving by  the  invincible  patience  and  firmness  of  its  great  chief  ;  a  chief 
who  was  himself  the  object  of  the  perpetual  attacks  of  jealousy,  at  the 
same  time  that  the  conditions  in  which  he  was  placed  forced  upon  liim  a 
rigour  of  conduct  which  inevitably  made  him  unpopular,  while  they  pro- 
hibited the  active  offensive  by  which  popularity  might  have  been  won. 
The  inefficiency  shown  by  the  British  administration  was  almost  without 
a  parallel  except  during  the  first  months  of  the  Seven  Years'  War.  The 
government  had  entered  on  a  battle  with  the  colonists  for  which  the 
only  possible  justification  was  an  iron  resolve  to  conquer  unmistakably 
and  decisively.  Right  or  wrong,  such  a  programme  would  have  been  in- 
telligible, and  there  should  have  been  no  sort  of  difficulty  in  destroying 
open  resistance  in  the  field.  But  no  effort  was  made  at  conquest,  appa- 
rently on  the  assumption  that  conquest  would  come  of  itself.  The  actual 
effect  was  to  stiffen  in  the  Americans  the  conviction  that  the  British  might 
be  beaten  and  the  determination  to  beat  them. 

Month  by  month  the  idea  of  separation  took  firmer  root ;  the 
men  who  had  begun  with  a  conscientious  desire  to  be  content  with  a 
return  to  the  old  system  were  learning  to  believe  that  the  old  system, 
had  become  impossible  and  that  complete  separation  must  be  their  goal. 
The  new  feeling  at  last  found  decisive  expression  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  issued  by  the  Continental  Congress  on  July  4th,  1776. 
Eighteen  months  earlier  Congress  had  indignantly  repudiated  the  charge 
that  independence  was  desired  ;  now  the  claim  for  independence  was 
uncompromisingly  asserted.  As  before,  New  York  was  the  one  state  which 
declined  to  go   v/ith    the  rest.     The  Declaration,  with   its  accompanying 


664 


THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 


resolutions  in  favour  of  seeking  foreign   alliances,  at  once  and  finally  put 
reconciliation  out  of  the  question. 

It  was  correctly  anticipated  that  the  British  would  return  to  the  attack 
and  would  make  New  York  their  objective.  Thither  therefore  Washington 
had  removed  his  force  after  the  British  evacuation  of  Boston.  At  the 
close  of  June  Lord  Howe  returned  with  a  fleet  and  occupied  Staten  Island. 
Some  little  time  elapsed  before  the  resumption  of  active  hostilities  ;  it 
was  occupied  in  fruitless  efforts  to  arrive  at  a  basis  of  negotiation,  and  in 
proclamations  on  the  one  side  offering  free  pardon  to  all  who  should  come 
in  and  on  the  other  offering  grants  of  land  to  the  German  mercenaries 
serving  with  the  British  force  if  they  would  enroll  themselves  as  American 

„        ^r)2r  /^^-^      }-r^^  citizens.     The   re- 

V^^vyi<^^,^^&^L7y^^>^^;^^  newal  of  fighting  at 

-— 1-^^^  k^^^j-^^""^^  the    end    of    August 


O ^'-J^JPc-  y/^-^""'  "  ■/''>^'',ti,. 


The  first  twenty-four  signatures  to  the  Declaration  that  the  "  United 
Colonies"  of  America  "  are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  Free  and 
Independent  States." 


soon  brought  New 
York  completely  into 
the  hands  of  the 
British,  and  by  the 
end  of  November 
Washington  was 
forced  to  fall  back 
across  the  Delaware 
River  into  Pennsyl- 
vania. S  i  r  G  u  y 
Carleton  descended 
from     Canada     and 


occupied  Crown  Point  near  Ticonderoga,  while  another  detachment  from 
New  York  was  threatening  the  New  England  States.  But  Howe  was 
satisfied  with  what  he  had  accomplished  and  relapsed  into  his  normal 
inaction. 

Congress,  on  the  other  hand,  did  something  to  strengthen  Washington's 
hands  by  ordering  the  enlistment  of  the  troops  for  the  period  of  the  war, 
instead  of  for  the  short  terms  \vhich  had  kept  the  armies  in  a  state  of 
perpetually  recurring  dissolution.  Moreover,  it  declined  to  listen  to  the 
chorus  of  complaints  which  arose  from  officers  who  were  jealous  of 
Washington  and  dissatisfied  with  their  own  appointments,  or  which  were 
born  of  a  general  tendency  to  depreciate  a  commander  who  was  admirably 
fulfilling  the  most  thankless  of  all  tasks,  that  of  preserving  in  being  an 
army  which  was  quite  inifit  to  adopt  the  vigorous  offensive  which  was 
expected  of  it.  Congress  retained  its  confidence  in  Washington,  and 
answered  the  complaints  by  enlarging  his  authority.  Washington  himself 
found  his  opportunity  that  winter,  crossed  the  Delaware  on  the  ice,  cut  up 
the  British  outpost  at  Trenton,  and  cleared  the  western  part  of  New  Jersey, 
in  which  he  remained  established.  In  the  north  Carleton  was  unable  to 
make  further  progress   and  his  command  was  transferred  to  Burgoyne. 


CLEAVAGE  665 

No  active  movements  were  set  on  foot  until  the  next  midsummer.  The 
campaign  was  designed  with  the  object  of  cutting  off  the  New  England 
States.  Burgoyne  was  to  descend  with  the  Northern  force  along  the  line 
of  the  Hudson  River,  while  a  column  marched  from  New  York  to  effect  a 
junction.  Washington's  army  would  then  be  completely  cut  off  from  the 
Northern  States,  while  the  British  would  be  able  to  sweep  down  upon  him 
in  irresistible  force.  It  should  have  been  Howe's  business  to  despatch  a 
strong  column  to  join  hands  with  Burgoyne,  keeping  at  New  York  a 
sufticient  body  to  hold  Washington  himself  in  check.  But  instead  of 
carrying  out  this  plan  he  directed  his  energies  to  the  capture  of  Philadelphia, 
to  which  he  appears  to  have  attached  an  extravagant  importance.  There- 
fore, when  Clinton  ought  to  have  been  marching  to  join  Burgoyne,  he  was 
detained  at  New  York,  whence  Howe  had  carried  off  the  bulk  of  the 
troops  by  sea  to  the  Chesapeake  to  turn  Washington's  position  and  fall 
upon  Philadelphia.  Howe  succeeded  in  his  object.  He  was  met  by 
Washington  at  Brandywine  Creek,  defeated  him,  occupied  Philadelphia, 
and  again  beat  him  at  German's  Town.  The  American  commander  had 
to  fall  back  to  Valley  Forge,  w'here  for  a  long  time  his  position  remained 
exceedingly  precarious. 

But  Howe's  move  upon  Philadelphia  ruined  the  plan  of  the  Northern 
campaign.  Clinton  could  not  move  to  join  Burgoyne  ;  and  the  Northern 
American  army  under  Gates,  reinforced  by  troops  spared  at  great  risk  by 
Washington,  soon  outnumbered  Burgoyne's  force  and  manoeuvred  him  into 
a  position  at  Saratoga,  where  he  found  himself  with  no  alternative  to  the 
surrender  of  his  whole  army.  Clinton,  who  had  made  a  struggle  to  push 
up  to  his  assistance,  was  obliged  to  return  to  New  York.  The  North,  instead 
of  being  secured  by  the  British,  was  entirely  lost  to  them,  and  w-as  in  the 
hands  of  the  victorious  Americans,  a  matter  of  more  decisive  import  than 
the  occupation  of  Philadelphia  or  the  difficult  situation  of  George 
Washington's  army  at  Valley  Forge. 


Ill 

FRANCE   INTERVENES 

The  surrender  at  Saratoga  had  results  much  more  far-reaching  than  the 
mere  immediate  change  in  the  military  situation  on  the  American  Continent. 
There  was  nothing  in  itself  irretrievable  about  the  disaster.  A  Chatham, 
bent  on  a  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  w^ar,  would  have  found  troops  and 
officers  numerous  enough  and  capable  enough  to  vanquish  the  Americans  in 
the  field  in  the  simple  duel.  But  after  Saratoga  the  war  ceased  to  be  a 
duel.  It  became  a  struggle  between  Great  Britain  and  a  group  of  com- 
batants who  joined  together  for  her  destruction.  She  had  sown  the  wind 
in  the  long  years  of  incompetent  and  wrong-headed  administration  ;   now  she 


666  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

was  to  reap  the  whirlwind.  The  Peace  of  Paris  had  left  her  with  no  friend 
in  Europe  and  with  one  implacable  foe.  That  foe,  France,  had  at  least 
endeavoured  to  lay  to  heart  one  great  lesson  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  and 
had  been  steadily  and  persistently  building  up  a  fleet,  while  Britain  had  been 
neglecting  both  her  naval  and  her  military  organisation.  France  had  been 
drawing  closer  her  union  with  Spain,  and  had  been  mollifying  rather  than 
exacerbating  old  animosities  on  the  Continent.  She  desired  nothing  better 
than  an  opportunity  of  striking  a  blow  at  the  rival  who  had  defeated  her. 

But  so  far  France  had  had  no  shadow  of  excuse  for  intervention. 
Moreover,  at  the  outset  her  shrewd  minister  Turgot  had  perceived  that  in 
any  event  Great  Britain  was  likely  to  suffer  from  the  war  so  severely  that  it 
v/ould  not  be  worth  while  for  France  to  intervene  even  if  she  could  afford 
to  do  so,  which  Turgot  very  well  knew  she  could  not.  French  finances 
had  been  reduced  to  chaos  ;  Turgot  was  striving  to  bring  them  into  some- 
thing like  order,  and  he  knew  that  economy  was  imperative.  But  Turgot's 
tenure  of  power  was  brief ;  his  financial  methods  subjected  the  privileged 
classes  to  taxation,  which  they  resented,  and  he  was  driven  into  retirement. 
The  direction  of  foreign  affairs  was  in  the  hands  of  Vergennes.  Vergennes 
was  inclined  to  an  aggressive  policy,  although  it  was  restricted  to  a  secret 
encouragement  of  the  American  rebellion.  International  amenities  forbade 
the  immediate  recognition  of  the  American  States  as  an  independent 
nation  ;  but  their  agents,  despatched  to  Paris  after  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  were  welcomed  by  Parisian  society,  feted,  and  patronised  in  a 
fashion  which  left  no  room  for  doubt  that  participation  in  the  war  would  be 
exceedingly  popular  in  France.  The  French  court  and  French  society  were 
as  yet  unconscious  that  they  were  playing  on  the  crater  of  a  volcano.  The 
"  rights  of  a  man  "  were  in  fashion,  because  from  the  point  of  view  of  Society 
they  were  entirely  visionary  and  impossible  in  France  itself.  A  theoretical 
enthusiasm  for  popular  liberties  could  be  comfortably  enjoyed  where  privi- 
lege felt  itself  to  be  perfectly  secure.  The  aristocrats  had  no  suspicion  that 
while  they  were  encouraging  revolution  in  America  they  were  fomenting 
revolution  at  home. 

Frawce  indeed  could  expect  no  direct  benefit  to  herself  from  the 
American  War  ;  it  was  enough  that  she  thirsted  for  humiliation  and  disaster 
to  fall  upon  the  British. 

But  Saratoga  gave  an  opening,  an  excuse  for  recognising  the  indepen- 
dence of  the  colonies,  although  it  was  tolerably  obvious  that  such  a 
recognition  would  involve  war.  It  was  not  so  easy  for  France  to  draw 
Spain  in  her  wake  ;  for  Spain  was  a  great  colonial  power,  and  if  the  British 
colonies  asserted  their  independence  successfully,  it  was  exceedingly  prob- 
able that  the  Spanish  colonies  would  follow  the  British  example.  Still 
Spain  might  hope  that  if  she  joined  France  and  the  British  colonies  in 
open  hostilities  she  might  achieve  not  only  the  gratification  of  revenge, 
but  tangible  results  in  the  recovery  of  Gibraltar  and  Minorca.  And  the 
prospects  were  infinitely  better  than  they   had    beei>    when    she  was  last 


CLEAVAGE  667 

tempted  to  join  with  France  in  1761.  Then,  Great  Britain  was  advancing 
on  the  full  tide  of  victory,  and  her  fleets  swept  the  seas  unchallenged.  Then, 
France  was  already  exhausted  by  a  war  in  which  she  had  suffered  a  series 
of  disastrous  losses,  besides  being  involved  in  the  Prussian  complication. 
Now,  Britain  stood  entirely  alone,  a  house  divided  against  itself,  engaged  in 
a  struggle  with  her  own  colonies  in  which  it  was  exceedingly  doubtful 
whether  she  could  achieve  success,  while  her  fleet  had  been  allowed  to 
lose  its  old  predominance,  whereas  that  of  France  had  been  carefully  nursed 
and  expanded. 

It  was  immediately  realised  in  England  that  the  disaster  of  Saratoga 
would  probably  involve  her  in  another  struggle  for  life  against  the  com- 
bined Bourbons.  Before  the  end  of  the  year  France  had  given  private 
assurances  to  the  American  commissioners  in  Paris  that  the  independence 
of  the  colonies  would  be  formally  recognised,  and  that  they  would  receive 
open  support  ;  although  it  was  not  till  the  following  March  that  the  formal 
treaty  was  notified  in  London.  But  the  facts  could  not  be  altogether  con- 
cealed, and  the  threatened  danger  only  roused  British  doggedness  to  the 
utmost.  Whatever  else  happened,  the  Bourbons  should  be  defied  and 
fought  to  the  last  gasp.  King  George  was  even  ready  to  drop  the  American 
contest  altogether  in  order  to  concentrate  on  the  French  war.  Bills  were 
introduced  and  passed  to  offer  the  colonists  everything  that  they  had 
demanded  before  the  outbreak  of  the  war.  North  himself  urged  the  king 
to  allow  him  to  resign  and  to  call  Chatham  to  the  leadership. 

But  Chatham's  day  was  over ;  even  if  George  could  have  brought  him- 
self to  a  reconciliation,  the  thing  was  no  longer  possible.  He  was  carried 
down  to  the  House  for  the  last  time  in  order  to  insist  that  Britain  should 
never  consent  to  a  separation,  and  should  never  yield  to  the  Bourbons, 
His  speech  was  an  answer  to  the  Duke  of  Richmond's  motion,  on  behalf 
of  the  Rockinghams,  that  all  fleets  and  armies  should  be  withdrawn  from 
America  ;  it  was  a  dying  effort.  His  suffering  and  exhaustion  were  evident, 
his  words  often  barely  audible.  Richmond  replied.  Chatham  endeavoured 
once  more  to  rise  and  speak,  but  his  strength  failed  him,  and  he  fell  back 
in  a  fit,  while  a  great  awe  fell  upon  the  House.  This  was  Chatham's  last 
utterance,  though  a  month  passed  before  the  spirit  passed  from  the  worn- 
out  frame.  So  ended  the  life  of  the  great  patriot,  whom  all  men,  friends 
and  foes  alike,  recognised  as  the  grandest  figure  of  his  time. 

The  scene  took  place  on  the  7th  April,  three  weeks  after  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  French  treaty.  North's  proposals  had  come  far  too 
late,  and  Congress  refused  to  treat  upon  any  terms  except  recognition  of 
the  complete  independence  of  America.  It  had  already  laid  before  the 
colonies  its  proposals  for  a  scheme  of  confederation,  which  were  adopted 
by  eight  of  the  states  in  the  following  July  ;  thp  rest  only  came  in 
by  slow  degrees.  Though  the  vain  attempts  at  negotiation  were  not  finally 
ai3andoned  until  October,  the  war  had  already  entered  upon  its  second 
phase  when  the  French  fleet  sailed  from  Toulon  in  April. 


668  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

IV 

THE    STRUGGLE   FOR    LIFE 

The  force  which  had  captured  Philadelphia  remained  there  through  the 
winter,  while  Washington  had  the  usual  difficulty  in  keeping  his  troops 
together  at  Valley  Forge.  Howe  was  recalled,  and  the  chief  command  was 
given  to  Clinton  in  New  York  ;  but  with  the  certainty  of  French  interven- 
tion the  General  could  not  afford  to  keep  his  forces  divided.  The  skill  of 
Admiral  Howe  successfully  carried  the  troops  which  had  occupied  Phila- 
delphia back  to  New  York  before  the  superior  French  fleet  arrived  in 
American  waters.  The  French  admiral,  D'Estaing,  had  accomplished  his 
voyage  unimpeded.  It  is  very  significant  of  the  change  which  had  taken 
place  in  the  naval  situation,  that,  although  this  fleet  from  Toulon  was  larger 
than  that  under  Howe's  command,  the  British  fleet  in  home  waters  could 
not  spare  sufficient  strength  to  interfere  with  it,  and  was  only  able  to  fight 
a  drawn  battle  with  a  second  French  fleet,  off  Ushant,  at  the  end  of  July. 
The  actual  preponderance  was  with  the  French  rather  than  with  the  British  ; 
it  v/as  ultimately  to  be  restored  to  the  British  only  because  of  their  superior 
seamanship  and  their  superior  leading.  It  may  be  confidently  affirmed 
that  if  Howe  and  D'Estaing  had  changed  places  the  French  fleet  would 
have  reached  the  mouth  of  the  Hudson  before  the  British  fleet  had  got  the 
Philadelphia  force  back  to  New  York,  and  New  York  would  have  been 
very  seriously  in  danger  of  falling. 

It  is  a  curious  feature  of  almost  all  the  naval  operations  throughout  the 
war  that  the  French,  although  habitually  in  superior  force,  always  avoided 
battle,  and  missed  repeated  opportunities  of  crushing  smaller  British 
squadrons,  while  the  British  commanders  were  constantly  prepared  to 
challenge  fleets  larger  than  their  own.  Thus  D'Estaing  did  not  venture 
to  attack  Howe  in  the  Hudson,  but  drew  off  to  the  North,  and  at  the  end 
of  the  year  betook  himself  to  the  West  Indies,  which  were  to  be  the  main 
scene  of  the  operations  of  the  rival  fleets.  At  the  same  time  Clinton  had  to 
send  away  a  large  force  from  New  York  to  be  convoyed  by  Admiral  Hotham 
to  Barbadoes.  This  would  still  have  left  the  British  commander  with  a 
sufficient  force  to  undertake  operations  against  Washington,  since  he  was 
no  longer  menaced  by  a  French  fleet  ;  but  he  was  reduced  to  inaction  by 
orders  to  despatch  anoiher  body  of  troops  to  the  southern  colonies  under 
the  command  of  Cornwallis.  Cornwallis  was  a  capable  soldier,  but  he 
could  only  overrun  the  country  without  securing  any  grip  on  it,  while  for 
once  Washington  passed  the  winter  in  comparative  security.  In  fact, 
when  the  spring  came,  his  main  difficulty  lay  in  restraining  Congress  from 
insisting  on  sending  another  expedition  to  Canada.  Washington  at  least 
was  well  aware  that  the  British  had  blundered  in  diffusing  their  energies 


CLEAVAGE  669 

over  an  extended  area,  and  he  had  no  mind  to  follow  their  example. 
Moreover,  however  useful  it  might  have  been  at  an  earlier  stage  to  involve 
Canada  in  the  struggle  against  Great  Britain,  now  that  the  Americans  were 
fighting  in  alliance  with  France  he  had  no  inclination  to  risk  making  Canada 
the  reward  of  French  assistance,  and  renewing  the  menace  of  French  rivalry 
which  had  been  removed  by  the  Seven  Years'  War. 

Neither  side  then  made  any  material  progress  in  the  land  operations  ; 
for   while   Clinton   could    not   attack   Washington,   Washington  could    not 


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The  West  Indies,  the  scene  of  English  and  French  naval  operations  1778-1779. 

attack  him  in  New  York,  especially  as  the  absence  of  D'Estaing  still  left 
the  British  in  command  of  the  communications  by  sea.  And  in  the  West 
Indies,  while  the  French  amused  themselves  by  capturing  islands  which 
they  were  perfectly  certain  to  lose  again  the  moment  the  British  should 
acquire  a  naval  predominance,  and  while  for  the  sake  of  capturing  these 
islands  they  neglected  opportunities  of  dealing  damaging  blows  to  the 
British  squadrons,  the  British  commanders  directed  their  captures  only  to 
points  of  strategical  value,  such  as  Santa  Lucia. 

For  eighteen   months,  then,  after  the  French  intervention,  no  striking 
successes  fell  to  either  party.     On  the  other  hand,  in  the  summer  of  1779 


670  THE    BRITISH   EMPIRE 

Spain  too  declared  war.  Her  effective  share  in  the  operations  was  for  some 
time  limited  to  the  siege  of  Gibraltar,  but  the  British  fleet  was  now  heavily 
outnumbered.  There  was  no  British  Mediterranean  force  to  raise  the 
siege  of  Gibraltar.  The  French  fleet  in  the  West  Indies  was  larger  than 
the  British  ;  a  combined  Franco-Spanish  fleet  which  made  a  great  naval 
demonstration  in  the  British  channel  was  very  much  larger  than  the  British 
Channel  Fleet  for  defence,  though  the  enemy  were  satisfied  with  demon- 
strating and  accomplished  nothing  further.  It  was  well  for  the  British 
that  co-operation  between  allied  navies  offers  an  even  more  difficult  problem 
than  co-operation  between  allied  armies.  Spain  made  Gibraltar  her  objec- 
tive, the  French  made  the  West  Indies  theirs.  No  attempt  was  made  to 
concentrate  for  the  purpose  of  crushing  the  British  Navy  in  detail. 

The  result  was  that  by  the  summer  of   1780  the  destruction  of  Great 


Gibraltar  before  the  great  siege  of  17SC. 
[From  a  print  by  Coquart  ] 


Britain  was  no  nearer.  In  the  northern  theatre  of  war  neither  Washington 
nor  CHnton  could  attempt  a  decisive  movement.  In  the  southern  theatre 
Cornvvallis  had  practically  put  an  end  to  open  resistance,  though  it  was 
clear  that  upon  any  withdrawal  of  forces  from  that  region  the  insurgents 
would  at  once  take  the  field  again  ;  but  the  communication  by  sea  between 
the  northern  and  southern  divisions  of  the  British  was  uninterrupted.  Both 
French  and  British  had  reinforced  the  squadrons  in  the  West  Indies  ;  the 
French,  commanded  by  Guichen,  was  still  in  greater  force,  but  the  British 
Admiral  Rodney,  on  his  way  out,  had  thrown  reliefs  into  Gibraltar  and 
had  caught  two  Spanish  squadrons  separately,  capturing  one  and  destroy- 
ing the  other.  In  July  Washington  was  reinforced  by  a  strong  contingent 
of  French  troops  under  Rochambeau  and  Lafayette.  The  substantial 
addition  to  his  forces  was  indubitably  of  great  value  to  the  American 
commander,  but  did  not  diminish  his  personal  difficulties,  since  the 
Americans  were  exceedingly  jealous  of  the  Frenchmen,  and  all  Washington's 
diplomacy  was  constantly  needed  to  prevent  an  open  rupture. 


CLEAVAGE  671 

During  the  ensuing  twelve  months  Britain  added  yet  one  more  to  the 
circle  of  her  maritime  foes  by  declaring  war  upon  Holland,  because  Holland 
joined  the  Armed  Neutrality,  a  league  of  the  Baltic  Powers  formed  in  this 
year  to  resist  the  doctrines  of  international  maritime  law  maintained  by 
Great  Britain,  which  turned  mainly  upon  the  relative  rights  of  belligerents 
and  neutrals.  The  Dutch,  however,  being  isolated,  could  not  effectively 
co-operate  with  the  other  enemies  of  Great  Britain.  The  main  results  were 
that  Negapatam  and  Trincomali,  tw^o  Dutch  stations  in  India  and  Ceylon, 
passed  into  the  hands  of  the  British,  and  there  was  one  obstinate  sea-fight 
off  the  Dogger  Bank  (August  1701),  in  which  British  and  Dutch  fought 
each  other  with  the  old  grim  equality  of  stubbornness  ;  but  though  neither 
side  could  claim  :i  decisive  victory,  the  Dutch  fleet  was  placed  practically 
hois  de  coDibat. 

An  incident  of  the  autumn  was  the  treason  of  Benedict  Arnold,  the 
American  commander  who  had  made  the  desperate  attempt  to  capture 
Quebec  in  the  first  year  of  the  war.  His  correspondence  with  Clinton 
w^as  discovered.  Arnold  made  his  escape  ;  but  a  young  British  officer, 
Major  Andre,  who  was  captured  with  letters  of  Arnold  concealed  on  his 
person,  was  hanged  as  a  spy  in  strict  accordance  with  military  law,  and  his 
fate  aroused  such  deep  public  sympathy  that  a  monument  was  erected  to 
his  memory  in  Westminster  Abbey,  whither  his  remains  were  brought  for 
burial  many  years  later.  But  the  main  importance  of  the  twelve  months 
after  the  midsummer  of  1780  lay  in  the  southern  theatre,  where  Corn- 
wallis  set  out  with  the  object  of  effecting  a  junction  with  the  northern 
force.  The  apparent  subjection  of  the  south  was  illusory.  As  Cornwallis 
progressed  from  Georgia  through  the  Carolinas  there  was  a  series  of 
engagements  ;  Cornwallis  was  repeatedly  in  danger  of  having  his  com- 
munications with  the  sea  cut  off  ;  as  he  moved  northward,  the  detachments 
left  behind  to  keep  the  country  under  control  were  cooped  up  in  Savannah, 
Charlestown,  and  Wilmington  ;  and  in  August  17  81  he  was  obliged  to 
throw  himself  into  Yorktown  at  the  mouth  of  the  Chesapeake. 

Almost  immediately  there  followed  the  decisive  blow,  so  far  as  the 
American  War  was  concerned.  In  April  the  French  Admiral,  De  Grasse, 
arrived  in  the  West  Indies  with  twenty-one  ships  of  the  line.  No  corre- 
sponding reinforcements  came  from  England,  which  had  been  obliged  to 
concentrate  on  the  relief  of  Gibraltar,  strenuously  blockaded  and  periodi- 
cally bombarded  by  the  Spaniards.  Hitherto  the  French  squadron  in  the 
North  American  waters  had  not  been  strong  enough  to  sever  the  communi- 
cations between  New  York  and  the  South.  But  now  at  last  the  opportunity 
presented  itself  for  crushing  one  of  the  two  British  divisions.  By  a  move- 
ment concerted  with  De  Grasse,  Washington,  having  convinced  Clinton 
that  he  was  preparing  for  a  concentrated  attack  on  New  York  itself, 
suddenly  descended  instead  upon  Yorktown.  De  Grasse  sailed  in  force 
from  the  West  Indies  for  the  Chesapeake,  for  once  with  a  real  justification 
lor  avoiding  an  engagement  even  with  an  inferior  British  squadron.     The 


6/2  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

combined  French  fleet  in  the  Chesapeake  greatly  outnumbered  the 
combined  British  squadrons,  which  attacked  it  but  without  success  ;  York- 
town  was  completely  cut  off  from  all  assistance,  and  in  October  Cornwallis 
was  obliged  to  surrender.  With  the  capture  of  Yorktown  American 
independence  was  no  longer  a  doubtful  issue.  The  question  was  rather 
whether  Britain  herself  would  survive.  If  De  Grasse  had  failed  to  enter 
the  Chesapeake  it  is  conceivable  that  the  American  army  would  have  broken 
up  completely  ;  for  if  Yorktown  had  received  the  relief  which  was  despatched 
too  late  from  New  York,  Cornwallis  might  have  inflicted  a  blow  from  which 
it  would  have  been  extremely  difficult  to  recover.  On  this  single  occasion 
it  can  at  least  be  maintained  that  the  French 
commander  was  right  in  staking  everything  not 
upon  the  disabling  of  the  enemy's  fleet,  but  on 
securing  the  immediate  capture  of  a  vitally  im- 
portant post.  The  Americans  owed  their  victory 
to  his  action,  though  it  had  become  as  impos- 
sible for  Britain  to  retain  her  grip  of  the  colonies 
as  it  had  been  in  old  days  for  the  Plantagenet 
to  keep  his  grip  on   Scotland. 

But  France  had  not  yet  paid  her  share  of  the 
price  for  America's  victory.  The  next  year,  1782, 
witnessed  the  final  grapple  between  Britain  and 
the  Bourbons.  In  February  Minorca  was  lost ; 
in  September  a  last  overwhelming  attack  was 
planned  upon  Gibraltar.  But  the  really  decisive 
engagement  had  already  been  fought  in  April. 
De  Grasse,  after  leaving  Yorktown,  had  again 
neglected  opportunities  of  bringing  the  smaller 
British  squadrons  in  the  West  Indies  to  an  en- 
gagement which  ought  to  have  meant  their  an- 
nihilation. In  February  Rodney  returned  thither  with  a  new  squadron, 
which  gave  the  British  a  slight  superiority  in  numbers ;  but  a  Spanish 
fleet  was  intended  to  form  a  junction  with  De  Grasse,  and  if  that  junction 
were  effected  the  allied  fleet  would  have  more  than  twice  as  many  ships 
of  the  line  as  the  British.  The  British  fleet  lay  at  Santa  Lucia  and 
the  French  fleet  at  Martinique,  when  De  Grasse  set  sail  for  the  point  of 
rendezvous  in  Hayti  and  Rodney  started  in  pursuit.  As  the  two  fleets 
passed  Dominica  the  French  admiral  again  missed  an  opportunity.  It  was 
Rodney's  business  at  all  costs  to  prevent  the  junction  ;  it  was  De  Grasse's 
business  at  almost  any  cost  to  effect  it.  The  pursuing  British  van  came  up 
with  the  French  fleet,  while  the  rear  still  lay  becalmed  under  the  lee  c  f 
Dominica.  Apparently  De  Grasse  might  have  brought  his  whole  fleet  to 
bear  upon  the  van,  and  if  he  had  done  so,  he  having  the  advantage  of  the 
wind,  the  British  must  have  been  seriously  crippled.  He  engaged,  however, 
with  only  a  part  of  his  fleet  in  order  to  ensure  the  escape  of  a  convoy,  and 


An  American  General, 
m  Barnard's  "History,"  1790.] 


CLEAVAGE  673 

then  proceeded  on  his  way.  But  four  days  later  the  British  again  caught 
him  up  before  he  was  clear  of  the  group  of  islands  called  The  Saints. 
The  victory  was  won  by  the  manoeuvre  which  is  called  breaking  the  line, 
the  British  ships  piercing  the  French  line  at  two  points,  throwing  it  into 
complete  disorder,  with  the  rear  unable  to  come  to  the  aid  of  the  van, 
and  capturing  five  ships  of  the  line,  including  the  flagship,  which  carried 
De  Grasse  himself.  This  manoeuvre  was  not  part  of  Rodney's  own  plan 
of  action,  but  was  a  happy  inspiration 
due  to  a  change  of  wind  while  the  two 
fleets  were  running  past  each  other  on 
opposite  tacks  ;  and  it  is  held  that  if 
Rodney  had  made  full  use  of  his  victory 
he  ought  to  have  annihilated  the  French 
fleet.  But  as  it  was  he  made  the  junc- 
tion with  the  Spaniards  impossible,  and 
secured  a  quite  decisive  ascendency  in 
the  West  Indian  waters. 

In  September  the  last  furious  attack 
upon  Gibraltar  was  repulsed  by  the  in- 
domitable valour  of  the  besieged,  and 
Sir  George  Elliott's  magnificent  defence 
was  followed  by  a  skilful  relief  effect  by 
Lord  Howe.  There  was  no  more  fear 
that  Gibraltar  would  be  taken.  There 
remains  only  one  belated  phase  of  the 
war  to  be  dealt  with  in  the  account  of 
Indian  affairs,  to  which  we  shall  turn 
immediately. 

After  the  winter  of  17 81  no  one 
in  England  believed  that  it  would  be 
possible  to  refuse  the  American  demand 
for     independence.       After      Rodney's 

victory  in  the  West  Indies,  and  the  demonstration  that  Gibraltar  was  im- 
pregnable, the  Bourbon  Powers  could  no  longer  feel  any  confidence  that 
a  continuation  of  the  war  would  bring  them  any  advantage.  As  for  the 
British,  they  had  already  suffered  so  severely  that  they  were  ready  both  to 
concede  American  independence  and  to  make  peace  with  the  Bourbons 
upon  honourable  terms.  The  preliminaries  of  peace  were  agreed  upon  by 
all  the  parties  at  the  beginning  of  1783,  though  the  definitive  Treaty  of 
Versailles  was  not  signed  till  the  following  September.  The  conclusion  of 
the  war  brought  no  very  serious  changes  other  than  the  separation  of  the 
thirteen  colonies  from  the  mother  country  and  their  formation  into  the 
United  States.  In  effect  there  w^as  a  general  restoration  of  conquests, 
except  for  the  retention  of  Minorca  and  Florida  by  Spain. 


Admiral  Sir  George  Rodney. 
[From  the  portrait  by  Reynolds.] 


2  U 


674  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 


WARREN    HASTINGS    IN    INDIA 

While  King  George's  government  was  forcing  on  the  rupture  with  the 
colonies  in  America,  while  the  British  nation  was  fighting  its  own  offspring, 
and  losing  the  major  portion  of  its  empire  in  the  Western  Hemisphere, 
and  finally  was  struggling  desperately  to  preserve  its  own  existence  as  the 
premier  maritime  Power,  events  of  hardly  less  importance  were  fixing  firmly 
the  foundations  of  British  dominion  in  India.  Almost  Warren  Hastings 
might  have  said,  "  Alone  I  did  it."  The  achievement  was  his,  for  almost 
without  exception  his  colleagues  thwarted  and  counteracted  him  at  every 
turn,  and  half  of  the  difficulties  which  were  not  imposed  upon  him  by 
their  actual  malice  were  the  outcome  of  the  blundering  stupidity  of 
authorities  who  acted  without  reference  to  him.  He  had  no  voice  in  the 
selection  of  the  colleagues  or  the  authorities  who  thwarted  him.  The 
directors  from  home  sent  him  admirable  moral  instructions,  but  instead 
of  providing  means  for  carrying  them  out,  clamoured  for  handsome  profits. 
He  was  forced  into  wars  with  the  country  powers,  while  his  own  country 
could  spare  neither  ships  nor  troops  to  help  him.  And  in  the  face  of  these 
enormous  difficulties  he  preserved  the  British  power  and  left  it  on  a  footing 
which  enabled  his  successors  to  secure  a  decisive  ascendency. 

Clive  did  much  to  reduce  the  evils  w^hich  had  followed  naturally  upon 
the  sudden  acquisition  of  a  vast  irresponsible  power  by  a  trading  company. 
But  he  could  not  create  an  imperial  system  single-handed.  The  company's 
servants  still  evaded  their  responsibilities,  still  utilised  their  opportunities  to 
make  improper  profits,  and  still  neglected  to  make  it  their  first  aim  to  learn 
how  the  new  territories  ought  to  be  governed.  There  was  still  no  central 
British  authority  in  India.  The  three  Presidencies  of  Madras,  Bengal,  ar.d 
Bombay  were  governed  each  by  its  own  governor  and  council,  and  by  land 
no  one  of  them  could  even  communicate  with  another  except  across 
Maratha  territory. 

In  1772  Warren  Hastings,  then  acting  as  second  official  in  Madras,  was 
made  Governor  of  Bengal,  where  before  dive's  last  visit  to  India  he  had 
been  honourably  distinguished  by  his  efforts  to  support  Vansittart  in  check- 
ing the  general  misrule.  It  was  not  till  two  years  later  that  the  Governor 
of  Bengal  was  elevated  into  the  position  of  Governor-General  of  the  British 
dominions  in  India.  An  account  of  the  career  of  W^arren  Hastings  must 
still  to  a  very  large  extent  take  the  form  of  a  defence,  because  the  literary 
forces  which  were  arrayed  to  denounce  him  during  the  best  part  of  a 
century  were  so  powerful  and  were  applied  with  such  picturesque  effect  as 
to  produce  the  almost  indelible  but  exceedingly  misleading  impression  of  an 


CLEAVAGE  675 

able  but  unscrupulous  and  tyrannical  governor,  who  achieved  his  ends  very 
largely  by  grossly  iniquitous  methods. 

The  first  instance  is  that  of  the  Rohilla  war  which  took  place  while  he 
was  only  Governor  of  Bengal.  Macaulay's  exceedingly  picturesque  account, 
given  in  his  essay  on  Warren  Hastings,  is  a  quite  astonishing  distortion  of 
demonstrable  truth.  Just  before  the  outbreak  of  hostilities  between  French 
and  British,  about  the  time  when  Nadir  Shah  swept  over  the  north-west  of 
India  and  sacked  Delhi,  a  band  of  Mohammedan  Afghans  called  the  Rohillas 
made  themselves  masters  of  the  territory  lying  on  the  north-western  frontier 
of  the  province  of  Oudh.  In  1770  some  forty  thousand  Rohillas  domi- 
nated the  very  much  larger  Hindu  population  in  occupation  of  the  soil. 
They  were  lords  there  by  right  of  conquest  and  nothing  else  ;  they  had 
been  there  for  considerably  less  than  half  a  century.  They  were  a  fighting 
race,  and  they  rendered  considerable  service  to  Ahmed  Shah  when  he  smote 
the  Marathas  at  Paniput.  The  Marathas  wanted  to  punish  them  ;  they 
appealed  to  the  wazir  of  Oudh  for  defence  against  the  Marathas,  and  the 
wazir,  counting  them  a  valuable  buffer  against  Maratha  aggression,  promised 
to  defend  them  in  consideration  of  a  large  indemnity. 

The  Rohillas  did  not  pay  the  indemnity,  and  the  wazir  believed,  or 
pretended  to  believe,  that  they  were  arranging  a  compact  with  the  Marathas 
for  the  partition  of  Oudh.  He  put  the  case  to  Hastings  that  the  expulsion 
of  the  Rohillas  and  the  annexation  of  Rohilkhand  to  Oudh  were  necessary 
for  the  preservation  of  Oudh  against  an  alliance  between  Marathas  and 
Rohillas.  And  he  invited  Hastings  to  participate  by  lending  him  troops, 
for  which  assistance  substantial  payment  would  be  made.  The  preserva- 
tion of  Oudh  was  an  essential  feature  of  the  policy  laid  down  by  Clive  and 
adopted  by  Hastings,  who  acceded  to  Shujah  Daulah's  proposals  and  sent 
a  force  to  help  in  the  suppression  of  the  Rohillas.  Experience  had  not  yet 
taught  the  necessity  of  stipulating  that  British  assistance  should  not  be 
given  unless  the  operations  of  war  were  carried  on  under  British  control. 
The  wazir  conducted  the  war  upon  oriental  principles,  in  spite  of  protests 
from  the  British  commander  ;  but  the  suggestion  that  Hastings  lent  himself 
to  an  act  of  w-anton  aggression  by  a  greedy  and  cruel  potentate  against  an 
idyllic  community  for  the  sake  of  a  bribe  is  preposterously  remote  from  the 
fact. 

Meanwhile,  Government  at  home  had  awakened  to  the  fact  that  the 
British  nation  must  accept  some  share  of  responsibility  for  the  govern- 
ment of  India.  A  commission  of  inquiry  gave  an  opening  for  a  virulent 
attack  upon  Clive  in  parliament,  but,  to  the  credit  of  the  country,  the  House 
rejected  a  proposed  vote  of  censure,  and  affirmed  instead  that  Clive  had 
rendered  great  services  to  the  state.  But  while  parliament  exonerated  the 
man  to  whom  the  country  owed  so  much,  it  applied  itself  also  to  a  singular 
experiment  in  constitution  making.  It  devised  for  India  the  system  of 
Lord  North's  Regulating  Act.  The  Governor  of  Bengal  was  to  be  Governor- 
General  of  India  ;  the  governors  of  the  other  two  Presidencies  being  sub- 


6/6  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

ordinate.  But  he  was  to  have  a  nominated  council  consisting  of  four 
members  besides  himself.  The  votes  of  the  five  members  of  council  v^'ere 
of  equal  force,  the  Governor-General  having  a  casting  vote  only  when  the 
voting  was  otherwise  equal.  Also  there  was  to  be  a  High  Court  of  Justice 
consisting  of  four  judges,  who  were  to  be  responsible  not  to  the  Govern- 
ment of  India  but  to  the  Crown.  Three  members  of  the  new  council  were 
sent  out  from  England,  who  apparently  regarded  themselves  as  a  com- 
mittee appointed  for  the  express  purpose  of  overriding  the  will  of  the 
Governor-General  in  every  particular.  It  would  hardly  have  been  possible 
to  devise  a  scheme  more  hopelessly  impracticable.  Moreover,  the  Govern- 
ment of  India  was  itself  in  the  long  run  responsible  to  the  management 
of  the  East  India  Company  in  London,  which  was  vested  in  two  bodies, 
the  court  of  directors  and  the  court  of  proprietors  or  large  shareholders. 

From  the  time  of  their  arrival  in  India  at  the  end  of  1774  the  three 
members  of  the  council,  Francis,  Clavering,  and  Monson,  commonly  known 
as  the  Triumvirate,  set  themselves  to  reverse  whatever  could  be  reversed  in 
the  past  doings  of  Hastings,  and  to  thwart  his  actions  in  the  present.  To 
this  strife  between  the  Governor-General  and  his  council  belongs  an  incident 
too  notorious  to  be  passed  over.  The  Triumvirate  deliberately  set  them- 
selves to  procure  evidence  which  could  be  used  for  a  formal  attack  upon 
Hastings.  An  instrument  upon  whom  they  relied  was  a  high-caste 
Brahmin,  Nanda  Kumar,  whose  name  has  been  popularised  as  Nuncomar. 
Nuncomar  was  an  adept  at  the  fabrication  of  evidence,  and  Hastings  was 
preparing  to  indict  him  for  conspiracy  when  he  was  relieved  from  the 
necessity  for  further  action.  The  new  High  Court  of  Justice  presented  an 
opportunity  to  an  old  enemy  of  Nuncomar,  one  Mohun  Persad,  who  charged 
him  before  the  court  with  forgery.  The  court  administered  English  law, 
and  forgery  under  English  law  was  a  capital  offence.  The  court,  after  a 
long  and  entirely  fair  examination,  found  Nuncomar  guilty  and  condemned 
him  to  death.  They  could  have  done  nothing  else.  But  the  incident  has 
been  ingeniously  perverted  so  as  to  represent  Sir  Elijah  Impey,  the  Chief 
Justice,  as  a  kind  of  Judge  Jeffreys,  and  the  trial  itself  as  in  effect  a  conspiracy 
for  the  protection  of  Hastings  and  the  destruction  of  Nuncomar.  It  would 
be  nearer  tlie  truth  to  say  that  a  conspiracy  against  Hastings  was  thwarted 
by  the  fortunate  accident  that  Nuncomar  had  exposed  himself  to  destruc- 
tion at  tiie  hands  of  a  private  enemy. 

Meanwhile,  however,  Bombay  had  chosen  to  assert  itself,  with  dis- 
astrous results.  A  posthumous  child  was  born  to  the  late  peishwa  of 
Puna.  But  before  the  child's  birth  the  functions  of  the  peishwaship  were 
discharged  by  a  kinsman,  Ragonath  Rao,  or  Ragoba,  who  wished  to  remain 
peishwa  ;  but  the  adherents  of  the  infant  were  too  strong  for  him.  The 
other  chiefs  of  the  Maratha  confederacy,  Sindhia,  Holkar,  the  Gaekwar  and 
the  Bhonsla  (three  of  these  titles  are  born  by  hereditary  princes  to  the 
present  day),  were  in  no  haste  to  commit  themselves.  Ragoba  appealed  to 
the   authorities  at   Bombay  to  support  his  cause,  for  which  support  they 


India  and  the  British  Dominion  in  1785. 
677 


678  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

demanded,  and  were  promised  as  their  price,  the  ports  of  Salsette  and 
Bassein.  The  Bombay  governor  had  no  power  to  conclude  such  a  treaty, 
since  Hastings  was  already  Governor-General.  Hastings  was  entirely 
averse  from  superfluous  meddling  in  native  politics.  But  the  Bombay 
authorities  proceeded  to  active  hostilities  on  behalf  of  Ragoba  before  there 
was  time  to  stop  them.  Hastings  felt  that  in  the  circumstances  withdrawal 
was  impossible.  But  the  Triumvirate  overrode  Hastings,  and  negotiated 
a  treaty  with  the  regency  acting  for  the  infant  peishwa  at  Puna.  But  then 
came  the  news  that  a  French  adventurer  had  arrived  at  Puna,  while  the 
intervention  of  France  in  the  American  War  just  at  this  time  pointed  to  a 
serious  danger  of  the  revival  of  the  French  question  in  India.  The  Trium- 
virate at  Calcutta  had  been  broken  up  by  the  deaths  of  Monson  and  Claver- 
ing.  With  his  hands  thus  freed,  therefore,  Hastings  designed  to  co-operate 
with  Bombay  again  in  making  Ragoba  peishwa.  Bombay  did  not  wait  to 
co-operate,  but  blundered  into  disaster  in  a  hurry  ;  only  the  brilliant  march 
across  India  of  a  small  force  despatched  by  Hastings  under  Captain 
Goddard  saved  Bombay  from  an  altogether  ignominious  collapse.  Negotia- 
tions with  the  different  Maratha  chiefs,  all  of  whom  played  fast  and  loose 
with  each  other  and  with  the  British,  occupied  the  eighteen  months  follow- 
ing Goddard's  arrival  in  the  West — varied  with  occasional  skirmishes. 

Meanwhile,  Madras  had  not  been  idle  in  the  work  of  mischief-making. 
The  authorities  there  had  in  1773  made  a  present  of  Tanjur,  which  was 
not  theirs  to  give,  to  the  Nawab  of  the  Carnatic,  ostensibly  because  it 
would  be  inconvenient  if  Tanjur  happened  to  turn  hostile,  actually  because 
the  Nawab  of  Arcot  was  heavily  in  debt  to  various  servants  of  the  company, 
and  the  possession  of  Tanjur  might  help  him  to  pay  a  dividend.  Then,  after 
the  Madras  council  had  arrested  and  imprisoned  the  exceedingly  arbitrary 
Governor  Pigott,  who  had  been  sent  out  to  try  to  restore  order,  the 
authorities  proceeded  to  alarm  the  Nizam  by  proposing  to  cancel  in  the 
existing  treaties  with  him  such  details  as  were  inconvenient  to  them.  As 
this  was  just  at  the  time  when  Bombay  had  plunged  itself  into  its  worst 
difficulties,  the  Nizam  thought  the  moment  opportune  for  forming  an  anti- 
British  coalition  with  the  Marathas  and  Haidar  Ali  of  Mysore,  and  perhaps 
with  the  French  at  Mauritius. 

Now  for  the  past  ten  years  Haidar,  a  born  captain,  had  been  organising 
in  Mysore  an  army  more  powerful  than  had  been  wielded  by  any  potentate 
since  the  death  of  Aurangzib.  He  was  much  too  shrewd  to  be  in  a  hurry 
to  quarrel  with  the  British,  with  whom  he  would  have  preferred  an  alliance ; 
but  the  conduct  of  the  Madras  authorities  was  not  encouraging.  Then 
came  the  declaration  of  war  between  Britain  and  France  ;  Haidar  opened 
communications  with  Mauritius.  Hastings,  as  a  matter  of  course,  issued 
from  Calcutta  orders  for  the  seizure  of  the  French  factories.  The  French 
port  of  Mahu  on  the  west  coast  could  not  be  attacked  without  violating 
Haidar's  territory,  nevertheless  the  British  seized  it  without  reference  to 
him.     This    was  the  last   straw;  and   suddenly  in   July   1780    Haidar   Ali 


CLEAVAGE  679 

swept  down  from  Mysore  into  the  Carnatic  with  a  hundred  tnousand  men, 
ravaged  the  whole  country,  cut  up  one  British  detachment,  and  swept  all  the 
whites  into  Madras. 

It  was  fortunate  that  the  native  powers  were  incapable  of  making  common 
cause  for  any  long  time.  The  Nizam  at  once  became  more  afraid  of  Haidar 
than  of  the  British.  The  Maratha  chiefs  were  playing  each  one  for  his 
own  hand.  At  the  moment  Sindhia  and  Holkar  were  on  the  side  of  the 
Puna  regency ;  the  Gaekwar  and  the  Bhonsla,  the  most  westerly  and  the 
most  easterly  of  the  confederacy,  were  keeping  aloof.  In  August,  while 
Haidar  was  ravaging  the  Carnatic,  a  small  British  force  under  Popham  and 
Bruce,  which  had  been  detached  to  Sindhia's  territory,  completely  restored 
the  prestige  of  British  arms  by  surprising  and  capturing  that  prince's  head- 
quarters, the  rock  fortress  of  Gwalior,  which  was  supposed  to  be  impregnable. 
Sindhia,  who  had  been  acting  farther  south  in  conjunction  with  Holkar, 
was  at  once  drawn  back  to  take  care  of  his  own  territories,  the  Gaekwar 
and  the  Bhonsla  decided  to  do  nothing,  and  Sindhia,  finding  that  Holkar 
was  gaining  credit  at  his  expense,  began  to  reconsider  the  position.  Thus 
the  opportune  capture  of  Gwalior  had  the  practical  effect  of  preventing  any 
other  power  from  co-operating  with  Haidar,  and  of  leaving  Hastings  free 
to  concentrate  almost  exclusively  upon  the  defence  of  the  Carnatic.  Eyre 
Coote  was  despatched  thither  from  Calcutta,  and  although  he  was  grievously 
hampered  by  the  mismanagement  of  the  Madras  government,  he  routed 
Haidar's  forces  three  times  during  the  summer  of  1781.  It  was  just  after 
this  that  the  declaration  of  war  between  Britain  and  Holland  led  to  the 
capture  of  Negapatam  and  Trincomali. 

The  close  of  17 81,  however,  was  the  lowest  moment  of  the  British 
fortunes.  Yorktown  fell,  Britain  had  lost  her  naval  supremacy,  and  the 
ablest,  perhaps,  of  all  French  admirals,  Suffren,  was  making  for  the  Indian 
Seas.  Still  the  obstinate  valour  of  the  British  commander  Hughes  and  his 
subordinates,  displayed  during  1782  in  a  series  of  engagements  none  of 
which  could  be  definitely  described  as  a  victory  for  either  side,  prevented  the 
brilliant  abilities  of  the  French  admiral  from  effecting  anything  of  a  decisive 
character.  The  old  Sultan  of  Mysore — he  was  eighty  years  of  age — died, 
and  was  succeeded  by  his  much  less  capable  if  equally  ambitious  son  Tippu 
Sahib  or  Tippu  Sultan  ;  and  in  the  following  year,  just  as  it  seemed  that 
the  decisive  struggle  was  on  the  point  of  taking  place,  the  news  came  that 
the  peace  preliminaries  had  been  signed  between  France  and  Great  Britain. 
The  Madras  government,  in  defiance  of  Hastings,  stopped  the  operations 
against  Tippu  and  made  peace  with  him  on  terms  which  he  was  able  to 
represent  as  having  been  dictated  by  himself  as  victor.  Hostilities  with  the 
Marathas  had  ceased  some  time  earlier. 

Hastings  had  not  desired  or  aimed  at  any  extension  of  British  territory, 
and  the  only  actual  addition  made  under  him  to  the  British  dominion  was 
that  of  the  district  of  Benares,  ceded  by  Oudh  in  return  for  British  support. 
But  it  was  his  vigour  and  audacity  which  enabled  Goddard  and  Popham  to 


68o  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

neutralise  the  blunders  of  Bombay,  and  permitted  Eyre  Coote  to  retrieve 
the  position  in  the  Carnatic  which  had  been  so  terribly  jeopardised  by  the 
government  of  Madras.  It  was  the  diplomacy  of  Hastings  which  severed 
the  Gaekwar  and  the  Bhonsla  from  the  Maratha  confederacy,  and  impressed 
upon  the  particularly  intelligent  Sindhia  the  wisdom  of  avoiding  an  irrecon- 
cilable breach  with  the  British.  Happily,  during  the  greater  part  of  these 
complications  with  the  country  powers  Hastings  had  very  nearly  a  free 
hand,  because  of  the  disappearance  of  the  cabal  against  him  in  his  own 
council ;  though  at  the  last  he  again  lost  some  of  his  freedom  of  action, 
because  the  cabal  against  him  in  England,  reinforced  by  Sir  Philip  Francis, 
was  in  the  ascendant.  But  we  have  still  to  give  attention  to  some  other 
aspects  of  his  rule  in  Bengal  itself  and  with  relation  to  Oudh. 

These  are  affairs  of  which  the  most  conspicuous  belong  rather  to  the 
province  of  the  biographer  rather  than  of  the  historian,  since  they  did  not 
permanently  affect  the  position  of  the  British,  whereas  they  were  utilised 
as  leading  features  in  indictments  against  the  Governor-General.  Still  they 
cannot  be  passed  over.  The  first  of  these  is  the  suppression  of  Cheyte 
Singh,  the  Rajah  of  Benares. 

When  Shujah  Daulah,  the  Oudh  wazir,  died,  he  was  succeeded  by  his 
son,  Asaf  ud-Daulah.  The  Triumvirate,  newly  arrived  in  India,  made  ex- 
ceedingly heavy  demands  on  the  new  wazir,  insisting  on  an  increase  of  the 
subsidies  granted  by  his  father  for  the  maintenance  of  troops  under  British 
control  in  Oudh.  They  required  also  for  the  same  purpose  the  cession 
of  the  district  of  Benares,  and  at  the  same  time  they  caused  very  serious 
embarrassment  to  the  wazir  by  guaranteeing  to  the  royal  ladies  or  Begums, 
his  mother  and  grandmother,  a  quantity  of  treasure  left  by  the  old  wazir, 
as  well  as  sundry  very  rich  estates  which  ought  in  the  natural  course  to 
have  supplied  the  wazir's  exchequer. 

Now  the  title  of  Rajah,  which  had  been  conferred  upon  Cheyte  Singh's 
father  by  the  Oudh  wazir,  has  no  very  precise  translation.  A  rajah  might 
be  an  independent  monarch,  or  he  might  be  merely  a  big  landowner  or 
zemindar,  whose  title  meant  less  than  that  of  an  earl  in  England.  Cheyte 
Singh,  in  short,  was  a  vassal  of  the  wazir  of  Oudh,  who,  by  the  transfer  of 
Benares  to  the  British,  became  a  vassal  of  the  British.  He  had  paid  a 
tribute  to  the  wazir,  and  that  tribute  was  now  due  to  the  British.  When 
the  Maratha  war  increased  the  Bengal  exchequer's  chronic  need  of  money, 
Hastings  demanded  an  increase  of  tribute  from  Benares.  Such  demands 
were  a  normal  part  of  the  oriental  system  ;  if  the  overlord  could  enforce 
them,  they  were  paid  ;  if  he  could  not,  they  were  not  paid.  Cheyte  Singh 
tried  to  evade  payment;  Hastings  imposed  a  fine  by  way  of  penalty.  Still 
the  rajah  evaded  payment.  Hastings  went  to  Benares  with  a  very  small 
escort  and  arrested  him  ;  the  population  rose,  and  Hastings  was  in  no  little 
personal  danger.  Nevertheless  the  revolt  was  very  promptly  suppressed  ; 
the  rajah  was  deposed,  and  Benares  was  forfeited  to  the  company.  The 
fines  imposed  were  heavy  enough  to  be  called  vindictive,  though  in  no  way 


CLEAVAGE  68 1 

contrary  to  oriental  precedent;  but  Hastings  had  the  excuse  that  Cheyte 
Singh  was  under  very  strong  suspicion  of  treasonable  correspondence  with 
Haidar  Ali,  or  at  least  of  taking  advantage  of  Haidar  All's  hostility  to  the 
British  to  seek  his  own  liberation  from  his  British  overlords.  The  most 
serious  interpretation  of  Hastings's  action  was  that  he  deliberately  intended 
to  goad  Cheyte  Singh  into  revolt  in  order  to  have  an  excuse  for  forfeiting 
Benares ;   but  that  view  is  hardly  warranted  by  the  facts. 

Next  comes  the  affair  of  the  Oudh  Begums.  Asaf  ud-Daulah,  having 
his  revenues  seriously  curtailed  as  compared  with  those  of  his  father  by  the 
action  of  the  Bengal  government  controlled  by 
the  Triumvirate,  failed  to  meet  his  obligations. 
Tiie  Bengal  government  threatened  him,  where- 
upon he  pointed  out  that  he  would  have  been  able 
to  meet  his  obligations  if  the  British  had  not 
guaranteed  to  the  Begums  the  treasure  which 
ought  to  have  been  at  his  disposal.  That  guarantee 
had  been  given  by  the  vote  of  the  majority  of  the 
council,  in  flat  defiance  of  the  Governor-General. 
But  the  Triumvirate  was  now  dissolved,  and 
Hastings  considered  himself  at  liberty  to  withdraw 
the  guarantee.  Moreover,  there  was  again  the  ex- 
cuse that  the  Begums  were  more  than  suspected  of 
having  encouraged  and  supported  Cheyte  Singh. 
Hastings  cancelled  the  guarantee  ;  the  wazir  pro- 
ceeded to  make  seizure  of  the  treasure  ;  the  Begums 
resisted,  and  were  declared  to  be  in  a  state  of  re- 
bellion, which  justified  his  intervention.  With  the 
help  of  the  British,  the  wazir  had  no  difficulty  in 
enforcing  his  claims  ;  but,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Rohillas,  no  proper  steps  were  taken  to  prevent  him  from  adopting  oriental 
methods  in  the  treatment  of  the  Begums  and  their  supporters,  although 
ultimately  the  Begums  were  placed  upon  a  fairly  liberal  allowance.  There 
is  no  possible  doubt  that  in  both  these  cases  Hastings  was  actuated  by 
the  pressing  need  of  replenishing  the  exchequer,  and  that  a  severity  was 
exercised  for  which  only  extreme  need  could  furnish  a  plausible  excuse. 
But  indubitably  the  extreme  need  was  there,  and,  judged  by  native 
standards  and  native  practice,  the  Governor-General's  action  was  a  mere 
matter  of  course. 

A  third  matter  which  has  been  employed  to  blacken  the  fair  fame  not 
so  much  of  Hastings  as  of  Chief  Justice  Impey  is  the  contest  between  the 
supreme  court  and  the  council,  and  the  compromise  by  which  it  was 
terminated.  We  have  seen  that  the  judges  sent  out  from  England  claimed 
to  be  responsible  only  to  the  Crown,  not  to  the  council  in  India  or  to  the 
directors  and  proprietors  at  home.  They  seem  to  have  regarded  it  as 
their  special  function  to  call  government  officials  to  account.     The  com- 


Asaf  ud-Daulah,  Wazir  of  Oudh. 

[From  a  contemporary  painting  by 
Home  belonging  to  the  Royal 
Abiatic  Society.] 


682  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

pany's  officers  were  perpetually  haled  before  the  court  sitting  at  Calcutta 
by  every  one  with  a  grievance  real  or  fictitious,  until  the  administration 
was  brought  almost  to  a  standstill.  At  length  the  council,  who  had 
control  of  the  troops,  were  driven  to  ordering  the  orders  of  the  courts 
to  be  ignored.  Such  a  state  of  things  could  not  be  allowed  to  continue. 
Hastings  had  no  wish  to  rob  the  supreme  court  of  legitimate  authority,  but 
an  authority  which  endeavoured  to  override  the  Government  itself  could  not 
be  regarded  as  legitimate.  As  matters  stood,  the  ordinary  jurisdiction  in  the 
country  for  criminal  cases  was  in  the  hands  of  the  nawab's  officials,  while 

the  fiscal  and  civil  jurisdictions  were  in 
the  hands  of  the  company's  revenue 
officers,  the  fiscal  questions  being  those 
of  primary  importance.  Hastings  sepa- 
rated the  civil  and  fiscal  courts,  and  con- 
stituted a  court  of  appeal  in  Calcutta  ; 
and  he  offered  the  presidency  of  this 
court  of  appeal  to  Impey  as  an  officer 
of  the  company.  By  this  means  the 
practical  supervision  of  legal  administra- 
tion was  put  in  the  hands  of  the  Chief 
Justice,  although,  acting  as  an  officer  of 
the  company,  he  was,  in  that  position,  re- 
sponsible to  the  council.  The  compro- 
mise was  a  perfectly  reasonable  method 
of  getting  rid  of  a  hopeless  deadlock. 
Macaulay  has  succeeded  in  translating 
the  transaction  into  a  huge  piece  of  cor- 
ruption on  the  part  of  Impey,  because 
a  substantial  salary  was  attached  to  his 
new  position  ;  but  in  fact  it  was  only  by  the  expedient  of  enabling  him 
to  exercise  supervisory  functions  as  a  servant  of  the  company  that  he 
could  be  freed  from  the  necessity  of  exercising  them  as  an  independent 
authority,  and  he  could  not  exercise  them  as  an  independent  authority 
without  coming  into  collision  with  the  council.  The  arrangement  was  a 
modus  Vivendi  which  required  sanction  from  home  to  be  rendered  per- 
manent, and  the  purpose  in  view  was  subst.intially  achieved.  Impey, 
however,  was  consistently  a  supporter  of  Hastings,  and  consequently 
his  conduct,  like  that  of  Hastings  himself,  was  habitually  distorted  and 
misrepresented  by  the  cabal  in  England,  whose  presentation  of  the  case 
against  Hastings  generally  won  public  z  xcptance  until  the  investigations 
of  a  later  age  revealed  their  injustice. 


Warren  Hastings. 
[After  the  portrait  by  Lawrence] 


CLEAVAGE 


683 


VI 


NORTH,  THE   WHIGS,   AND   THE  YOUNGER    PITT 

Lord  North  held  office  from  1770  till  IMarch  1782.  Throughout  tha.t 
time  the  king  was  supreme.  North  did  his  bidding,  often  very  much 
against  his  own  will ;  and  at  the  general  elections  which  took  place  the 
ministry  always  retained 
thesupportof  thecountry. 
That  support  had  been 
won  by  the  Crown's  ap- 
propriation of  the  old 
methods  by  which  Wal- 
poie  and  Newcastle  had 
procured  their  majorities. 
Public  money,  patronage 
carried  through  every  de- 
partment, the  distribution 
of  sinecures,  the  ejection 
of  political  opponents 
from  every  kind  of  office 
in  civil,  military,  and 
naval  administration,  se- 
cured the  subserviency  of 
parliament  and  the  votes 
of  the  electorate.  The 
system  broke  down  in  the 
long  run  because  it  pro- 
duced an  inefficiency  so 
intolerable  that  the  king 
was  obliged  to  place  him- 
self in  the  hands  of  ministers  who  declined  to  look  upon  obedience  to 
the  Crown  as  their  first  duty.  After  an  interval  he  found  a  minister  of  a 
very  different  type  from  Lord  North,  with  whom  he  could  work  in  harmony 
but  whom  he  could  not  dominate.  He  retained  enough  of  his  personal 
power  to  be  able  in  one  critical  case  to  override  that  minister's  will 
with  disastrous  results  ;  but  the  new  royal  supremacy  which  operated 
during  Lord  North's  twelve  years  was  a  proved  failure  and  was  not  again 
revived. 

The  North  administration,  destructive  from  an  imperial  point  of  view, 
was  almost  barren  in  domestic  affairs.  One  measure  for  the  relief  of  Roman 
Catholics  in  1778  stand  to  its  credit.  Their  disabilities  in  the  inheritance 
and  purchase  of  land  were  abolished,  and  the  celebration  of  the  Roman 


684  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

Catholic  rites  ceased  to  be  a  penal  offence  in  England.  Nevertheless,  the 
proposal  of  a  similar  measure  for  Scotland  was  received  in  that  country 
with  such  an  outburst  of  fanatical  wrath  that  it  had  to  be  dropped.  Even 
in  England  it  was  possible  to  work  up  the  "  No  Popery  "  agitation  to  such 
a  pitch  that  in  1780  the  half-crazed  Lord  George  Gordon  stirred  up  a 
frenzy  of  rioting  which  the  most  disorderly  elements  of  the  com- 
munity turned  to  their  own  account.  Prisons  were  broken  open,  much 
damage  was  done,  and  the  disturbances  were  only  suppressed  when  the  king 
himself  assumed  the  responsibility  of  which  ministers  were  afraid  and 
ordered  out  the  military  to  deal  with  the  rioters. 

The  corruption  of  the  existing  system  was  brought  home  to  the  Whigs 
when  they  found  it  employed  against  them  instead  of  in  the  interests  of  the 
great  Whig  families.  The  North  administration  began  to  totter  at  the  end 
of  1777.  North  himself  would  willingly  have  given  place  to  Chatham,  but 
Chatham  died ;  the  only  alternative  to  North  was  a  Rockingham  adminis- 
tration, and  North  held  on.  The  Whigs  directed  their  attacks  against  the 
system  which  excluded  them  from  office  ;  Burke  brought  in  a  bill  for 
"  Economic  Reform,"  which  meant  mainly  the  abolition  of  sinecures  and  of 
the  expenditure  of  public  money  as  a  means  of  corruption.  But  when  it 
came  to  details  so  many  private  interests  were  touched  that  the  bill  failed. 
Chatham  himself,  at  an  earlier  stage,  had  desired  a  parliamentary  reform 
which  would  have  abolished  the  pocket  boroughs,  and  would  to  a  consider- 
able extent  have  anticipated  the  great  Reform  Bill  which  was  passed  in 
1832.  But  both  the  king  and  the  Whigs  relied  too  much  on  the  manipula- 
tion of  pocket  boroughs  to  approve  of  such  a  plan.  The  most  notable 
outcome  in  parliament  of  the  attack  upon  the  prevailing  system  was  the 
passing  in  1780  of  Dunning's  famous  resolution  that  "The  power  of  the 
Crown  has  increased,  is  increasing,  and  ought  to  be  diminished." 

The  disasters  of  the  war,  however,  culminating  in  the  surrender  at 
Yorktown,  made  it  impossible  for  the  king  to  maintain  his  resistance  to 
North's  resignation.  In  March  1782  Rockingham  accepted  the  task  of 
forming  an  administration,  prominent  in  which  were  Lord  Shelburne,  who 
represented  Chatham's  personal  followers,  and  Charles  James  Fox,  the  son 
of  Chatham's  ancient  rival,  who  at  a  very  early  stage  had  identified  himself 
with  the  most  extreme  section  of  those  Whigs  who  advocated  the  colonial 
cause  in  the  most  uncompromising  fashion  as  the  cause  of  political  liberty. 
Burke,  by  far  the  greatest  man  among  the  Whigs,  was  not  regarded  as  a 
practical  parliamentarian  and  was  given  only  a  minor  office.  William  Pitt, 
the  younger  son  of  Lord  Chatham,  who  had  already  astonished  the  House 
by  his  precocious  talents,  declined,  though  he  was  only  two  and  twenty,  to 
join  the  ministry  in  a  subordinate  position.  Three  months  later  Rocking- 
ham died.  Shelburne,  by  the  king's  choice,  became  the  head  of  the  ministry, 
and  Fox  resigned,  being  followed  into  opposition  by  Burke  and  some  others 
who  were  personally  hostile  to  Shelburne,  who,  in  his  turn,  was  the  minister 
most   in    personal    accord    with   the  king,  with   the  exception    of  the   Lord 


CLEAVAGE  685 

Chancellor  Thurlow,  the  one  survivor  from  North's  cabinet.      Young   Pitt 
took  office  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer. 

The  Shelburne  ministry  was  divided  by  distrust ;  its  main  business  was 
the  settlement  of  the  terms  of  peace.  Fox  with  his  followers,  and  North 
with  his  followers,  joined  in  attacking  the  Government,  which  was  deserted 
by  one  after  another  of  its  members.  In  February  1783  the  two  leaders 
of  the  Opposition  formed  an  open  coalition.  Such  a  junction  of  opposites 
was  without  parallel,  but  it  was  decisive.  Shelburne  resigned  ;  and  after 
some  weeks  of  despairing  efforts  to  procure  a  ministry  to  his  liking,  George 
was  obliged  to  surrender  to  the  coalition.  The  Treasury  was  given  to 
Portland  as  the  nominal  head  of  the  administration,  while  Fox  and  North 
became  Secretaries  of 
State.  Pitt  at  an  earlier 
stage  had  rejected  over- 
tures from  Fox,  which 
would  have  involved  what 
he  regarded  as  the  betrayal 
of  Shelburne  ;  and  he  de- 
clined absolutely  to  be  as- 
sociated with  North. 

The  coalition  was  the 
most  extraordinary  on  re- 
cord. For  twelve  years 
North  had  represented  the 
principle  of  complete  sub- 
serviency to  the  king  and 
of  an  uncompromising  resistance  to  the  claims  of  the  colonies.  Fox 
had  advocated  the  cause  of  the  colonies  with  a  vehemence  which  verged 
upon  treason,  and  had  denounced  the  power  of  the  Crown  in  unmeasured 
terms.  There  was  no  single  point  on  which  a  positive  agreement  between 
the  two  could  have  been  anticipated.  A  coalition  between  Shelburne  and 
either  Fox  or  North  would  have  involved  very  much  less  strain  than  the 
coalition  of  1757  between  the  elder  Pitt  and  Newcastle.  But  that  com- 
bination had  been  possible  for  the  simple  reason  that  every  one  concerned 
saw  that  nothing  else  could  save  the  country  from  immediate  ruin.  The 
coalition  of  1783  had  no  principles  and  apparently  but  one  object,  the 
exclusion  of  Shelburne.  To  that  end.  North  consented  that  the  Crown 
should  be  treated  with  respect  but  not  with  deference  ;  and  the  two  groups 
hitherto  hostile  presented  for  the  time  being  a  united  front. 

Shelburne  being  out,  the  coalition  found  no  further  need  for  demanding 
material  modifications  in  the  peace  preliminaries  which  they  had  first  con- 
demned. Their  Treaty  of  Versailles,  signed  in  September,  made  no  changes 
of  consequence.  The  next  question  of  the  hour  therefore  was  that  of  the 
government  of  India  ;  and  this  during  the  last  twenty  years  had  come  to 
be  complicated  by  the  presence  in  England  of  increasing  numbers  of  the 


"  England  Made  Odious,  or  the  French  Dressers. 

[A  cnricature  on  Shelburne  and  Fox  at  the  time  of  the  arrangement  of  the 
Treaty  of  Versailles.  ] 


686  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

"Nabobs" — men  who  had  amassed  great  wealth  in  India,  especially  under 
the  conditions  prevaihng  before  Lord  North's  Regulating  Act.  They  were 
courted  by  the  politicians ;  they  were  often  large  shareholders  in  the  East 
India  Company  ;  they  liked  to  feel  themselves  to  be  persons  of  importance 
and  of  influence  ;  and  they  regarded  patronage  in  India  as  to  a  great  extent 
a  perquisite  of  their  own.  The  course  of  events  in  India  had  been  very 
little  understood  by  the  public  at  large,  and  even  those  v.-ho,  like  Edmund 
Burke,  had  interested  themselves  in  it  honestly  and  deeply,  had  been  led 
astray  as  to  the  actual  facts  by  the  misrepresentations  of  Francis  and  his 
friends.  The  House  of  Commons  and  the  court  of  directors  were  both 
strongly  biased  against  Hastings,  who  v^as  preposterously  blamed  for  not 
having  prevented  the  blunders  of  the  Madras  and  Bombay  governments  ; 
and  the  Governor-General  would  have  been  recalled  at  an  earlier  date,  but 
for  the  persistent  confidence  in  him  of  the  court  of  proprietors  with  which 
lay  the  final  control  of  ^.he  new  appointments  under  the  Regulating  Act. 

Fox,  then,  introduced  a  bill  for  the  better  government  of  India.  The 
political  direction  from  London  was  to  be  withdrawn  from  the  courts  of 
directors  and  proprietors,  and  vested  in  a  body  of  seven  commissioners 
appointed  by  parliament  for  four  years.  Absolute  control  of  policy  and 
patronage  was  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  commissioners  ;  vacancies  in  their 
number  were  to  be  filled  by  nominees  of  the  Crown.  A  second  body  of 
commissioners,  chosen  by  parliament  from  among  the  proprietors,  was  to 
control  commerce,  the  vacancies  among  its  nine  members  being  filled  by 
the  court  of  proprietors. 

The  scheme  at  once  aroused  the  hostility  of  the  whole  commercial  com- 
munity as  being  an  abrogation  of  the  East  Indian  Company's  charter,  and 
destructive  of  the  position  of  all  chartered  companies.  Politically  it  was 
resented  as  placing  the  whole  of  the  Indian  patronage  virtually  in  the 
hands  of  the  present  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons,  who  would 
thereby  be  enabled  to  secure  the  solid  support  of  the  nabobs  at  home, 
and  therewith,  as  it  was  argued,  a  control  of  the  electorate  which  would 
secure  that  majority  permanently  in  power.  The  king  saw  in  the  bill 
the  death-blow  of  the  royal  authority  ;  the  Opposition  saw  in  it  the  death- 
blow of  electoral  liberty  ;  and  the  mercantile  community  felt  that  their 
interests  as  a  body  were  jeopardised  by  the  violation  of  the  East  India 
Company's  charter. 

But  the  coalition  had  an  overwhelming  preponderance  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  The  bill  was  carried  in  that  chamber  by  a  large  majority. 
The  vote  of  the  House  of  Lords  was  uncertain,  but  was  decided  by  the 
action  of  the  king,  who  made  it  known  that  he  would  treat  the  voting 
upon  it  as  a  personal  matter.  This  turned  the  scale  with  many  of  those 
peers  who  in  the  past  had  been  associated  with  North.  The  peers  rejected 
the  bill.  The  Government  carried  in  the  Commons  a  vote  of  censure 
on  the  unconstitutional  intervention  of  the  Crown.  George  dismissed  the 
ministers,  and  Pitt  accepted  appointment  as  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury. 


CLEAVAGE  687 

The  obvious  course  for  the  dismissed  ministers  was  to  demand  a  dissokition. 
The  rejection  of  a  bill  passed  by  a  large  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons 
had  been  procured  in  the  House  of  Lords  by  the  king's  unconstitutional 
interference.  An  appeal  to  the  country  on  that  issue  would  have  given 
them  an  almost  irresistible  case,  and  the  appeal  could  hardly  have  been 
refused.  But  they  did  not  want  a  dissolution.  They  imagined  that  they 
could  force  the  young  minister  to  resign,  and  George  to  recall  them  to 
office,  without  risking  an  election  which  might  weaken  their  preponderance 
because  of  the  unpopularity  of  the  India  Bill.  Thus  they  delivered  them- 
selves  into  Pitt's  hands.  Practically  single-handed  he  fought  from  day 
to  day  in  the  House  of  Commons  against  the  most  famous  orators  and 
debaters  of  the  time,  and  day  by  day  the  tide  of  his  popularity  rose 
in  the  country.  The  Opposition  had  dropped  the  constitutional  issue 
which  was  their  most  valuable  asset,  and  had  made  Pitt  a  present  of 
a  new  one  by  claiming  the  right  to  force  themselves  upon  the  king,  to 
dictate  to  him  the  choice  of  ministers,  without  an  appeal  to  the  country. 
And  day  by  day  the  India  Bill  became  more  and  more  unpopular.  At 
last  Pitt  felt  that  his  moment  had  come ;  Parliament  was  dissolved  in 
March,  a  mere  remnant  of  the  coalition  were  able  to  retain  their  seats, 
and  Pitt  came  back  to  parliament  v.'ith  a  record  majority  at  his  back. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII 
THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

I 

IRELAND 

The  eighteenth  century  had  still  some  years  to  run  when  the  destinies  of 
the  British  Empire  were  committed  to  the  guidance  of  William  Pitt  the 
Younger.  But  at  this  point  a  new  era  was  dawning,  an  era  of  convulsion 
and  revolution,  political,  social,  and  intellectual.  The  characteristic  move- 
ments associated  with  the  century  had  run  their  course,  and  if  "  The 
Eighteenth  Century  "  is  a  somewhat  maccurate  title  for  a  chapter  reviewing 
aspects  of  the  period  which  have  been  left  apart  for  continuous  treatment, 
it  is  still  more  nearly  appropriate  than  any  other.  Of  these  deferred  subjects 
the  first  place  is  claimed  by  Ireland,  which  at  the  end  of  the  period  had 
acquired  a  greater  political  prominence  than  it  had  known  since  the  six- 
teenth century,  and  had  begun  to  assert  as  it  had  never  done  before  a 
political  nationality. 

The  triumph  of  the  Revolution  of  1688  had  meant  in  Ireland  a  com- 
plete ascendency  of  one-fifth  of  the  population  over  the  rest,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  subordination  of  that  ruling  Protestant  minority  to  England, 
or,  after  the  union  of  England  and  Scotland,  to  Great  Britain.  The 
Protestant  alone  had  political  rights,  a  voice  in  the  parliament,  a  hand  in 
the  administration,  a  right  to  bear  arms,  to  practise  his  religion  freely,  to 
educate  his  children  in  his  own  faith,  to  accumulate  landed  property.  Even 
the  inheritance  of  land  was  denied  to  the  Roman  Catholic  whose  brother 
was  a  Protestant.  The  political  disabilities  of  the  Romanist  were  partly 
shared  by  the  Protestant  dissenter. 

The  Protestant  ascendency  was  bound  up  with  the  Hanoverian  succession. 
Prote-^tant  loyalty  therefore  was  assured  ;  and  the  Protestants  could  not 
have  ventured  upon  any  serious  protest  against  the  political  subjection  to 
the  authority  on  the  other  side  of  St.  George's  Channel,  even  if  their 
political  aspirations  had  been  active  enough  to  make  them  desire  to  do  so. 
Not  only  did  they  differ  in  faith  from  the  great  bulk  of  the  population, 
but  they  were  also  to  a  large  extent  aliens,  descendants  of  Scots  or  English 
who  had  dispossessed  the  old  proprietors.  Their  very  existence  depended, 
or  seemed  to  depend,  upon  an  ascendency  which  could  only  be  maintained 


THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY  689 

by  the  sanction  of  force,  and  that  sanction  would  disappear  if  they  quarrelled 
with  the  English  government. 

But  Protestants  as  well  as  Catholics  suffered  from  the  economic 
conditions.  Virtually  the  only  industries  permitted  by  the  English  com- 
mercial laws  were  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  and  the  linen  manufacture  ; 
even  the  export  of  wool  was  prohibited.  And  if  the  Protestants  had  the 
administration  and  the  legislature  to  themselves,  the  powers  of  the  latter 
were  exceedingly  limited.  A  bill  could  be  initiated  only  by  the  Privy 
Council,  and  before  it  was  passed  by  the  Irish  parliament  it  had  to 
be  submitted  to  the  English  Privy  Council,  which  might  simply  suppress  it. 
Any  amendments  or  alterations  inserted  by  that  body  became  substantive 
parts  of  the  bill,  which  was  then  presented  for  acceptance  or  rejection  as  it 
stood  by  the  Irish  parliament.  During  the  reign  of  George  I,  a  Declaratory 
Act  was  passed  in  the  British  parliament  which  asserted  the  right  of  that 
body  to  legislate  for  Ireland  on  its  own  account  without  reference  to  the 
Irish  parliament  at  all. 

Still,  during  the  first  half  of  the  century,  Ireland  lay  almost  inert,  in  a 
helpless  bondage,  although  Jonathan  Swift  denounced  the  whole  system 
with  scathing  satire.  There  was  no  organised  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
depressed  majority  to  claim  the  rights  of  citizenship,  or  on  the  part  of  the 
dominant  minority  to  assert  an  equality  of  citizenship  with  English  and 
Scots.  It  was  not  till  George  III.  was  already  seated  on  the  throne  that 
the  revival  of  political  aspirations  and  political  activity  began  to  make  itself 
decisively  felt. 

At  no  time  in  their  history  have  the  Irish  people  been  possessed  with 
the  spirit  of  legality  which  is  so  notable  a  characteristic  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  ; 
and  one  at  least  of  the  causes  for  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
law  has  been  for  them  at  all  times  something  imposed  upon  them  from 
outside  by  an  alien  conqueror,  not,  as  with  the  Anglo-Saxon,  a  system 
evolved  by  natural  development  out  of  their  own  racial  institutions.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  appeals  to  the  law  instinctively  for  protection  from  tyranny ; 
to  the  Irishmen  the  law  presented  itself  as  sanctioning  and  supporting 
tyranny.  If  he  suffered  he  did  not  appeal  to  that  law  for  protection,  but 
set  the  law  itself  at  defiance  and  became  a  law  unto  himself,  which  is  an 
attitude  altogether  unintelligible  to  the  mind  of  the  Anglo-Saxon,  for  whom, 
as  for  the  Romans,  the  great  imperial  race  of  the  ancient  world,  the  sanctity 
of  the  law  dominates  all  other  considerations.  In  the  eighteenth  century 
the  rural  population  found  themselves  oppressed  by  the  law  ;  and  the  first 
breaking  up  of  their  inertia  took  the  form  of  fighting  the  law  ;  not  of  seek- 
ing its  amendment,  which  appeared  to  be  a  hopeless  endeavour.  The  Irish 
peasant  felt  the  pinch  of  oppression  in  the  relations  between  landlord  and 
tenant  which  were  founded  in  the  Protestant  ascendency  and  aggravated  by 
absenteeism.  The  peasant  began  to  fight  the  law  by  the  formation  of 
secret  societies  which  exercised  a  counter-tyranny  through  the  cruel  outrages 
commonly    resorted    to    by    weakness    which    recognises    no    law.     These 

2  X 


690  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

societies,  <'  Whiteboys "  and  others,  were  exclusively  agrarian  and,  at  least 
to  begin  with,  were  neither  religious  nor  political.  If  most  of  the  landed 
proprietors  were  Protestant,  there  were  districts  also  where  there  were 
many  Protestants  among  the  tenantry,  so  that  the  antagonism  of  classes  was 
not  exclusively  an  antagonism  of  religions. 

At  the  same  time  the  political  instincts  of  the  dominant  class  were 
awakening.  What  may  be  called  a  national  party,  a  body  which  was 
discontented  with  the  subordination  of  Ireland  to  Great  Britain,  a  body 
which  claimed  that  the  legislature  should  do  something  more  than  register 
the  decrees  of  the  parliament  at  Westminster  and  of  the  Briti'^h  Privy 
Council,  was  coming  into  being.      Its  first  demands  were  that  money  bills 


1 


The  Irish  rarliament  House  in  the  iSth  century. 

Now  the  Bank  of  Ireland.] 

should  originate  in  the  Irish  parliament  itself,  and  that  the  principle  of 
Septennial  parliaments  rccogni^xd  in  England  should  be  applied  also  to 
Ireland.  A  third  demand  was  for  a  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  hitherto  denied  to 
Ireland,  though  acknowledged  as  a  fundamental  condition  of  the  liberty  of- 
the  subject  in  England.  And  behind  these  demands  there  were  two  more 
upon  which  the  governing  class  were  by  no  means  agreed — one  that  the 
Catholics  should  no  longer  be  treated  as  political  pariahs.-  and  the  other  for 
what  in  England  was  called  Economic  Reform.  For  the  abuses  of  the 
electoral  system  in  England  were  intensified  in  Ireland  and  in  Scotland 
also  ;  pensions  and  places  were  government  instruments  of  corruption  ; 
and  an  immense  number  of  constituencies  were  controlled  by  a  few  persons 
known  as  "  Undertakers,"  who  obviously  were  peculiarly  exposed  to  these 
corrupting  influences. 

Tlie^e  demands  became  active  about  th.e  time  of  the  accession  of  George 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY  691 

III,,  and  they  were  invigorated  by  the  development  of  the  constitutional 
issue  between  the  British  parliament  and  the  American  colonies.  Still 
the  British  parliament  would  have  nothing  to  say  to  a  Septennial  Act  or  a 
Habeas  Corpus  Act,  while  the  Irish  parliament  made  a  point  of  re- 
jecting the  money  bills  sent  over  by  the  Privy  Council  from  England. 

When  Charles  Townshend  became  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  his 
brother,  Lord  Townshend,  was  sent  to  Ireland  as  Viceroy.  It  was  intended 
that  this  viceroyalty  should  inaugurate  a  new  departure.  Hitherto  the 
viceroy  had  resided  in  Ireland  only  for  six  months  in  two  years  of  office ; 
for  the  other  eighteen  months  "  Lord  Justices" — in  other  words  the  Under- 
takers— had  effective  control  of  the  administration.  The  Undertakers 
stood  to  George  in  Ireland  in  something  of  the  same  relation  as  the  Whig 
connection  in  England.  The  king  wanted  to  break  up  their  power  as 
a  combination  while  appropriating  some  of  it  to  his  own  uses.  This  end 
was  to  be  achieved  partly  by  the  continuous  residence  of  the  viceroy  and 
partly  by  corruption.  In  the  next  place,  however,  George  was  deter- 
mined to  obtain  an  augmentation  of  the  standing  army  in  Ireland  at  the 
expense  of  that  country.  The  assent  of  Ireland  to  such  a  proposal  could 
not  be  obtained  unless  some  kind  of  a  bargain,  a  quid  pro  quo,  should  be 
offered. 

The  concession  first  put  forward  was  that  the  judges  should  be  made 
removable  on  an  address  presented  by  both  Houses  of  the  Irish  parliament 
on  the  English  analogy  ;  but  the  plan  broke  down  on  the  demand  of  the 
British  Privy  Council  that  such  an  address  should  require  endorsement  by  the 
Irish  Privy  Council.  Then  Townshend  introduced  an  Octennial  instead  of  a 
Septennial  Bill,  because  the  Irish  parliament  only  sat  in  alternate  years. 
The  bill  became  law,  the  Government  gained  ground  in  a  general  elec- 
tion, and  the  augmentation  scheme  was  passed,  though  the  persistency  of 
friction  was  demonstrated  by  another  British  refusal  of  the  Habeas 
Corpus  Act  and  another  Irish  rejection  of  a  money  bill  sent  from  England. 
Townshend,  however,  judged  himself  strong  enough  to  join  battle  with 
the  Undertakers.  Parliament  was  prorogued  at  the  end  of  1769,  and  when 
it  met  again  in  177 1  he  had  secured  his  majority  by  a  lavish  em- 
ployment of  every  means  of  corruption  at  his  disposal.  The  scandal, 
however,  was  too  conspicuous,  and  next  year  Lord  Harcourt  took  his 
place. 

The  Irish  demand  was  now  concentrating  upon  the  question  whether 
the  control  of  taxation  was  to  lie  in  effect  with  the  Irish  or  the  British 
Legislature.  The  burden  pressed  very  heavily  upon  Ireland  ;  and  the 
Irish  parliament  proposed  to  meet  the  financial  strain  by  taxing  absentee 
landowners.  Absenteeism  inflicted  grave  injury  on  Ireland,  because,  among 
other  reasons,  the  great  rents  drawn  were  expended  not  in  Ireland  but  in 
England.  Many  of  the  greatest  estates  in  Ireland  were  the  property  of 
Whigs  who  had  still  larger  estates  in  England,  and  not  unnaturally  com- 
plained that  they  were  to  be  penalised  for  residing  on  their  English  instead 


692  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

of  on  their  Irish  estates.  The  Rockingham  group,  who  were  hard  hit  by 
the  proposed  legislation,  found  themselves  disapproving  of  Irish  control 
of  Irish  taxation,  while  they  were  committing  themselves  to  the  strenuous 
advocacy  of  American  control  of  American  taxation,  though  Chatham  and 
his  followers  refused  to  allow  the  personal  consideration  any  weight  against 
a  constitutional  principle.  Thus  it  was  a  matter  of  course  that  Irish  public 
opinion  was  completely  in  sympathy  with  the  Americans,  and  when  the 
American  War  broke  out  the  British  government  had  no  little  ground  for 
fearing  that  Ireland  would  follow  the  American  example. 

This  fear  was  responsible  for  an  inclination  on  the  part  of  North's 
ministry  to  placate  Irish  sentiment  in  order  that  their  own  anxieties  might 
be  relieved.  Hence  North  proposed  a  relaxation  of  the  commercial  re- 
strictions on  Ireland  ;  but  the  determined  refusal  of  the  British  commercial 
community  to  suffer  Irish  competition  was  too  strong  for  the  Government,and 
as  in  the  case  of  the  resistance  of  the  English  landlords  to  the  absentee  tax, 
British  interests  carried  the  day  against  those  of  Ireland.  The  concessions 
were  reduced  to  little  more  than  the  admission  of  Ireland  to  the  benefits  of 
the  Navigation  Acts  (1778). 

More  effective  was  the  measure  of  Catholic  relief  extended  to  Ireland, 
where  the  penal  laws  were  still  more  stringent  and  more  flagrantly  unjust 
than  in  England.  The  worst  features  of  the  laws  affecting  the  purchase 
and  inheritance  of  land  by  Roman  Catholics  were  done  away  with.  Though 
a  Catholic  was  still  unable  to  purchase  a  freehold,  he  could  take  what 
came  to  practically  the  same  thing,  a  lease  for  nine  hundred  and  ninety- 
nine  years  ;  and  at  the  same  time  the  laws  which  divided  inherited  land 
among  all  the  sons,  and  the  more  iniquitous  law  which  conferred  the  entire 
inheritance  upon  a  Protestant  brother,  were  abolished. 

The  close  resemblance  of  the  case  for  Ireland  to  the  case  for  the 
colonies,  the  correspondence  between  their  constitutional  and  commercial 
grievances,  and  the  aggravation  of  the  Irish  case  by  the  racial,  agrarian, 
and  religious  questions,  were  sufficient  warrant  for  alarm  lest  the  Irish 
should  take  example  by  the  colonists.  The  French  intervention  in  1778 
gave  the  Irish  an  opportunity  for  a  remarkable  demonstration  of  their 
loyalty  to  the  Empire  in  despite  of  grievances.  The  Government  required 
every  soldier  it  could  muster  to  face  its  new  foes.  It  had  to  withdraw  the 
troops  from  Ireland  and  to  take  the  immensely  increased  risk  of  an  Irish 
insurrection  and  of  the  descent  of  French  troops  upon  the  island,  as  in  the 
time  of  the  Revolution  of  1688;  for,  as  we  have  seen,  the  British  fleet  at 
this  stage  was  very  far  from  holding  an  effective  control  of  the  seas.  But 
instead  of  using  England's  peril  as  Ireland's  opportunity  for  extorting  con- 
cessions, the  Protestants  all  over  the  country  formed  associations  for  im- 
perial defence,  arming  and  drilling  enthusiastic  companies  of  volunteers  ; 
and  they  were  aided  by  liberal  subscriptions  from  the  Catholics,  who  were 
themselves  forbidden  by  the  law  to  carry  arms.  The  great  volunteer 
movement  was  emphatically  imperial  and  loyalist,  not  insurrectionary. 


THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY  693 

Nevertheless,  it  was  undeniable  that  the  development  of  the  volunteer 
movement  involved  a  material  change  in  the  situation.  The  volunteers 
were  there  to  fight  for  the  country  ;  like  the  army  of  the  parliament  in  the 
great  Civil  War,  mutatis  miitandts,  they  stood  for  the  national  cause,  and  the 
nation  could  not  afford  to  disband  them  while  threatened  by  foreign 
invasion.  But  they  were  men  with  grievances  which^they  meant  to  have 
remedied ;  they  might  combine  insistence  on  the  remedies  with  their  loyal 
enthusiasm  ;  and  if  the  remedies  were  not  conceded  they  might  postpone 
loyalty  to  insistence  on  redress.  Certainly  the  leaders  would  not  urge 
Iheir  demands  for  redress  less  energetically  when  they  and  the  Government 
both  knew  that  the  appeal  to  force  had  become 
practicable.  When  parliament  met  in  the  autumn 
of  1779  the  foreign  menace  had  become  more 
marked  because  Spain  also  had  declared  war. 
The  loyalty  of  the  address  to  the  Crown  was  un- 
qualified ;  but  it  was  coupled  with  a  strongly 
expressed  demand  urged  by  all  the  leaders,  of 
whom  the  most  notable  were  Flood  and  Grattan, 
for  the  abolition  of  commercial  restrictions.  Supply 
was  granted  for  six  months  only,  and  a  bill  for 
the   relief    of    dissenters    from    the    religious    test,  Henry  Flood, 

which  had  been   rejected   in    England,  was   again        ^^''°'"  b  TcomerfoTd'^r'*''"^ 
introduced    and   passed.     The   argument   was   too 

convincing   to  be  resisted.      The    British    parliament   opened    the    foreign 
trade  to  Ireland  on  the  same  terms  as  the  foreign  trade  of  Great  Britain. 

Specific  grievances  might  be  remedied  by  consent  of  Great  Britain 
under  pressure  ;  but  there  was  nothing  to  prevent  their  reimposition  when 
the  pressure  was  removed.  So  long  as  the  parliament  at  Westminster 
asserted  its  right  to  legislate  for  Ireland,  so  long  as  the  English  Privy 
Council  could  dictate  legislation  in  the  Irish  parliament,  Ireland  was  in 
the  position  not  of  a  partner  in  the  Empire  but  of  a  subject  province.  By 
every  principle  of  English  liberty  asserted  when  William  of  Orange  was 
called  to  the  throne  of  England,  king,  lords,  and  commons  in  Ireland  should 
be  the  sovereign  body  there  as  they  were  the  sovereign  body  in  England, 
and  the  Privy  Council  had  no  better  right  to  authority  in  one  country  than 
in  the  other.  In  effect,  the  Irish  leaders  claimed  at  this  stage  that  the 
union  of  Great  Britain  with  Ireland  was  by  rights  no  more  intimate  than 
the  union  of  England  and  Scotland  under  one  crown  before  1707.  They 
claimed  for  Ireland  the  independence  which  had  always  belonged  to  Scot- 
land until  she  voluntarily  accepted  the  incorporation  with  England.  The 
theory  was  one  which  could  not  possibly  be  accepted  without  self  stultifica- 
tion by  the  North  ministry,  which  was  irrevocably  committed  to  the 
doctrine  that  the  British  parliament  was  supreme  over  all  parts  of  the 
Empire  ;  even  the  Rockinghams  had  asserted  that  the  supremacy  could  not 
be  abrogated,  though  it  ought  only  to  be  exercised  in  the  very  last  resort. 


694  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

In  April  1780  a  resolution  embodying  the  principle  of  independence 
was  moved  by  Grattan  but  was  not  put  to  the  vote.  The  next  practical 
step  was  the  introduction  in  the  Irish  parliament  of  an  Irish  Mutiny  Bill. 
The  point  was  this.  The  authority  of  the  British  parliament  to  legislate  for 
Ireland  had  now  been  openly  challenged.  On  Grattan's  hypothesis,  there- 
fore, the  English  Mutiny  Act  had  no  validity  in  Ireland.  Its  effective 
administration  depended  on  the  magistrates  ;  and  the  magistrates  held  with 
Grattan.  Therefore,  for  the  control  of  the  army  in  Ireland  there  was  need 
of  a  Mutiny  Act  passed  by  the  Irish  parliament  itself.  The  Irish  Mutiny 
Act,  if  it  were  annual,  would  give  the  same  security  to  the  Irish  parliament 
which  had  been  given  to  the  English  parliament  by  the  annual  Mutiny  Act 
in  England.  The  North  ministry  evaded  the  trap.  The  Mutiny  Bill  sent 
from  Ireland  was  accepted,  but  it  was  made  perpetual  instead  of  annual ; 
and  when  it  was  returned  to  Ireland  in  this  shape,  the  government  influence 
was  sufhcient  to  procure  a  majority  which  passed  it.  But  the  parliamentary 
majority  was  like  Newcastle's  in  1766  ;  it  was  representative  not  of  public 
opinion,  not  even  of  the  opinion  of  the  classes  which  monopolised  political 
liberty,  but  only  of  the  power  of  corruption.  Outside  parliament  the 
demand  for  independence  was  as  unanimous  as  the  demand  had  been  in 
England  for  Pitt  to  supersede  Newcastle  at  the  helm  of  the  state  in  1756. 

Nevertheless,  the  volunteers  were  not  to  be  shaken  from  their  principle 
of  associating  the  demand  for  political  liberty  with  an  unswerving  loyalty. 
The  surrender  of  Yorktown  only  confirmed  them  in  this  attitude.  It  was 
not  government  influence  but  the  principle  of  loyalism  that  made  them 
refuse  an  amendment  to  the  address  which  would  have  added  to  it  a 
demand  for  independence.  Altogether  the  proceedings  in  the  winter  of 
1781-82  showed  great  fluctuations  of  voting.  There  were  stalwarts  who, 
without  fear  of  being  called  disloyal,  voted  steadily  for  the  demands  of  Grattan 
and  Flood.  There  was  a  less  uncompromising  group  which  voted  with  them, 
except  when  it  felt  that  the  Government  in  its  present  straits  ought  not  to 
be  pressed  too  hard.  There  were  the  solid  supporters  of  the  Government. 
And  there  were  still  those  who  generally  took  their  orders  from  the 
Government,  but  occasionally  ventured  to  vote  with  the  Opposition.  It  was 
not  difficult  to  infer  the  real  trend  of  opinion,  but  at  any  moment  the 
voting  in  parliament  might  run  directly  counter  to  the  real  general  feeling. 

But  in  February  1782  an  assembly  of  delegates  of  the  volunteers  was 
summoned  to  meet  at  Dungannon.  There  was  no  doubt  at  all  that  this 
body  was  genuinely  representative  ;  they  made  it  equally  clear  that  public 
opinion  endorsed  the  demands  of  Flood  and  Grattan  ;  and,  at  Grattan's  own 
instance,  they  added  demands  for  the  further  relaxation  of  the  penal  code 
against  the  Catholics.  In  Maich  the  North  ministry  resigned,  and  the 
second  Rockingham  ministry  accepted  in  the  main  the  three  Irish  demands. 
The  Mutiny  Act  was  limited  to  two  years,  the  control  exercised  by  the  Irish 
and  English  Privy  Councils  was  abolished,  and  the  obnoxious  Declaratory 
Act   was  repealed.     Grattan's  parliament,   the    independent  parliament  of 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY  695 

Ireland,  had  come  into  being.  The  repeal  of  the  Declaratory  Act  was 
contirmed  and  secured  against  misinterpretation  in  the  following  3'^ear  by 
the  Renunciatory  Act,  which  expressly  declared  that  the  British  parliament 
had  not  the  power  of  legislating  for  Ireland.  A  new  but  brief  chapter  in 
the  history  of  Ireland  was  opened,  to  be  ended  by  the  Incorporating  Union 
of  1800. 

11 

ENCLOSURE,  MACHINERY,  AND  CANALS 

From  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  until  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  there  was  a  steady  and  continuous  commercial  and  maritime 
expansion,  but  it  was  attended  by  no  great  changes  in  the  rural  and  in- 
dustrial populations.  The  era  of  enclosures  had  come  to  an  end  ;  the 
greater  part  of  the  country  in  fact  remained  still  unenclosed  and  still  culti- 
vated under  the  open  field  system,  tilled  by  the  small  farmers,  yeomen, 
copyholders,  or  small  tenants-at-will  who,  in  ordinary  circumstances,  re- 
mained in  undisturbed  occupation  from  generation  to  generation.  Tlie 
cottar  and  the  labourer  had  little  inclination  and  little  temptation  to  migrate 
from  the  parish  of  their  birth  ;  if  they  did  move  they  became  liable  under 
the  Restoration  Law  of  Settlement  to  be  promptly  ordered  back  to  their 
previous  abode  lest  any  parish  should  find  itself  chargeable  with  the 
maintenance  of  pauper  immigrants  from  other  districts.  The  Elizabethan 
Poor  Law  prevented  actual  destitution,  and  generally  provided  some  sort 
of  work  for  the  able-bodied.  The  development  of  the  domestic  industries 
of  spinning  and  weaving  supplemented  the  earnings  of  the  farm-hand,  and 
yielded  a  margin  for  the  small  farmer  who  lived  chiefly  upon  the  produce 
of  his  farm.  Some  new  industries,  too,  were  developed  by  the  Huguenot 
immigrants  who  fled  from  the  persecution  of  Louis  XIV. 

For  the  first  fifty  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  matters  went  on  in 
very  much  the  same  fashion.  Yeoman  and  cottar  lived  on,  not  in  penury 
but  in  a  respectable  kind  of  poverty,  very  rarely  on  the  verge  of  starvation, 
but  very  rarely  in  a  condition  of  what  could  fairly  be  called  comfort.  The 
age  was  apathetic  and  unambitious,  too  unambitious  to  be  discontented  ; 
and  benevolent  moralists  observed  with  satisfaction  that  children  were 
taught  the  virtues  of  industry  and  helped  to  earn  their  own  living  almost 
as  soon  as  they  could  talk.  There  was  very  little  in  the  shape  of  class 
antagonism,  none  of  the  opposition  between  capital  and  labour  which  was 
the  outcome  of  a  later  industrialism,  none  of  the  opposition  between  gentry 
and  peasantry  which  was  presently  to  become  so  terribly  conspicuous  in 
France — because  in  England  the  peasantry  were  in  no  sense  serfs,  and  the 
gentry  were  commonly  disposed  to  a  mildly  paternal  benevolence.  There 
was  no  incentive  to  agricultural  progress  because  the  old  open  field  system 
still  kept  the  comparatively  enterprising  spirits  among  the  small  holders  at 


696  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

the  mercy  of  their  slow-moving  neighbours.  The  small  farmer,  even  if  he 
had  the  will,  lacked  the  means  to  try  experiments  or  to  adopt  new  methods 
which  paid  when  they  were  applied  upon  a  large  but  not  upon  a  small 
scale. 

On  the  other  hand,  considerable  progress  was  made  in  agricultural 
methods  by  large  proprietors.      They  introduced  the  growing  of  roots  and 

grasses  ;  they  adopted  an 
improved  rotation  of  crops, 
and  very  considerable  ad- 
vances were  made  in  cattle- 
breeding.  But  the  point  to 
be  immediately  observed  is 
that  the  progress  was  made 
on  the  estates  where  en- 
closure had  already  been 
carried  out — enclosure,  that 
is,  in  the  sense  of  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  open  fields  made 
up  of  acre  strips,  and  the 
substitution  of  the  large  en- 
closed fields  worked  under 
a  single  management.  The 
yeoman  farmed  for  subsist- 
ence, the  owner  of  a  large 
estate  farmed  for  commercial 
profit ;  he  could  turn  ex- 
periment and  enterprise  to 
financial  account,  while  he 
was  able  to  produce  at  less 
cost  than  the  small  farmer 
with  his  antiquated  methods. 
As  yet,  however,  the  yeoman 
did  not  feel  the  pinch  of  competition.  The  owner  of  a  great  estate  might 
be  desirous  of  extending  his  operations  and  anxious  to  carry  enclosure 
further  ;  but  the  yeoman,  as  long  as  he  could  hold  his  ground,  was  not 
inclined  to  make  way  for  him,  and  he  was  able  to  hold  his  ground  by 
help  of  the  subsidiary  occupations  of  weaving  and  spinning.  Enclosure 
went  on  during  the  first  half  of  the  eigiiteenth  century,  but  it  went  on 
very  slowly. 

Then  a  change  began  to  set  in,  the  change  which  brought  about 
the  practical  extinction  of  the  yeoman  and  the  absorption  of  the  land 
of  the  small  freeholder  and  copyholder  into  the  large  estate.  It  is  possible 
that  if  there  had  been  no  Industrial  Revolution  the  yeoman  and  the  cottar 
might  have  survived  ;  possible  but  not  probable,  for  the  yeoman,  through 
no  fault  of  his  own,  or  only  partly  by  his  own  fault,  stood   in  the  wa^ 


A  lypical 
[At  Laxton,  Northants 


Strip  "  farm  or  open  field. 
Retained  until  late  in  the  19th  century.] 


THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY  697 

of  agricultural  progress  and  prevented  the  development  of  the  productive 
power  of  the  country.  The  mere  necessity  for  that  development  would 
probably  have  swept  him  away  in  any  case,  but  his  fate  was  sealed  by 
the  destruction  of  the  domestic  industries  which  had  kept  him  afloat. 
Oliver  Goldsmith,  in  his  Deserted  Village  (1770),  gives  a  sentimental 
description  of  the  decay  of  rural  life,  attributed  to  the  greed  and  oppression 
of  the  wealthy  ;  but  in  fact  the  yeoman  and  the  cottar  were  finding  them- 
selves no  longer  able  to  make  a  living ;  they  were  perishing  from  economic 
pressure,  not  from  the  avarice  of  their  wealthier  neighbours,  who  were 
able  to  make  infinitely  more  productive  the  land  which  small  men  were 
driven  to  resign,  while  the  small  men  themselves  were  absorbed  into 
the  mass  of  wage-labourers. 

Throughout  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  four-fifths  of 
the  population,  or  not  much  less,  was  rural,  living  not  in  the  towns  but 
in  farms  and  villages,  and  practically  the  whole  of  that  rural  population 
was  occupied  simultaneously  with  agriculture  in  the  inclusive  sense  and 
the  domestic  industries.  In  the  neighbourhood  of  the  centres  of  cloth 
manufacture,  still  the  principal  manufacture  of  the  country,  the  domestic 
industries  were  their  mainstay  and  the  field-work  was  supplementary. 
P'urther  afield  the  order  was  reversed,  and  the  product  of  field-work  was 
supplemented  by  the  domestic  industries.  Textiles  of  one  sort  or  another — 
woollens,  cotton,  linen,  silk — were  the  principal  products,  woollens  having 
an  immense  preponderance  in  England,  linens  in  Ireland  and  to  a  less 
degree  in  Scotland.  Silk  was  the  specialty  of  the  Huguenot  immigrants, 
and  the  importance  of  cotton  was  still  in  the  future. 

The  spinning  and  weaving  on  which  these  manufactures  depended 
were  domestic  industries — industries,  that  is  to  say,  conducted  at  the 
fireside  of  each  household — so  long  as  the  loom  and  the  spinning-wheel 
might  -properly  be  called  not  machines  but  tools.  When  we  distinguish 
between  tools  and  machinery  w^e  mean  by  the  former  implements  driven 
by  the  w^orkman  himself,  by  the  latter  implements  in  which  another  driving 
power  is  brought  into  play.  Machinery  existed  in  the  windmills  and  water- 
mills,  where  the  power  of  wind  and  water  was  utilised  for  grinding  corn, 
and  in  the  steam-pump,  an  invention  of  the  last  century  which  was  in 
use  chiefly  in  mines.  The  great  feature  of  the  last  forty  years  of  the 
century  was  the  invention  of  machinery  driven  first  by  water  power  and 
then  by  steam  power,  which  began  by  displacing  the  hand-loom  and  the 
spinning-wheel,  and  went  on  to  revolutionise  the  entire  industrial  system. 

The  era  of  inventions  was  initiated  with  what  was  still  a  new  "tool."  The 
weavers  could  not  produce  fast  enough  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  spinners  could 
supply  them  with  yarn  faster  than  they  could  weave  it.  The  output  of 
the  weavers  was  doubled  when  John  Kay  invented  the  fly-shuttle  in  1732, 
for  the  new  shuttle  enabled  them  to  w^eave  cloth  of  double  width.  The 
spinners  were  left  behind  until,  in  1764,  Hargreave  invented  the  spinning- 
jenny,    which    worked    eight    spindles    at    once   by    a    single    action  ;     and 


698  THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

Hargreave  was  followed  five  years  later  by  Richard  Arkwright,  who  invented 
a  jenny  driven  by  water  power.  Arkwright's  water-frame  was  the  harbinger 
of  the  new  machinery.  It  initiated  the  application  of  water  power  to 
manufacture  ;  and  the  application  of  water  power  was  the  beginning  of 
the  end  of  domestic  industries,  because  the  hand  worker  could  not  compete 
with  the  machines,  and  the  machines  were  necessarily  set  up  not  in  the 
farm-house  or  cottage  but  where  water  power  was  available  on  the  banks 
of  streams.  The  water-frame  was  followed  ten  years  later  by  Crompton's 
machine  known  as  the  "  mule ""  ;  but  the  weavers  did  not  get  a  power-loom 

until  Cartwright's  machine  was  invented 
in  1784.  So  far  as  concerned  these 
two  domestic  industries  of  spinning 
and  weaving,  all  the  advances  from 
1764  until    1784  were  in  spinning. 

Any  improvements  in  tools  and 
machinery  mean  that  for  a  given  ex- 
penditure of  humxan  energy  and  labour 
either  a  better  quality  or  a  greater 
quantity  of  goods  can  be  produced, 
or  both.  An  improvement  in  quality 
is  a  benefit  which  has  no  drawbacks  ; 
increase  in  quantity  is  injurious  to  the 
producer  unless  increased  demand  keep 
pace  with  increased  supply.  Labour- 
saving  is  almost  always  beneficial  in 
the  long  run,  because  in  the  long  run 
demand  overtakes  supply ;  but  it  is 
not  always  so  at  the  outset.  Thus, 
before  the  invention  of  the  spinning-jenny,  it  was  the  spinners  who 
gamed  by  the  fly-shuttle,  because  the  weavers  with  their  increased 
power  of  production  wanted  all  the  yarn  they  could  get.  But  for  a 
time  there  was  not  enough  yarn  to  go  round  among  the  weavers,  and 
their  profits  were  reduced.  Then  the  spinning-jenny  multiplied  the  pro- 
ductive capacity  of  the  spinners  ;  the  weavers  got  as  much  yarn  as  they 
could  manage,  and  a  smaller  number  of  spinners  than  before  were  able 
with  ease  to  meet  the  whole  available  demand;  therefore  the  spinners  in 
their  turn  suffered.  When  the  public  wanted  all  that  the  clothiers  could 
supply,  the  clothiers  wanted  all  that  the  weavers  could  supply,  and  the 
weavers  wanted  all  that  the  spinners  could  supply,  every  one  was  the  better  ; 
but  when  the  weavers  wanted  more  than  the  spinners  could  supply  they 
suffered,  and  when  they  wanted  less  the  spinners  suffered.  It  was  only  in 
the  long  run  that  the  balance  became  adjusted,  when  lowered  prices 
increased  the  demand. 

In  the  period  of  which  we  are  speaking  the  balance  was  not  adjusted  ; 
the  whole  mass  of  those  whose  livelihood  depended  mainly  or  partly  upon 


An  old  hand  weaver  at  his  loom. 
[From  the  "  Universal  Magazine,"  1747.] 


THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY  699 

the  spinning-wheel  suffered,  and  that  meant  the  greater  portion  of  the 
rural  population.  In  part  at  least  this  was  the  cause  of  the  disappearance 
of  the  cottar  and  yeoman,  and  the  rapid  progress  of  enclosure.  And  this 
in  turn  meant  the  increase  of  poverty  and  even  of  destitution  in  the  rural 
districts,  and  a  demand  for  a  revised  administration  of  the  poor  law  in 
order  to  cope  with  it.  Once  again  poor  relief  became  a  pressing  problem, 
which  was  dealt  with  by  Gilbert's  Acts  in  1782.  One  of  these  was  directed 
to  the  combination  of  parishes  in  unions  for  the  better  organisation  of  poor 
law  administration.  But  the  Acts  between  them  introduced  ?.  system  of 
outdoor  relief  for  the  able-bodied,  and  gave  extended  power  to  the  magistrates 
for  the  application  of  rates  to  the  mitigation  of  distress.  The  magistrates 
were  benevolent  and  well-intentioned,  but  short-sighted  ;  and  later  we  shall 


The  canal  aqueduct  over  the  river  Irweil. 

[From  a  print  of  1793-] 


see  that  before  the  end  of  the  century  they  applied  their  powers  with  most 
disastrous  results. 

In  another  field  a  great  change  was  inaugurated,  the  precursor  of 
another  change  which  was  to  be  in  operation  three-quarters  of  a  century 
later.  Until  after  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  traffic  and  com- 
munication were  conducted  entirely  by  road,  that  is,  by  the  packhorse 
and  the  waggon,  or  by  sea.  Practically  no  use  was  made  of  waterways  ; 
the  roads  themselves  were  for  the  most  part  villainously  bad,  and  the  cost 
of  transport  was  exceedingly  heavy.  The  Duke  of  Bridgewater  was  the 
pioneer  of  the  canal  system.  He  discovered  an  engineer  of  extraordinary 
genius  in  the  person  of  the  wholly  illiterate  James  Brindley,  and  in  1758 
he  obtained  sanction  by  an  Act  of  parliament  for  the  construction  of  a 
canal  between  Worsley  and  Manchester.  In  1761  the  canal  was  opened, 
although  Brindley 's  schemes  for  it  had  been  jeered  at  as  visionary  and 
impracticable.  Men  saw  with  amazement  ships  passing  over  an  aqueduct 
forty  feet  above  the  river  Irweil.  So  much  did  this  seven-mile  canal  reduce 
the  cost  of  carriage  between  Worsley  and  Manchester  that  the  price  of  coal 


700  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

in  Manchester  was  halved.  The  effect  of  Brindley's  success  was  instan- 
taneous. In  the  next  twenty  years  many  hundreds  of  miles  of  canals  were 
planned  and  carried  out  ;  before  the  end  of  the  century  there  was  a 
network  of  canals  all  over  the  country.  An  infinitely  greater  bulk  of  goods 
could  be  carried  in  much  greater  security  on  barges  than  in  waggons,  at  a 
very  much  smaller  expenditure  of  horse  power  and  labour,  though  there 
was  no  diminution  of  either,  owing  to  the  enormous  increase  in  the  amount 
of  traffic. 

The  spirit  of  invention  was  abroad.  Hitherto  we  have  spoken  of  it 
only  in  its  application  to  the  industries  which  touched  the  agrarian  popula- 
tion. English  pottery  also  rose  to  a  new  eminence,  Josiah  Wedgwood 
leading  the  way.  But  of  all  the  inventions  the  most  decisively  influential 
on  the  national  industries  were  those  which  were  concerned  with  iron, 
coal,  and  steam.  The  development  of  the  iron  industry  depended  upon  the 
furnace,  and  in  the  first  half  of  the  century  charcoal  was  still  the  necessary 
fuel.  Hence,  although  the  quantity  of  iron  in  the  soil  was  immense  the 
output  was  small  ;  the  iron-fields  were  limited  to  the  regions  where  forests 
were  available,  and  Sussex  held  a  foremost  place  among  the  iron  counties. 
Coal  was  of  no  use,  because  a  sufficient  blast  could  not  be  obtained, 
although  towards  the  middle  of  the  century  there  was  a  considerable  de- 
velopment in  the  use  of  coke  in  the  works  of  the  Darbies  of  Coalbrookdale. 
But  in  1760  Smeaton  applied  water  power  to  the  production  of  a  blast 
which  at  once  enormously  increased  the  employment  first  of  coke  and  then 
of  coal  as  fuel,  as  well  as  the  output  of  iron.  Iron  rapidly  became  the 
standard  material  for  purposes  for  which  it  had  hitherto  been  undreamed  of, 
and  the  first  iron  bridge  was  carried  over  the  Severn  in  1779. 

This  association  of  iron  with  coal  instead  of  with  charcoal  gave  an 
enormous  advantage  in  production  to  the  districts  where  iron  and  coal- 
fields were  contiguous,  and  it  drove  out  of  the  industrial  race  the  iron 
districts  like  Sussex,  which  depended  upon  charcoal,  as  they  were  too 
remote  from  the  coal  regions  to  make  use  of  that  fuel.  In  these  districts, 
therefore,  there  was  a  diminution  of  employment ;  whereas  there  was 
rapidly  increasing  employment  both  in  the  coalpits  and  in  the  iron  works 
of  the  north  and  the  midlands.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that 
the  shifting  of  the  population  only  followed  the  shifting  of  employment 
very  slowly.  The  physical  difficulties  of  migration  were  immense.  It  is 
easier  to-day  for  the  working-man  to  transport  himself  with  his  family 
from  England  to  Canada  than  it  was  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  for  the 
Sussex  labourer  to  remove  himself  to  Lancashire.  And  to  the  physical 
difficulty  of  transport  was  added  the  artificial  barrier  of  the  Restoration 
Law  of  Settlement,  which  allowed  the  local  authority  to  send  the  immigrant 
back  to  the  parish  or  hundred  of  his  birth. 

The  development  of  the  coalfields  and  of  the  iron  industry  necessarily 
went  together  ;  the  development  of  both  and  their  mutual  need  of  each 
other  was  enormously  advanced  when  the  inventions  of  James  Watt  made 


THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY  701 

steam  the  motive  power  of  machinery.  Iron  was  the  material  of  which 
the  new  machinery  was  made,  and  the  steam  by  which  it  was  driven  de- 
manded coal.  The  steam-engine  was  the  last  and  most  important  factor 
in  the  creation  of  the  new  industrialism  which  subsisted  upon  coal  and 
iron.  The  steam-engine  had  established  itself  securely  in  the  iron  works 
before  the  American  War  was  over  and  during  the  next  decade  ;  and  it 
was  rapidly  pushing  to  the  front  as  the  leading  power  for  driving  mills. 
The  effects  will  be  discussed  in  a  later  chapter  dealing  with  the  period 
when  they  had  come  into  full  play. 

In  the  first  twenty  years  of  George  III.  the  employment  of  steam  power 
was  still  in  its  infancy.  Watt's  steam-engine  was  the  child  of  Newcomen's 
steam-pump,  which,  with  modifications,  had  been  worked 
in  mines  for  half  a  century  without  leading  to  any  notable 
development,  when  James  Watt  began  his  experiments. 
Watt,  who  at  the  time  was  engaged  as  a  maker  of  mathe- 
matical instruments  in  Glasgow,  was  employed  to  repair 
one  of  these  engines  in  1763.  The  pump  suggested  ex- 
periments from  which  Watt  very  soon  realised  the  tre- 
mendous powers  of  steam  and  the  principles  by  which  it 
could  be  employed  in  the  service  of  man.  The  first 
opportunities  for  developing  his  ideas  in  practical  material 
shape  were  given  him  in  Roebuck's  iron  works  at  Carron 
near   Glasgow;    but    it    was    not   till    1776    that  a    really  Adam  Smith, 

successful  enf^ine  was  constructed  for  Wilkinson,  the  Iron      [Fromamedaiiionby 

^  '  lassie.] 

King,  at  Boxley  ;  hitherto  the  practical  difficulty  of  obtain- 
ing accurate   workmanship   in    the    hard    metal   which   was   required    had 
stood  in   the  way.     When  once  that  difficulty  was  mastered  progress  was 
rapid. 

One  more  event  must  be  recorded  which  forms  a  landmark  in  economic 
history,  the  publication  in  1776  of  Adam  Smith's  Enquiry  into  the  Nature 
and  Causes  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations.  For  nearly  three  centuries  the  doctrines 
collectively  described  as  the  Mercantile  Theory  had  been  generally  accepted. 
With  national  power  as  the  state's  grand  object,  it  had  been  assumed  to  be 
the  business  of  the  state  to  control  commerce  and  industry,  and  to  direct 
them  along  the  channels  most  conducive  to  national  power  ;  wealth  or 
material  prosperity  was  assumed  to  follow  power  ;  and  since  the  possession 
of  treasure,  that  is  to  say  gold  and  silver,  was  accepted  as  a  condition  of 
national  power,  the  accumulation  of  treasure,  the  exchange  of  goods  for 
treasure,  was  one  of  the  leading  objects  which  the  state  set  before  itself  in 
the  control  of  commerce.  Other  objects  were  maritime  expansion  and  the 
encouragement  of  industries  which  were  looked  upon  as  fostering  a  healthy 
and  vigorous  breed  of  Englishmen.  It  was  an  accident,  not  of  the  essence, 
of  the  theory,  that  mercantilism  carried  with  it  in  practice  the  protection  of 
native  industries  against  foreign  competition.  Adam  Smith  rejected  the 
"treasure"  theory,  because  the  balance  of  trade  rectifies  itself  automatically. 


702  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

If  there  is  deficiency  of  treasure  in  the  country,  money  is  in  demand  and 
its  value  in  exchange  rises  ;  in  other  words,  prices  fall  ;  the  foreigner  sees 
a  market  in  which  he  can  buy  cheaply,  and  treasure  flows  in  again.  Not 
treasure  in  particular,  but  material  wealth  in  general,  the  abundance  of 
useful  commodities,  is  the  source  of  power,  and  the  maximum  amount  of 
general  wealth  is  to  be  obtained  not  by  the  artificial  direction  of  commerce 
and  industry  into  particular  channels,  but  by  leaving  the  individual  to 
pursue  his  own  interest.  Power  follows  wealth,  not  wealth  power ;  every- 
thing which  checks  the  development  of  wealth  checks  also  the  development 
of  power  ;  and  therefore  all  restrictions  for  the  direction  of  commerce  and 
industry  2SQ  prima  facie  injurious.  Further,  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that 
our  own  prosperity  is  increased  by  injury  to  our  neighbour's,  and  that  their 
prosperity  is  detrimental  to  us  ;  our  neighbour's  prosperity  would  increase 
the  volume  of  our  own  trade.  The  control  of  trade  may  be  warranted  for 
a  specific  purpose,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Navigation  Acts,  since  an  island 
nation  is  directly  dependent  for  its  prosperity  on  the  maximum  develop- 
ment of  its  marine  ;  but  in  general  the  fullest  freedom  of  exchange  is 
desirable,  irrespective  of  the  questions  whether  the  particular  country 
exchanges  more  treasure  for  goods  or  more  goods  for  treasure,  which  had 
hitherto  been  the  controlling  consideration  in  framing  commercial  treaties. 
Adam  Smith's  doctrine  bore  fruit  in  the  next  decade  in  the  commercial  and 
financial  policy  of  William  Pitt,  who  was  his  enthusiastic  disciple  ;  later  it 
was  developed  into  those  principles  of  the  Laissez  Faire  Economists,  which 
gradually  gained  an  ascendency  during  the  first  half,  and  were  completely 
dominant  during  the  second  half,  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  Great 
Britain. 


Ill 

LITERATURE 

John  Dryden  died  in  the  year  1700.  Samuel  Johnson  died  in  1784. 
The  date  of  Johnson's  first  notable  publication  was  1738,  a  few  years 
before  the  death  of  two  of  the  most  prominent  literary  figures  of  the 
previous  period.  Pope  and  Swift,  the  survivors  of  a  literary  circle  which  had 
once  included  Addison.  Johnson's  own  circle  after  1761  included  Burke 
and  Goldsmith  and  touched  Sherid-.n.  This  list  of  names  suggests  the 
characteristics  of  the  whole  period  ;  in  the  whole  number  there  is  only  one, 
Edmund  Burke,  who  was  not  essentially  a  man  of  his  century — whose 
work  was  not  an  expression  of  its  conventions.  As  concerns  literary  form, 
these  were  the  men  who  themselves  set  the  conventions  which  lesser  men 
followed  ;  but  the  literary  form  was  itself  the  finished  expression  of  the 
moral  and  intellectual  spirit  of  the  age.  Within  a  few  years  of  Johnson's 
death  an  entirely  new  spirit  had  manifested  itself,  and  the  canons  which 


THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY  703 

had  guided  or  had  been  laid  down  by  the  writers  of  the  eighteenth  century 
were  entirely  discarded. 

Poetry,  a  great  critic  has  said,  is  a  "  criticism  of  life  "  ;  the  poetry  in 
which  an  age  expresses  itself  affords  at  any  rate  a  conclusive  criterion  of  the 
way  in  which  that  age  looked  upon  life.  The  predomin- 
ance of  the  lyrical  over  the  rhetorical  implies  the  pre- 
dominance of  the  emotional  over  the  rational,  and  vice 
versa.  Until  Johnson  was  dead,  rhetorical  poetry  held  the 
field  throughout  the  eighteenth  century  ;  the  era  produced 
only  one  lyrical  poet  of  importance,  William  Collins, 
though  Pope  was  the  most  consummate  master  of  the 
art  which  claims  a  purely  intellectual  appreciation.  The 
Restoration  in  the  seventeenth  century  brought  with  it  a 
revolt  of  the  intellectuals  against  the  tyranny  of  moral 
strenuousness  —  not  merely  the  sour  rigidity  of  the 
narrowest  Puritanism  but  the  emotional  intensity  which 
had  produced  a  Milton  and  a  Cromwell.  In  its  first 
emancipation  it  flung  aside  morality  altogether.  Then 
came  a  reaction,  when  it  was  realised  that  there  w-as  no 
essential  antagonism  between  the  moral  and  the  intellectual. 
Under  the  serene  guidance  of  Addison,  decency  again  became  "  the  mode," 
and  Pope,  in  finely  polished  couplets,  stereotyped  the  somewhat  superficial 
philosophy  of  cultured  common-sense.  The  morality  which  could  be 
expressed  in  epigrams  reigned  supreme,  even 
while  immorality  w-hich  could  shelter  behind 
epigrammatic  formulae  was  rampant.  But  the 
criteria  applied  were  those  of  the  intelligence, 
not  those  of  the  heart ;  the  emotions,  except  as 
playthings  appropriate  to  the  boudoir,  were  at  a 
discount.  Where  there  is  no  enthusiasm  there 
can  be  no  lyrical  poetry,  and  the  Augustan 
Age  knew  not  enthusiasm. 


Dr.  Tohnson. 


[From  an  engravirg  by 
Finden.] 


It  called  itself  Augustan  not  inappropriately, 
for  it  had  much  in  common  with  the  J?ge  of  the 
first  Roman  emperor,  an  imitative  age  with 
little  in  it  that  w^as  spontaneous;  an  artificial 
age  ;  on  the  surface  graceful,  refined,  and  polite, 
below  the  veneer  barbarically  gross,  and  at 
heart  earthy  and  materialistic.  Literature  took 
possession  of  what  was  best  in  it,  and  that  best 
has  a  unique  charm,  an  attraction  of  its  own; 
but  it  is  something  very  different  from  the  best  of  the  Elizabethans  with 
their  vivid  and  all -pervading  vitality,  of  the  Puritans  with  their  fervour  of 
righteousness,  or  of  the  new  spirit  which  burst  info  life  with  the  dying 
century.     The  materialism  was  at  its  worst  in  the  second  quarter  of  the 


.  a  crayon  drawing  in  the  Eodlei; 
Library.] 


704  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

century  ;  but  it  continued  dominant  even  while  a  sturdier  morality,  deepei 
rooted,  more  akin  in  its  nature  to  Puritanism,  was  making  progress  ;  while 
Samuel  Johnson  by  force  of  character  more  than  of  intellect  was  gradually 
achieving  a  supremacy  among  English  men  of  letters  ;  while  the  Great 
Commoner  in  the  political  world,  Wesley  in  the  religious  world,  were 
breathing  life  into  the  dry  bones.  The  breed  of  English  men  of  action 
had  not  worn  itself  out,  but  the  reviving  national  capacity  for  enthusiasm, 
faith,  and  loyalty  was  not  to  bear  full  fruit  until  a  later  generation. 

In  such  an  age,  then,  it  was  impossible  that  lyrical  poetry  should  flourish 
in   England.     Collins  stood  by  himself,  while  Gray's  Odes  have  little  if  at  all 

more  of  the  lyrical  quality  than 
those  of  Dryden  or  Pope.  In  Scot- 
land song  still  lived,  for  Scotland 
was  still  emotional,  still  capable  of 
enthusiasm,  or  there  would  have 
been  no  "  Forty  Five."  But  even 
in  Scotland  the  song  which  was 
spontaneous  was  also  anonymous. 
And  as  the  repression  of  the  deeper 
emotions  was  destructive  of  song, 
so  also  it  was  destructive  of  the 
higher  drama  which  involves  the 
dramatic  insteadof  lyrical  expression 
of  the  deeper  emotions.  Tragedy, 
instead  of  depicting  human  passion, 
was  unreal,  conventional,  and  rhe- 
torical. But  the  very  conditions  which  were  ill  adapted  for  tragedy  were 
perfectly  compatible  with  the  development  of  a  prose  comedy  which  is  of 
its  nature  concerned  with  the  light  and  superficial  aspects  of  life  ;  and  in 
their  own  delightful  kind,  towards  the  close  of  our  period,  the  comedies  of 
two  Irishmen,  Goldsmith  and  Sheridan,  are  unsurpassed  ;  just  as  at  an 
earlier  stage  Pope's  Rape  of  the  Lock  was  a  quite  perfect  piece  of  irrespon- 
sible daintiness. 

The  eighteenth  century,  however,  if  it  was  not  a  great  age  of  poetry, 
was  great  in  prose,  and  in  other  realms  of  prose  than  that  of  theatrical 
comedy.  At  its  outset  the  short  essay  was  almost  perfected  by  Steele  and 
Addison  in  the  pages  of  the  Tatlcr  and  the  Spectator.  Pamphleteering  was 
elevated  into  a  fine  art  by  Defoe  and  Swift.  Defoe,  in  a  series  of  works 
unmatched  in  their  realism  from  ihe  Journal  0/ the  Plague  to  Robinson  Crusoe, 
created  the  English  Novel  ;  and  Swift  made  the  travels  of  Gulliver  to 
Lilliput  and  Brobdingnag  almost  as  convincing  as  the  adventures  of  Crusoe 
himself.  Addison's  creation  of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  reveals  an  aspect  of 
English  life  which  shows  that  the  general  materialism  was  still  far  from 
being  universal,  and  gives  the  first  promise  of  the  English  novel  of  char- 
acter. 


An  "Exquisite"  of  1720. 


THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY  705 

About  the  time  when  Johnson  was  first  shouldering  his  way  into  the 
London  world  of  letters,  the  novel  of  sentimental  respectability  was  given 
its  vogue  by  Samuel  Richardson's  Pamela,  which  helped  at  least  to  inspire 
Henry  Fielding  to  the  production  oi  Joseph  Audreivs  as  a  sort  of  antidote 
to  Richardson's  mawkishness.  Richardson  wrote  for  ladies,  Fielding  did 
not.  Richardson  was  a  moralist  and  a  sentimentalist,  Fielding  was  neither. 
But  it  was  Fielding  who,  like  Defoe,  held  the  mirror  up  to  nature  and 
painted  life  as  he  saw  it  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  with  the 
robust  and  virile  humour  and  fidelity  which  made  Scott  and  Thackeray 
regard  him  as  the  father  of  the  novel.  Of  the  same  school,  though  with 
an  exaggerated  coarseness,  was  Tobias  Smol- 
lett ;  with  these  two  names  is  associated  that 
of  Lawrence  Sterne,  whose  exquisite  humour 
was  counterbalanced  by  a  sort  of  refined 
indecency  much  more  corrupting  than  the 
audacity  of  Fielding  or  the  grossness  of 
Smollett ;  and  Goldsmith  gave  Sir  Roger  de 
Coverley  a  companion  in  the  "  Man  in  Black  " 
of  the  Citizen  of  the  IVorUi,  and  produced  an 
exquisite  novel  of  real  life  which  was  neither 
mawkish  nor  coarse  in  the  Vicar  of  IVakc- 
field. 

Before  1760  Ireland  and  Scotland  had 
taken  their  share  in  the  production  of 
English  literature.  Swift  and  Steele  were 
both  born  in  Dublin.  Smollett  was  a  Scot, 
and  so  were  such  minor  lights  as  James 
Thomson,  the  author  of  The  Seasons,  and 
John  Home,  whose  tragedy  of  Douglas  was 
received  with  enthusiastic  if  evanescent  applause.  Hardly  recognised  as 
yet,  but  destined  to  be  far  more  influential,  was  the  work  of  the  Scotsman 
David  Hume,  whose  importance  in  the  history  of  moral  and  metaphysical 
speculation  can  hardly  be  over-estimated,  while  his  History  of  England, 
though  in  many  respects  untrustworthy,  gives  him  a  place  in  the  front 
rank  of  English  historians.  In  the  realm  of  philosophy  Hume,  himself  an 
audacious  and  original  thinker,  was  almost  equalled  in  originality  and  im- 
portance by  his  predecessor,  George  Berkeley,  Bishop  of  Cloyne. 

And  after  1760  the  prominence  of  Scots  and  Irishmen  increased.  In 
the  lighter  walks  of  literature  the  achievement  of  Goldsmith  and  Sheridan 
has  already  been  noted.  If  Johnson,  the  greatest  literary  figure  of  the  time, 
was  English  through  and  through,  his  biography,  the  acknowledged  master- 
piece of  its  kind,  was  the  w^ork  of  the  Scot  Boswell.  Burke,  the  Irishman, 
was  the  greatest  political  thinker  of  the  day,  unless  we  except  the  Scot 
Adam  Smith,  whose  great  work  the  Wealth  of  Nations  raised  political  economy, 
which  had  hitherto  been  little  more  than  empirical,  into  an  acknowledged 

2  Y 


Henry  Fielding,  by  Hogarth. 

the  1772  ediiioii  of  lieldiiig's  "Works."] 


job  THE    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

science,  and  revolutionised  the  prevalent  ideas  on  the  subject.  But  though 
Hume  as  a  historian  was  surpassed  by  another  Scot,  William  Robertson, 
the  acknowledged  supremacy  in  that  field  belongs  to  the  Englishman 
Gibbon,  whose  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  stands  by  itself  without 
a  rival. 


BOOK    VI 

THE   ERA   OF  REVOLUTIONS 

CHAPTER   XXIX 

BETWEEN   THE   WARS 

I 

PITT'S   DOMESTIC   POLICY 

The  return  of  Pitt  to  power  was  something  very  different  from  the 
estabhshment  of  a  ministry  of  king's  friends  fourteen  years  before.  Pitt 
was  no  subservient  poHtician  prepared  to  act  merely  as  the  mouthpiece  of 
the  king.  He  had  behind  him  in  parliament  a  large  majority,  but  not  a 
compact  one,  nor  one  upon  which  he  could  rely  to  follow  his  lead,  although 
in  the  main  it  accepted  his  guidance.  The  principal  reason  why  that 
majority  had  been  returned  was  that  public  feeling  was  disgusted  by  the 
coalition  of  Fox  and  North,  in  which  it  appeared  that  both  Fox  and  North 
had  thrown  over  their  principles  in  order  to  secure  power  by  combination. 
A  large  proportion  of  North's  former  followers  retained  their  old  attach- 
ment to  the  Crown,  and  deserted  North  when  he  deserted  the  Crown. 
Chatham's  admirers  rallied  to  the  support  of  Chatham's  son  ;  there  was  a 
proportion  of  Whigs  who  would  not  commit  themselves  to  the  latest  Whig 
doctrine,  that  the  king  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  accept  the  ministers  at 
their  own  dictation.  These  various  elements  gradually  crystallised  into 
what  became  the  new  Tory  party  ;  but  in  the  first  years  of  its  existence, 
before  it  acquired  a  special  character  in  consequence  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, its  leader  was  a  reformer,  many  of  whose  aims  were  only  realised  by 
what  was  coming  to  be  called  Liberalism  half  a  century  afterwards.  Pitt, 
like  his  father,  was  personally  incorruptible,  and  anxious  to  cut  at  the  roots 
of  the  practice  of  corruption.  He  desired  the  reform  of  representation. 
He  desired  the  removal  of  the  restrictions  on  trade.  He  desired  the  relief 
of  Roman  Catholics,  and  was  a  warm  advocate  of  the  abolition  of  the  slave 
trade.  But,  while  he  was  able  to  carry  out  his  financial  policy,  he  was 
able  to  retain  office  only  because  it  was  not  yet  recognised  constitutional 
doctrine  that  ministers  defeated  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  an  important 
issue  should  either  resign  or  appeal  to  the  country.     He  could  not  command 

707 


7o8  THE   ERA   OF   REVOLUTIONS 

a  majority  in  the  House  on  specific  issues  ;  but  he  did  not  therefore  resign 
until  a  specific  issue  arose  between  himself  and  the  king  on  a  question  as 
to  which  he  considered  himself  finally  pledged. 

When  Pitt  began  his  long  career  as  Prime  Minister  the  world  at  large 
believed  that  the  British  Empire  was  tottering.  It  had  been  rent  in  twain  ; 
it  was.  exhausted  by  the  str?in  of  a  long  war,  waged  against  a  group  of 
powers.     Its  naval   ascendency  had   been  all  but  lost,  and  even  now  was 

in  question.  Its  government  had 
gone  to  pieces,  and  the  reorganisa- 
tion depended  on  the  wisdom  and 
skill  of  a  youth  of  four-and-twenty. 
But  now  for  nearly  nine  years  Pitt 
kept  the  country  at  peace  ;  during 
the  peace  its  commerce  and  its  wealth 
expanded  with  renewed  vigour,  and 
when  once  more  Britain  went  to 
war,  she  was  able  to  emerge  from  it 
triumphantly.  The  wealth  she  had 
acquired  provided  her  with  the  means, 
and  her  maritime  power  preserved 
her  commerce  till  she  had  what  was 
practically  a  monopoly  of  the  sea- 
borne traffic  ;  while  the  exploiting 
of  her  native  supplies  of  coal  and 
iron  joined  with  the  triumphs  of  her 
inventors  to  create  for  her  almost  a 
monopoly  of  manufacture.  The  new 
manufacture  and  the  new  organisa- 
tion of  transport  secured  the  success 
of  Pitt's  financial  policy. 

The  main  principles  of  Pitt's 
finance  were  derived  from  Adam 
Smith.  The  error  of  seeking  to  raise 
revenue  by  high  tariffs  had  been  shown  by  the  successful  lowering  of 
tariffs  under  Walpole  and  in  the  first  Rockingham  administration.  The 
high  duties  on  tea  and  spirits  ensured  to  the  smugglers  large  profits  \vhich 
compensated  the  risks  of  the  illicit  traffic.  Vast  quantities  of  these  articles 
were  brought  into  the  country  without  paying  the  duties,  and  many 
eminently  respectable  persons  profited  thereby,  since  they  considered 
themselves  to  be  under  no  obligation  to  know  whether  the  goods  they 
bought  were  smuggled  or  not.  Pitt  lowered  the  duties,  and  to  com- 
pensate the  immediate  loss  of  revenue  he  imposed  a  window  tax — which 
could  not  be  evaded,  because  the  number  of  windows  in  a  house  could  be 
ascertained  by  the  simple  process  of  counting — and  every  penny  of  the  tax 
except  the  small  amount  absorbed  in  collecting  it  went  direct  to  the  revenue. 


The  Right  lion.  William  Pitt. 
[.\rter  tlie  portrait  by  Gainsborough.] 


BETWEEN   THE   WARS  709 

For  it  was  one  of  Adam  Smith's  principles  that  since  all  taxation  is  to  a 
certain  extent  a  check  upon  the  increase  of  wealth,  the  state,  which  must 
impose  taxation  for  the  purposes  of  revenue,  should  see  that  the  whole  of 
the  tax  goes  to  the  revenue  ;  taxation  to  regulate  trade,  not  for  the  purposes 
of  revenue,  being  inadmissible  because  the  only  effect  must  be  to  hinder 
trade.  On  the  other  hand,  the  lowering  of  the  duties  on  tea  and  spirits 
reduced  their  price  in  the  market  correspondingly,  diminished  the  induce- 
ment to  smuggling  and  the  expenditure  on  the  preventive  service,  and 
brought  an  increased  quantity  of  the  goods  into  the  country  through  the 
legitimate  channel.  The  same  principles 
were  applied  to  other  imports,  as  had 
been  done  half  a  century  earlier  by 
Walpole.  In  particular  the  import  of 
raw  material  was  encouraged  by  re- 
duced tariffs,  although  the  British  manu- 
facturer had  not  yet  learnt,  as  he  learnt 
in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
to  believe  in  the  admission  of  the  foreign 
competitor.  It  was  not  yet  possible  to 
attack  tariffs  of  a  purely  protective  char- 
acter, in  each  one  of  which  some  vested 
interests  were  at  stake. 

The  passing  of  the  old  ideas  of  com- 
mercial policy  was  illustrated  when  Pitt 
negotiated  a  commercial  treaty  with 
France  in  1786.  Each  country  had 
hitherto  followed  a  policy  of  excluding 
the  other's  goods.  No  one  since  1713 
had  attempted  in  practice  to  traverse 
that  principle.  But  now  professed  economists  had  nothing  to  say  against 
opening  up  commerce  with  France  ;  the  opposition  was  mainly  expressed 
by  Fox,  who  denounced  the  treaty  on  the  ground  that  France,  our 
hereditary  foe,  would  profit  by  it.  A  few  years  later  Fox  wms  less  ready 
to  denounce  our  hereditary  foe.  The  French  denounced  the  treaty, 
because  they  profited  by  it  a  good  deal  less  than  the  British.  But  nobody 
denounced  it  as  injurious  to  the  balance  of  trade. 

An  important  economy  introduced  by  Pitt  was  the  abolition  of  the 
existing  method  of  receiving  tenders  for  public  loans.  Such  loans  had  been 
floated  by  private  arrangement  and  were  a  gross  means  of  corruption.  North's 
Government  in  particular  having  conceded  the  most  extravagant  terms  for 
party  ends.  Pitt  threw  the  tenders  open  to  public  competition,  which  at 
once  secured  the  best  terms  possible  for  the  Treasury  and  destroyed  a 
principal  source  of  corruption.  It  is  remarkable,  however,  that  the 
financial  scheme  in  which  Pitt  himself  took  most  pride,  and  which  was 
hailed   with  the  most  enthusiastic  applause,   was  one  whose  unsoundness 


"The  Raree  Show." 
[A  caricature  on  Pitt's  taxation  and  foreign  policy.] 


710  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

was  already  apparent  within  a  few  years  of  his  death,  and  was  possibly 
reahsed  by  himself  some  time  earlier.  This  was  his  scheme  for  a  Sinking 
Fund  which  was  to  wipe  out  the  National  Debt.  Walpole  had  instituted  a 
sinking  fund,  but  it  had  been  so  repeatedly  and  so  unscrupulously  raided 
that  only  a  fraction  of  it  had  really  been  appropriated  to  the  reduction  of  the 
debt.  Pitt's  plan  was  to  set  aside  ^1,000,000  annually,  which  was  to  be 
handed  over  to  a  special  board,  not  political,  which  was  to  invest  it.  It 
was  imagined  that,  accumulating  at  compound  interest,  it  would  in  a  few 
years  extinguish  the  entire  debt.  So  long  as  the  money  could  be  set  aside 
out  of  revenue  it  was  true  that  the  higher  interest  received  by  investing 
money  would  accumulate  a  fund  for  paying  off  the  capital  debt ;  but  the 
scheme  broke  down  as  soon  as  the  pressure  on  government  compelled  it  to 
resort  to  borrowing  at  higher  rates.  For  in  effect  the  sinking  fund  was  then 
provided  for  out  of  the  borrowed  money,  not  out  of  revenue,  and  when  the 
country  was  at  war,  the  money  was  borrowed  at  a  higher  rate  of  interest 
than  that  obtained  by  its  investment.  A  sinking  fund  for  paying  off  the 
debt  on  which  there  is  a  low  rate  of  interest  at  once  becomes  unsound  if 
it  can  only  be  provided  for  by  incurring  a  new  debt  at  a  higher  rate  of 
interest. 

In  another  attempt  to  act  upon  free  trade  principles  Pitt  was  defeated. 
The  question  of  commerce  was  still  an  acute  source  of  friction  with  Ireland, 
in  the  same  sort  of  way  as  had  been  the  case  when  there  was  an  independent 
Scottish  legislature.  There  had  been  a  partial  relaxation  of  the  restrictions 
upon  Irish  trade  under  North's  Government.  Pitt  proposed  to  carry  the 
matter  very  much  further,  and  in  effect,  though  still  with  some  exceptions, 
to  treat  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  as  a  fiscal  unit.  The  commercial  gain 
to  Ireland  would  have  been  great ;  nevertheless  in  Ireland,  as  well  as  in 
England,  Pitt's  measure  was  resolutely  opposed.  In  England  the  opposition 
came  from  the  commercial  classes,  who  resented  being  exposed  to  Irish 
competition.  In  Ireland  the  opposition  was  political,  and  was  based  on 
the  fact  that,  if  the  countries  were  treated  as  a  fiscal  unit,  the  whole  financial 
control  would  lie  at  Westminster,  and  Ireland,  unrepresented  at  Westminster, 
would  have  no  voice  in  it  at  all.  The  independence  of  the  Irish  parliament 
won  in  1782  would  be  curtailed  in  a  very  important  particular,  and  to  this 
the  Irish  parliament  would  not  assent,  especially  in  view  of  the  limitations 
which  the  commercial  interest  in  England  had  forced  upon  Pitt's  own 
scheme.     The  measure  therefore  was  dropped  and  was  not  again  revived. 

While  Pitt  was  still  an  independent  member  of  the  British  parliament, 
outside  the  Government,  he  had  constituted  himself  the  champion  of  parlia- 
mentary reform  of  which  his  father  had  been  a  strong  advocate.  The 
system  had  ceased  to  be  representative  ;  but  while  the  demand  for  recon- 
struction became  periodically  insistent  outside  parliament,  so  that  Chatham 
had  pronounced  that  if  parliament  did  not  soon  reform  itself,  it  would  be 
reformed  "  with  a  vengeance  "  from  outside,  the  members  themselves  were 
not  reformers.     Too  many  of  them  sat  for  pocket  boroughs  to  be  willing 


BETWEEN   THE   WARS  711 

for  the  abolition  of  pocket  boroughs,  and  the  controllers  of  pocket 
boroughs  were  equally  adverse  to  a  change.  Pitt's  plan  now  was  to  ex- 
tinguish thirty-six  of  these  constituencies,  and  to  increase  the  representation 
of  the  counties  correspondingly.  London  and  Westminster  were  also  to 
have  an  increase,  a  share  in  the  seventy-two  seats  provided  by  the  abolition 
of  thirty-six  constituencies.  So  far  Fox  and  his  followers  were  ready  to 
support  Pitt  against  the  vested  interests  which  were  opposed  to  reform  ;  but 
Pitt  proposed  to  recognise  those  vested  interests  by  buying  them  out,  and 
to  this  Fox  would  not  consent.  The  result  was  that  Pitt  was  unable  to 
carry  the  measure,  and  parliamentary  reform  was  driven  off  the  field  of 
practical  politics  for  forty  years  by  the  anti-democratic  reaction  born  of 
the  French  Revolution. 

In  spite  then  of  this  defeat  on  sundry  measures  of  lirst-rate  importance, 
to  which  may   be  added  his  failure  to  carry  parliament  with  him  in  his 
desire  to  abohsh  the  slave  trade,  Pitt  remained  Prime  Minister  ;  nor  did 
the  theory  and  practice  of  the  constitution  call  for  his  resignation.     Yet  at 
the  end  of   1788  it  seemed  exceedingly  probable  that  his  ministerial  career 
would  be  brought  to  an  abrupt  conclusion.     The  king  was  again  attacked 
by  the  brain  malady  with  which  he  had  been  threatened  twenty-two  years 
before.     At  once  the  question  of  the  regency  became  acute.     The  Prince 
of  Wales  and  his  brothers,  in  accordance  with  the  family  tradition,  were  on 
bad  terms  with  their  father,  and  the   prince  himself  was  on  intimate  terms 
with  the  leaders  of  the  Opposition,  Fox  and  Sheridan.     Obviously  he  was 
the  natural  person  to  assume  the  regency.     The  Opposition  claimed  that  it 
belonged  to  him  by  constitutional  right ;  that  if  the  king  were  incapacitated, 
it  followed  that  the  heir-apparent  should  discharge  the  monarchical  functions 
unless  it  had  been  otherwise  decided  by  the  king  in  parliament.     Pitt,  on 
the   other  hand,  claimed   that  it  rested   with   the  Estates   to   appoint  the 
regent  and  to  define  his  powers,  although  it  was  admitted  that  the  Prince 
of  Wales  was  the  person  who  would  naturally  be  appointed.     The  power 
of  the  Crown,  however,  was  still  so  great  that  it  was  assumed  on  all  hands 
that,  if  the  prince  became  regent,  Pitt  would  be  dismissed  and  the  govern- 
ment would  pass  to  a  Fox  ministry.     The  curious  spectacle  was  seen  of 
the   Whigs,  led    by   Fox,  asserting  the   hereditary  prerogative    in    a   most 
uncompromising  form,  while  Pitt  and  the  Tories  were  the  champions  of 
the  rights  of  parliament,  the  paradox   being  partly  accounted  for  by  the 
suspicion  that  if  the  Whig  doctrine  were  carried  and  the  prince  became  in 
effect  king,  the  king  himself  would  not  recover  power  even  if  he  recovered 
his   health.      English   public   opinion    was    with    Pitt,   and    demanded    the 
limitation  of  the  powers  which  should   be  conferred  upon   the  prince   as 
regent,  and  the  recognition  of  the  principle  that  he  could  not  claim  the 
regency  as  a  constitutional  right.     There  was  no  precedent  for  the  situation, 
but  in  any  case  it  was  felt  that  the  regency  of  the  prince  would  involve 
Pitt's  retirement.     The  position,  however,  was  saved  by  the  king's  recovery 
before  the  Regency  Bill  had  passed  through  the  Lords.      Pitt,  instead  of 


712  THE   ERA   OF   REVOLUTIONS 

being  driven  into  private  life,  was  more  firmly  established  in  power  and  in 
the  royal  favour  than  before. 


II 


FOREIGN  POLICY   AND    THE    FRENCH    REVOLUTION 


For  five-and-twenty  years  after  the  Peace  of  Paris,  Great  Britain  had 
stood  aloof  from  continental  politics,  in  the  isolation  which  Bute  had  pro- 
cured for  her.  For  a 
dozen  years  she  had 
neglected  Europe  as 
though  its  affairs  had 
no  interest  for  her  ;  she 
had  paid  no  attention 
while  France  absorbed 
Corsica  and  while 
Russia,  Austria,  and 
Prussia  absorbed  the 
greater  part  of  Poland 
among  them.  Then  the 
American  War  had  put 
it  out  of  her  power 
to  concern  herself  with 
the  doings  of  other 
nations,  though  other 
nations  had  found  the 
opportunity  to  concern 
themselves  very  actively 
with  her  affairs  ;  and 
then  Pitt,  in  the  early 
years  of  his  adminis- 
tration, recognised  that 
the  first  essential  for 
Britain  was  to  set  her 
own  house  in  order. 
The  revival  of  pros- 
perity however  was  rapid,  and  by  1788  Pitt  was  ready  for  the  country 
to  assert  itself  in  foreign  affairs  if  the  occasion  should  arise. 

In  spite  of  the  French  commercial  treaty,  Bourbon  aggression  was  tiie 
inevitable  object  of  suspicion  for  British  statesmanship,  and  Pitt  achieved  a 
temporary  diplomatic  triumph  by  forming  in  that  year,  1788,  the  Triple 
Alliance  with  Prussia — now  under  a  new  king,  Frederick  William  II.,  since 
Frederick  11.  died  in  1786 — and  Holland.     The  primary  end  secured  was 


Map  of  Europe,  17S9-1794. 


BETWEEN   THE   WARS  713 

the  establishment  of  tlie  supremacy  in  Holland  of  the  Stadtholder  William  of 
Orange,  with  whose  house  Great  Britain  had  always  remained  in  alliance, 
whereas  the  republican  and  anti-Orange  party  habitually  leaned  to  France. 

The  restored  prestige  of  Great  Britain  was  presently  decisively  asserted 
in  a  quarrel  with  Spain,  which  laid  claim  to  Nootka  Sound  on  the  west 
coast  of  North  America,  where  there  was  a  British  settlement.  The 
Spaniards  took  possession  and  seized  the  British  settlers,  on  the  ground 
that  Spaniards  not  British  had  discovered  the  country.  Pitt  replied  that  the 
claim  to  possession  rested  not  on  discovery  but  on  occupation,  and  prepared 
to  back  the  argument  with  a  fleet.  Spain  appealed  to  France,  but  France, 
already  in  the  throes  of  the  Revolution,  declined  to  intervene  ;  and  by  the 
Convention  of  1791  Spain  surrendered  completely.      In  another  direction. 


Taming  oP-USHREW:  ^athamt 


Pitt  averting  the  partition  of  Turkey  b_v  Catherine  of  Russia. 
[A  caricature  of  1791.] 

however,  Pitt  met  v^-ith  a  defeat.  He  viewed  with  alarm  the  aggressive 
policy  of  the  Russian  Tsarina  Catherine,  who  was  already  scheming  for  the 
absorption  not  only  of  Poland  but  also  of  Turkish  dominions,  which  would 
establish  Russia  as  a  maritime  power  on  the  Mediterranean.  Chatham  at 
an  earlier  stage  had  favoured  the  progress  of  Russia  as  a  Power  which 
could  be  called  in  to  counteract  Bourbon  ascendency  on  the  Continent  ; 
while  to  Burke  and  Fox,  as  to  later  English  Liberalism  when  it  was 
dominated  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  suppression  of  the  Turk  appeared  to  be 
far  from  undesirable.  With  Pitt  began  that  attitude  of  suspicious  hostility 
towards  Russia  which  so  largely  dominated  British  foreign  policy  at  most 
periods  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  Pitt  found  himself  unsupported  by 
public  opinio-n  ;  having  threatened  war,  he  was  obliged  to  draw  back.  At 
the  Peace  of  Jassy  Catherine  obtained  her  immediate  desire  by  securing 
the  line  of  the  Dniester  ;  and  Frederick  William  of  Prussia,  who  had 
expected  to  check  her  advance  by   British   aid,  began  instead  to  seek  the 


714  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

Tsarina's  friendship,  looking  upon  Pitt  as  a  broken  reed.  The  result  was 
shortly  afterwards  shown  in  a  fresh  dismemberment  of  Poland. 

In  the  four  years,  however,  from  the  beginning  of  1789  to  the  close  of 
1792,  the  French  Revolution  and  the  fall  of  the  Bourbon  monarchy  were 
totally  subverting  the  whole  European  system.  France  was  the  type 
of  an  absolute  monarchy  associated  with  a  completely  exclusive  aristocracy, 
entirely  dominant  over  bourgeoisie  and  peasantry  who  bore  the  whole 
burden  of  taxation  without  having  any  voice  in  the  government.  The 
burden  of  the  taxation  was  cruel,  and  the  finances  of  the  country  had  been 
reduced  to  utter  chaos  by  a  century  of  costly  and  perpetual  wars.  There 
was  no  civilised  country  where  the  "  Rights  of  Man  "  were  less  regarded 
in  practice.  But  in  theory  the  Rights  of  Man  were  regarded  with  enthusi- 
astic admiration.  French  thinkers  and  writers  had  pointed  out,  sometimes 
with  scathing  ridicule,  sometimes  with  remorseless  logic,  and  sometimes 
with  sentimental  rhetoric,  the  iniquities  and  follies  of  the  existing  system, 
and  had  contrasted  them  soberly  with  the  infinitely  more  equitable  govern- 
ment of  Great  Britain  or  picturesquely  with  the  ideal  life  of  an  imaginary 
Golden  Age  before  man  had  learnt  to  tyrannise  over  man.  French  aristo- 
crats made  much  of  the  heroes  of  liberty  who  set  America  free  from  British 
tyranny ;  some  of  them  magnificently  gave  their  swords  to  serve  the  same 
cause  ;  and  at  last,  when  French  finances  were  persistently  going  from 
bad  to  worse,  the  advisers  of  Louis  XVI.  bethought  themselves  of  summon- 
ing the  States  General,  the  assembly  of  the  Three  Estates  of  noblesse, 
clergy,  and  commons,  which  had  not  been  called  together  since  the  early 
years  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

The  States  General  were  brought  together  in  May  1789,  when  the 
Third  Estate,  supported  by  a  few  of  the  clergy  and  a  few  of  the  nobility, 
promptly  asserted  itself.  At  the  outset  it  seemed  that  there  was  going  to  be 
a  constitutional  revolt  against  privilege  and  absolutism.  Everywhere  the 
souls  of  lovers  of  liberty  rejoiced  when  the  populace  of  Paris  pulled  down 
the  Bastille,  the  emblem  of  arbitrary  power.  Monarchs  and  aristocrats, 
however,  took  alarm  at  the  idea  of  the  subject  masses  laying  claim  to 
political  rights  and  repudiating  their  subjection.  British  respectability 
reproved  but  on  the  whole  did  not  condemn  a  praiseworthy  if  ill-regulated 
effort  to  follow  the  paths  of  constitutionalism  along  which  the  British  nation 
had  already  advanced  with  so  much  conscious  rectitude.  It  was  not  long, 
however,  before  Edmund  Burke,  with  more  penetration,  was  denouncing 
the  proceedings  of  the  French  as  an  attack  upon  every  conservative 
principle,  destructive  of  all  the  ideas  upon  which  the  framework  of  society 
rested.  In  England  constitutionalism  had  been  an  orderly  development,  a 
steady  growth,  rooted  always  in  the  same  principles.  Progress  had  been 
made  not  by  introducing  innovations  but  by  closing  the  door  to  reactionary 
innovations,  by  a  process  of  adaptation  to  changing  conditions.  France 
was  setting  herself  to  cut  down  the  system  which  had  developed  naturally, 
and    to    substitute    a  brand   new   logical   system    wholly    unrelated  to  the 


BETWEEN    THE   WARS  715 

existing  conditions.  The  inevitable  result  would  be  first  a  hideous  anarchy 
and  then  a  military  despotism.  In  English  democrats,  however,  the  first 
stages  of  the  French  Revolution  inspired  no  such  terrors.  In  their  eyes 
there  was  room  for  a  good  deal  of  reform  even  in  the  sacred  British 
constitution,  in  which  privilege  still  played  far  too  large  a  part,  and  popular 
rights  were  scandalously  repressed. 

The  French  Revolution  was  a  war  upon  privilege.  As  it  went  forward 
it  became  more  and  more  violent,  more  and  more  destructive  of  everything 
which  could  preserve  a  society  that  assumed  distinctions  of  rank  to  be  the 
first  fundamental  condition  of  public  order  and  decency.  In  England  itself, 
in  the  lower  social  strata,  men  were  already 
beginning  to  feel  the  pinch  of  the  rural 
and  industrial  revolutions  that  were  going 
on.  The  aggregate  of  wealth  was  increasing 
rapidly,  but  the  area  of  its  distribution  was 
becoming  more  and  more  restricted.  The 
agricultural  and  industrial  output  was  ex- 
panding, while  the  amount  of  labour  em- 
ployed on  it  was  diminishing,  and  the 
population  was  multiplying  rapidly.  The 
superabundant  supply  of  labour  was  driving 
wages  below  the  subsistence  level  ;  and  for 
this  state  of  things  men  found  the  cause 
not    in    the    economic    but    in    the    social 

J-,-  rr«i  J.  i-         ii  Edmund  Burlce. 

conditions.     There  were  not  wanting  those  ,     ,  .  ,    ^ 

*=*  [After  tl:;  portrait  by  Romney.] 

who  persuaded  themselves  that  the  remedy 

was  to  be  sought  in  a  political  reconstruction,  of  which  France  was  setting 

the  example. 

In  1789  the  States  General,  converted  into  a  National  Assembly,  made 
a  clean  sweep  of  feudal  privileges.  Then  it  set  to  work  to  invent  a  new 
constitution.  There  was  a  considerable  exodus  of  the  nobility,  and  then 
in  179 1  Louis  attempted  flight.  His  departure  was  detected,  and  he  was 
brought  back  to  Paris  from  the  frontier  ;  but  P'rance  believed  that  he  had 
been  on  his  way  to  make  an  appeal  to  his  brother  monarchs  to  restore  the 
French  monarchy  by  force  of  arms.  A  corresponding  interpretation  was 
placed  upon  the  attitude  of  the  King  of  Prussia  and  the  Austrian  Emperor, 
with  the  result  that  early  in  1792  Louis  was  compelled  to  declare  war 
upon  Austria. 

Thus  began  the  European  conflagration,  for  which,  in  the  first  instance, 
France  had  two  distinct  motives.  The  first  was  national  resentment  at  the 
interference  of  a  foreign  Power  in  France's  conduct  of  her  own  private 
affairs,  and  the  second  was  the  revival  of  the  old  idea  of  Louis  XIV.  that 
France  was  entitled  to  extend  her  borders  to  her  "  natural  boundaries,"  the 
Rhine  and  the  Alps.  But  by  this  time  the  French  monarchy  was  already 
doomed,  and  very  shortly  a  third  motive  was  added — that  of  extending 


7i6  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

"liberty"  to  all  the  peoples  of  Europe,  who  were  ready  to  burst  the  bonds 
of  monarchical  and  aristocratic  dominion. 

In  the  early  months  of  1792,  Pitt's  attitude  towards  France  was  still  one 
almost  of  benevolent  neutrality.  He  saw  no  reason  to  anticipate  that  the 
country  would  be  involved  in  war,  and  his  budget  was  framed  without  any 
regard  to  such  a  possibility.  Leopold  of  Austria  who,  during  his  all  too 
brief  reign,  which  was  ended  by  his  premature  death  early  in  this  year 
before  the  declaration  of  war  by  France,  had  shown  himself  the  most 
practically  intelligent  statesman  in  Europe,  had  declined  to  yield  to  the 
clamour  of  the  French  emigres  or  to  dictate  to  France  after  Louis  accepted 
the  constitution.  Pitt  certainly  saw  no  reason  for  Great  Britain  to  interfere 
on  behalf  of  the  French  monarchy,  especially  as  the  Crown  was  still 
recognised  as  an  integral  part  of  the  constitution.  If  France  chose  to 
involve  herself  in  a  war  with  Austria  and  Prussia,  the  struggle  was  not 
likely  to  last  long  in  view  of  the  chaotic  condition  of  the  French  govern- 
ment and  the  French  finances,  to  say  nothing  of  the  French  army. 
P'rance,  in  short,  might  create  a  great  deal  of  disturbance,  but  there  was 
no  reason  to  be  afraid  of  her  aggression. 

The  prophets  who  prophesied  her  downfall  derived  support  from  the 
blunders  of  her  first  military  movements  on  the  Netherlands  frontier, 
followed  up  by  the  Prussian  declaration  of  war.  Then  the  effective 
government  was  captured  by  the  Paris  Commune,  which  was  led  by  the 
extreme  revolutionists  ;  the  mob  broke  into  the  palace  of  the  Tuileries,  and 
the  king  and  the  royal  family  were  virtually  made  prisoners.  From  the 
frontier  came  the  news  that  the  foreign  invaders  were  on  French  soil,  and 
Paris  in  a  panic  massacred  a  number  of  "suspects"  who  were  accused  of 
treason  to  the  state  and  of  being  in  league  with  the  alien  invader.  Terror 
turned  to  sudden  triumph  when  the  attack  of  the  Prussians  was  repulsed 
at  Valmy  by  Dumouriez,  an  engagement  which  inspired  a  new  and  in- 
domitable confidence  in  the  patriotic  national  levies  which  had  gathered  to 
hurl  defiance  at  the  invader. 

But  the  "  September  massacre  "  had  sent  a  shudder  of  horror  through 
Europe,  while  the  Revolution  set  the  seal  upon  its  defiance  of  the  world  by 
making  the  proclamation  of  the  French  Republic  the  first  act  of  the  new 
National  Assembly.  Though  hitherto  France  had  claimed  to  be  acting  on 
the  defensive  against  the  unwarrantable  dictation  of  foreign  Powers,  an 
altitude  for  which  she  had  at  least  exceedingly  strong  warrant,  she  now 
became  avowedly  aggressive.  The  new  Republic  openly  asserted  its  right 
to  absorb  Savoy  and  Belgium,  and  to  carry  its  frontier  to  the  "natural 
boundary."  It  proclaimed  itself  the  friend  and  ally  of  every  people  which 
desired  freedom,  the  enemy  of  all  monarchies.  It  asserted  its  right  to 
ignore  existing  treaties,  and  its  intention  of  enforcing  the  opening  of  the 
navigation  of  the  Scheldt,  in  defiance  of  the  guarantees  given  by  Great 
Britain  as  well  as  by  other  Powers;  and  in  the  terrible  phrase  of  Danton,  it 
resolved  to  "  fling  before  the  kings  of  Europe  the  head  of  a  king  as  tiie 


BETWEEN   THE    WARS  717 

gage  ol  battle."  Before  the  year  was  out  ''  Louis  Capet "  was  brought  to 
trial  for  his  life;  within  a  month  his  head  fell  beneath  the  guillotine.  But 
before  that,  war  with  Britain  had  already  become  a  certainty.  France 
had  assumed  an  impossibly  dictatorial  attitude  to  the  courts  of  Europe, 
setting  at  nought  all  the  rules  of  diplomatic  intercourse  ;  and  Britain  was 
pledged  up  to  the  hilt  to  oppose  the  opening  of  the  Scheldt  even  at  the 
cost  of  war.      In  January  1793  war  was  declared. 


Ill 

INDIA   AND   CANADA 

The  coalition  ministry  of  1783  was  dismissed  in  consequence  of  the 
battle  over  Fox's  India  Bill  ;  it  followed  that  a  new  India  Bill  was 
almost  the  first  measure  of  Pitt's  government  when  he  was  returned  to 
power  with  a  substantial  majority  behind  him.  Chatham,  Clive,  and 
Warren  Hastings  had  all  been  disposed  in  favour  of  an  assumption  of 
complete  control  by  the  Crown  ;  but  it  was  not  easy  to  reconcile  such  a 
scheme  with  the  vested  interests  of  the  East  India  Company.  Fox's  bill 
had  proposed  to  reduce  the  company's  authority  to  a  minimum,  placing 
the  control  even  of  trade  in  the  hands  of  a  commission  chosen  by  the 
legislature.  The  bill  had  aroused  intense  opposition,  partly  because  it 
brushed  aside  the  chartered  rights  of  the  company,  partly  because 
the  arrangement  of  its  details  was  expected  to  be  utilised  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  give  the  then  existing  Government  a  permanent  control 
not  only  over  the  government  of  India  but  over  the  imperial  parliament. 
The  new  bill  was  one  of  those  compromises  in  which  the  British  consti- 
tution is  so  rich,  illogical  and  unsymmetrical  but  workable  in  practice 
through  its  indefiniteness  and  elasticity. 

There  were  three  powers  concerned — the  executive  government  on 
the  spot  in  India,  the  East  India  Company  itself,  and  the  imperial 
government.  The  first  essential  was  that  the  government  on  the  spot 
should  be  able  to  act  with  a  free  hand  according  to  the  exigencies  which 
it  had  to  face,  w^ithout  being  tied  and  bound  by  instructions  from  a  body 
which,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  could  not  be  fully  informed  of  the 
circumstances,  seeing  that  a  full  twelve-month  was  bound  to  pass  between 
the  sending  of  a  despatch  from  India  and  the  receipt  of  a  reply  from 
London.  But,  secondly,  the  Indian  government  could  not  be  allowed  to 
become  an  irresponsible  autocracy  ;  it  must  be  ultimately  responsible  to 
the  imperial  government,  which  must  approve  beforehand  the  general  lines 
of  the  policy  to  be  followed,  and  must  be  able  to  penalise  any  unwarrant- 
able departure  from  those  general  lines.  In  the  third  place,  the  power  of 
the  imperial  government  must  be  reconciled  with  the  chartered  rights  of 
the  company. 


7i8  THE    ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

The  system  now  established  remained  in  force  for  almost  three- 
quarters  of  a  century,  and  was  brought  to  an  end  only  in  1858  with  the 
disappearance  of  the  East  India  Company  and  the  transfer  of  the  govern- 
ment to  the  Crown.  A  strong  executive  government  in  India  was  wholly 
incompatible  with  the  system  created  by  Lord  North's  Regulating  Act. 
Under  the  new  system  each  of  the  three  Presidencies  was  to  have  its  own 
governor,  its  own  commander-in-chief,  and  two  other  members  of  the 
governor's  council  ;  but  since  the  governor  had  a  casting  vote,  he  could 
get  his  own  way  unless  he  stood  alone  in  the  council.  But  the  governor 
and  the  council  of    Bengal   were  also  to  exercise   a  controlling   authority 

over  the  other  two  Presidencies,  while  the 
governor  was  to  be  Governor-General  of 
India,  or  rather  of  the  British  dominions 
in  India.  Further,  under  special  circum- 
stances the  Governor-General  had  power 
to  act  without  consulting  his  council.  In 
the  next  place  the  India  House,  that  is  the 
management  of  the  East  India  Company 
in  London,  retained  their  authority  to  lay 
down  general  directions  for  policy  and 
their  general  powers  of  patronage  and 
appointment.  But  these  powers  were  sub- 
ject to  the  supervision  and  approval  of 
a  Ministerial  Board  of  Control,  whose 
members  were  appointed  by  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  day,  and  whose  president 
w^as  a  member  of  the  ministry,  this  body 
having  access  to  all  correspondence.  The 
principal  direct  restriction  on  the  powers  of  the  Governor-General  was 
that  he  was  forbidden  to  make  compromising  alliances  without  authority 
from  home,  while  indirectly  he  w^ould  render  himself  liable  to  censure 
and  recall  if  he  departed  from  instructions  without  reasonable  justification. 

Warren  Hastings  left  India  in  1785  on  the  completion  of  his  term  of 
office  which  had  been  once  renewed.  He  was  soon  attacked  by  the 
leaders  of  the  Opposition,  the  three  principal  charges  against  him  being 
the  affairs  of  the  Rohilla  War,  the  Rajah  of  Benares,  and  the  Gudh 
Begums,  though  there  were  many  others  as  well.  At  first  it  appeared 
that  the  Government  would  support  him,  since  whatever  might  be  thought 
about  the  Rohilla  War  his  conduct  on  that  matter  had  already  been 
judged  and  condoned  ;  for  it  had  preceded  his  appointment  as  Governor- 
General,  and  that  appointment  had  afterwards  been  renewed.  But  Pitt 
withdrew  his  support  on  the  Benares  question,  which  had  arisen  during 
Hastings's  final  term  of  office,  and  in  respect  of  which  Pitt  judged  that 
his  demands  on  the  rajah  had  been  excessive  and  had  been  enforced 
with    unjustifiable    tyranny.     The    result    was    that    the    great    Governor* 


"  Blood  on  Thunder." 

[A  caricature  of  1788  by  Gillray  of  Warren 
Hastings.] 


BETWEEN   THE   WARS  719 

General  was  impeached,  and  he  himself  was  held  up  to  obloquy  and 
execration  by  the  most  brilliant  orators  of  the  day.  The  impeachment 
opened  in  1788,  and  dragged  on  for  seven  years,  during  which  the  public 
interest  dwindled;  and  ultimately  Hastings  was  unanimously  acquitted  by 
the  peers  on  every  one  of  the  charges,  though  it  was  not  till  some  years 
later  that  the  East  India  Company  offered  a  tardy  recognition  of  the 
immense  services  which  he  had  rendered. 

The  first  Governor-General  appointed  under  the  new  system  was 
Cornwallis,  a  man  of  tried  capacity  and  of  the  highest  integrity,  too  strong 
and  too  universally  respected  to  fear  the  attacks  of  interest  or  of  malignity. 
The  appointment  exemplified  the  principle  generally  adopted,  that  the 
Governor-General's  council  should  be  men  of  direct  experience  in  Indian 
affairs,  but  that  the  Governor-General  himself  should  have  been  trained  in 
other  fields. 

Cornwallis  arrived  in  India  in  the  autumn  of  1786,  fully  resolved  to 
have  nothing  to  do  with  designs  of  aggression  and  to  devote  himself  to 
organisation  and  retrenchment.  In  the  interval  the  government  had  been 
efficiently  conducted  by  an  experienced  Indian  official,  Sir  John  Macpherson. 
But  Cornwallis  very  soon  found,  like  most  of  his  successors,  that  expansion 
was  forced  upon  him,  however  little  it  might  be  to  his  liking.  In  India 
there  was  not  as  in  Europe  a  long  established  system  of  states  with  fairly 
defined  territories.  For  centuries  every  dynasty,  wherever  it  had  reigned, 
justified  its  own  existence  by  expansion  and  conquest ;  it  was  assumed 
that  a  power  which  did  not  seek  to  make  itself  feared  abstained  from  doing 
so  only  on  account  of  conscious  weakness.  If  the  British  chose  to  remain 
quiescent,  one  or  another  of  the  native  powers  would  take  advantage  of  that 
quiescence  to  develop  an  aggressive  policy.  Aggression  could  not  be  met 
by  mere  resistance,  however  effective ;  it  must  be  directly  penalised  by 
loss  of  territory.  If  the  defeat  of  the  aggressor  brought  no  worse  penalty 
than  a  return  to  the  status  quo,  the  aggression  was  quite  certain  to  be 
renewed ;  the  moderation  of  the  victor  would  be  construed  as  weakness,  as 
a  recognition  of  the  strength  of  the  defeated  power ;  and  neutral  on- 
lookers would  be  converted  into  allies  of  the  aggressor. 

The  aggressor  at  this  time  was  Tippu  Sultan,  of  Mysore,  the  son  and 
successor  of  the  great  Haidar  Ali.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he  was  aiming 
at  the  acquisition  of  a  complete  supremacy  in  Southern  India,  and  that  he 
regarded  the  expulsion  of  the  British  as  a  necessary  part  of  his  programme. 
Cornwallis  found  himself  compelled  by  an  old  treaty  to  promise  aid  to  the 
Nizam  for  the  recovery  of  certain  districts  which  had  been  filched  from 
him  by  Haidar.  But  Cornwallis  would  do  nothing  more  than  carry  out 
the  treaty  obligation ;  he  would  not  take  the  initiative  and  attack  Tippu 
himself.  Nor  did  Tippu  wait  to  be  attacked.  He  wanted  Travancore,  a 
district  at  the  south  of  India  which  was  under  British  protection.  He 
marched  into  Travancore  an  army  which  w^as  repulsed,  whereupon  he 
collected  a  very  much  larger  force.     Cornwallis  had  no  alternative  but  to 


720  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

strike.  Three  campaigns  were  needed  before  Tippu  was  reduced  to 
submission,  although  the  Nizam  and  the  Puna  Marathas  played  at  helping 
the  British,  while  both  of  them  were  in  correspondence  with  Tippu  himself. 
The  general  result  was  that  Tippu  was  deprived  of  about  half  his 
territories,  and  the   districts  ceded  were  divided  not  unequally  between  the 

Marathas,    the    Nizam,    and    the 
British. 

Cornwallis  established  the 
prestige  of  the  British  arms,  and, 
not  without  reluctance,  but  as  a 
necessity  forced  upon  him  by 
the  conditions,  added  to  the  terri- 
tory under  direct  control  of  the 
L^-^    -=-~""^^%^^P^^^  British.      But  his  most  important 

^^>-  ^^^^^^^^^^  achievements  were  in  the  field  of 

administrative  organisation.  He 
was  not  a  statesman  of  supreme 
genius,  with  an  intuitive  power 
of  getting  straight  to  the  heart 
of  every  problem  that  presented 
itself,  and  he  did  not  perfect  an 
ideal  system.  But  he  was  intel- 
lectually clear-headed,  trained  in 
affairs  and  in  the  knowledge  of 
inen,  broad-minded  and  free  from 
stereotyped  views.  Morally  he 
was  absolutely  straightforward, 
fearless  and  disinterested,  and  he 
was  thorough.  Fortunately  for 
himself  and  for  India,  the  general 
confidence  in  him  was  so  complete 
that  all  attempts  to  hamper  or 
challenge  his  freedom  of  action  recoiled  on  the  heads  of  those  who  made 
them.  Consequently  the  mistakes  he  made  were  those  of  a  sensible  man 
under  conditions  which  forced  him  to  act  upon  data  which  were  inevitably 
incomplete  and  in  some  degree  unintelligible. 

The  arrangement  most  definitely  associated  with  his  memory  is  the 
"permanent  settlement"  of  the  land  system  in  Bengal.  The  main  source 
of  the  Bengal  revenue  as  of  Indian  revenues  generally  was  the  tax  upon 
land.  Now  under  the  old  Mogul  system  the  districts  had  been  farmed  out 
to  individuals  called  zeinindarsj  who  were  responsible  for  paying  the  land 
tax  while  they  were  left  to  collect  it  for  themselves.  As  long  as  they 
paid  the  taxes  no  questions  were  likely  to  be  asked  as  to  the  amount 
they  collected  or  how  they  collected  it ;  and  these  zemindaris  tended  to 
become  hereditary — that  is,  when  a  zemindar  died,  his  son   was   usually 


lippu  Sultan,  of  Mysore 
[From  an  Oriemal  painting  at  Apiley  House  ] 


BETWEEN    THE    WARS  721 

confirmed  in  succession  to  the  office.  Misled  by  the  analogy  of  Western 
ideas  and  practice,  the  British  government  in  Bengal  supposed  the  zemindars 
to  be  in  practically  the  same  position  as  great  English  landowners.  They 
were  taken  to  be  the  proprietors  of  the  soil  from  whom  the  population  of 
cultivators  held  it  as  tenants.  An  assessment  therefore  was  made  of  the 
land  ;  on  the  basis  of  that  assessment  the  amount  of  the  tax  was  perma- 
nently fixed  ;  and  the  zemindar  was  established  on  what  w^as  virtually  the 
same  footing  as  that  of  the  landowner  in  England.  He  had  security  of 
tenure,  power  of  alienation,  and 
reaped  the  whole  benefits  of  all  im- 
provements, whereas  heretofore  he 
had  lacked  security,  and  had  been 
tempted  to  reap  all  that  he  could  as 
quickly  as  he  could  without  con- 
sideration of  the  remote  future.  The 
w^eak  points  of  the  system  were  two  : 
first,  from  the  government  point  of 
view,  that  a  settlement  for  a  long 
term  would  have  given  the  zemindar 
all  the  security  that  he  needed,  while 
leaving  the  government  free  to  re- 
vise the  assessment  at  the  end  of 
the  term,  to  its  own  advantage.  In 
the  second  place,  it  was  not  realised 
that  the  zemindar  had  not  in  fact 
been  the  proprietor  of  the  soil,  which 
properly  belonged  to  the  peasants 
or  "  ryots,"  who  cultivated  it.  At 
the  same  time,  while  the  system  was 
actually  a  new  one  instead  of  being 
as  was  supposed  an  adaptation  of  the  old  one,  it  was  in  practice  a  great 
improvement  upon  the  prevailing  methods.  Experience  showed  wiiere 
its  weaknesses  lay,  and  in  other  parts  of  India  settlements  were  carried  out 
at  later  times  in  closer  accord  with  native  conceptions. 

Probably,  however,  the  most  valuable  feature  of  Cornwallis's  Governor- 
Generalship  w^as  that  his  personal  prestige  and  authority  enabled  him  to  do 
what  his  predecessors  had  attempted  in  vain.  He  resolutely  set  his  face 
against  the  abuse  of  patronage,  and  he  finally  enforced  the  payment  to  the 
company's  servants  of  adequate  salaries  w^hich  freed  them  from  the  almost 
irresistible  temptation  to  enrich  themselves  by  illicit  methods  ;  and  he  thus 
transformed  the  Indian  service  from  one  of  the  most  corrupt  into  one  of 
the  most  incorruptible  that  history  has  known.  Cornwallis  retired  at  the 
end  of  1793,  and  was  succeeded  by  an  experienced  Indian  official,  Sir  John 
Shore,  who  afterwards  became  Lord  Teignmouth. 

The  American  War  had  severed  the  thirteen  colonies  from  Great  Britain, 

2  z 


Lord  Cornwallis. 


722  THE   ERA    OF   REVOLUTIONS 

and  they  were  thenceforth  estabhshed  as  the  United  States,  But  Canada, 
Newfoundland,  New  Brunswick,  and  Nova  Scotia  remained  under  the 
British  flag.  In  the  United  States  there  were  great  numbers  of  loyalists, 
known  during  the  war  as  Tories,  who  refused  entirely  to  acquiesce  m  sever- 
ance from  the  British  Empire.  They  resented  the  republican  government, 
which,  in  its  turn,  looked  upon  them  as  traitors  to  the  national  cause. 
Rather  than  accept  the  new  conditions  large  numbers  of  these  "  United 
Empire  Loyalists  "  left  their  property  and  their  homes  and  migrated  across 
the  northern  border,  where  they  were  welcomed  by  the  British  govern- 
ment, and  were  planted  chiefly  in  Upper  Canada  and  in  New  Brunswick. 
This  immigration  of  a  large  British  element  changed  the  conditions  of  a 
colony  which  had  hitherto  been  practically  French  in  race,  in  tradition,  and 
in  custom,  and  Roman  Catholic  in  religion.  This  led  to  the  Canada  Act 
of  179 1,  whereby  Upper  Canada  or  Ontario  was  made  a  separate  colony. 
Lower  Canada  or  Quebec  retained  its  French  characteristics,  while  the 
consequent  peculiarities  of  its  government  and  administration  were  not 
applied  to  Ontario.  Upper  and  Lower  Canada  had  each  its  own  governor 
and  legislature,  while  each  had  its  own  tradition  of  hostility  to  the  newly 
born  republic  on  the  south.  But  in  each  case  the  self-government  of  the 
colony  was  on  tlie  old  lines  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  executive  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  governor  and  his  council,  who  were  free  from  control  by  the  legislature 
just  as  the  administration  in  England  had  been  independent  of  parlia- 
mentary control  before  the  revolution  of  1688.  The  legislatures  themselves 
consisted  of  two  chambers,  one  elective,  corresponding  to  the  British  House 
of  Commons,  the  other  nominated,  corresponding  to  the  British  House  of 
Peers.  In  due  time,  but  not  yet,  the  battle  was  to  be  fought  out  which 
ended  in  making  the  executive  responsible  to  the  legislature,  or,  in  other 
words,  establishing  party  government. 

These  years  witnessed  also  the  first  step  to  that  expansion  in  another 
quarter  of  the  globe  which  was  to  be  Britain's  compensation  for  the  loss 
of  the  better  half  of  North  America.  Although  Spain  had  taken  possession 
of  the  Philippines  and  the  Dutch  were  in  occupation  of  the  great  archi- 
pelago known  as  the  Spice  Islands,  there  had  been  no  organised  explora- 
tion, still  less  any  settlement,  in  the  Southern  Pacific,  until  in  1768  Captain 
Cook  began  his  series  of  voyages.  Having  surveyed  the  eastern  coast  of 
Australia,  Cook,  in  1770,  proclaimed  the  British  sovereignty  of  that  region, 
to  which  he  gave  the  name  of  New  South  Wales ;  but  still  the  formal  pro- 
clamation was  not  followed  by  effective  occupation.  There  was,  in  fact, 
no  particular  incHnation  to  seek  for  colonial  expansion,  since  it  was  now 
the  general  belief  that  colonics  were  merely  a  temporary  acquisition,  which 
in  the  course  of  time  would  naturally  sever  themselves  from  the  empire. 
But  it  was  very  soon  found  that  the  loss  of  the  American  colonies  had  one 
decidedly  embarrassing  result.  For  more  than  a  century  convicted  criminals 
had  been  transported  to  those  colonies  to  pay  for  their  misdeeds  by  servi- 
tude.    The  government  wanted  some  new  region  to  which  it  could  trans- 


BETWEEN    TPIE    WARS  723 

port  its  convicts.  In  1783  it  was  suggested  tliat  Cook's  formal  annexation 
of  Australia,  not  yet  made  internationally  effective  by  occupation,  should 
be  followed  up  by  planting  a  convict  settlement  on  the  Australian  coast. 
Accordingly  in  1787  an  expedition  was  despatched,  carrying  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  convicts  together  with  a  detachment  of  marines,  and  Captain 
Philip  as  governor.  In  January  1788  the  expedition  landed  at  Botany 
Bay,  though  the  settlement  was  immediately  transferred  to  the  more  con- 
venient position  which  was  named  Sydney  after  one  of  the  Secretaries  of 
State.  Six  days  after  the  British  occupation  French  ships  appeared  ;  it  is 
possible  that,  if  Captain  Philip's  arrival  had  been  delayed  for  a  week,  France, 
not  Britain,  would  have  annexed  Australia. 


CHAPTER    XXX 

THE    WAR    WITH    THE    REPUBLIC    AND    THE 
UNION    WITH    IRELAND 


THE   FIRST   STAGE 

War  was  declared  between  Great  Britain  and  France  on  February  i, 
1793.  This  first  war  was  brought  to  a  close  by  that  suspension  of  hostili- 
ties which  is  called  the  "Peace  of  Amiens,"  in  1802.  Primarily  it  was  a 
war  against  an  aggressive  France  which,  with  the  cap  of  Liberty  on  its 
head,  was  reviving  the  pretensions  of  the  most  ambitious  and  the  most 
absolute  of  its  monarchs  to  dictate  to  Europe  and  to  tear  up  treaties.  It 
could  not  lose  that  character  while  the  policy  of  the  French  government 
was  persistently  aggressive,  and  it  remained  aggressive  from  beginning  to 
end.  On  the  other  hand,  public  opinion  supported  and  urged  on  the  war 
because  public  opinion  conceived  an  intense  and  ineradicable  terror,  not 
so  much  of  F'rance  as  of  the  French  Revolution.  While  at  first  the  revolu- 
tion had  excited  a  considerable  amount  of  sympathy,  the  proclamation  of 
the  republic,  the  beheading  of  King  Louis,  and  the  subsequent  reign  of 
terror  in  France  produced  an  immense  reaction  of  sentiment,  for  which 
the  way  had  been  prepared  by  the  eloquent  denunciations  of  Burke,  whose 
prophecies  concerning  its  course  were  repeatedly  justified  by  literal  fulfil- 
ment. Those  who  believed  that  fundamentally  the  cause  of  the  Revolution 
was  the  cause  not  of  anarchy  but  of  liberty,  that  the  Revolution  was  driven 
to  its  excesses  not  by  its  inherent  character  but  because  foreign  interven- 
tion liad  brought  it  to  bay  and  forced  it  to  fight  savagely  for  its  life, 
persistently  denounced  the  war  as  essentially  unnecessary,  unjust,  and  re- 
actionary;  while  the  country,  thoroughly  convinced  that  the  Revolution 
must  be  fought  to  the  last  gasp,  regarded  them  as  traitors.  Great  Britain, 
hitherto  far  in  advance  of  the  rest  of  Europe  in  the  doctrine  and  practice 
of  political  liberty,  was  nevertheless  the  most  determined  in  its  resistance 
to  revolutionary  France,  and  the  downfall  of  England  became  a  primary 
aim  of  the  man  who  concentrated  France  in  himself. 

The  course  and  the  meaning  of  the  war  will  be  followed  more  easily 
if  we  have  before  us  a  sort  of  ground  plan  of  controlling  events.  In  the 
last  days  of  September  1792  France  had  declared  lierself  a  republic. 
During  the  next  three  months  the  republican  government  proclaimed  itself 
the  enemy  of  monarchies   at  large,  being  already  at  open  war  with  Austria, 

724 


THE    WAR   WITH    THE    REPUBLIC  725 

Prussia,  and  Sardinia,  because  the  appropriation  of  Savoy  was  a  part  of  the 
programme  of  securing  the  natural  boundaries.  The  French  armies,  after 
the  turn  of  the  tide  at  the  cannonade  of  Vahiiy,  made  continuous  progress. 
At  the  end  of  January  Louis  was  guillotined,  and  immediately  afterwards 
Great  Britain  was  added  to  the  hostile  belligerent  powers.  Until  mid- 
summer there  was  a  struggle  for  supremacy  in  the  French  Assembly 
between  the  orthodox  literary  republicans — the  Girondins — and  the  ex- 
tremists of  the  "  Mountain."  The  Girondins  were  beaten,  and  the  control 
passed  to  the  body  called  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  which  was  com- 
posed entirely  of  extremists,  among  whom  the  greatest  man,  Danton,  very 
soon  became  a  suspect  on  account  of  his  counsels  of  comparative  modera- 
tion. From  October  1793  to  June  1794  the  reign  of  terror  was  in  full 
operation,  and  the  tumbrils  carried  their  daily  loads  of  victims  to  the 
guillotine,  beginning  with  Marie  Antoinette  and  the  leading  Girondins. 
In  course  of  time  the  Revolution  began  to  devour  its  own  children  ;  in 
March  the  infamous  Hebertists  were  struck  down  ;  in  April  Danton  fell  ; 
and  at  last,  partly  in  sheer  revulsion  from  the  carnage,  partly  because  every 
man  felt  that  unless  the  thing  were  peremptorily  ended  the  next  turn  of 
the  wheel  might  send  him  to  the  guillotine,  the  downfall  of  Robespierre 
himself  and  his  principal  colleagues  was  compassed.  With  their  fall  at  the 
end  of  June  the  terror  came  to  an  end.  Fifteen  months  later,  in  October 
1795,  the  new  government  was  formed,  known  as  the  Directory,  which 
lasted  till  its  overthrow  at  the  end  of  four  years,  in  November  1799,  by  the 
coup  d'etat  of  Bonaparte,  who  established  himself  as  Dictator  with  the  title  of 
First  Consul. 

It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  the  first  eighteen  months  of  the  war  covered  the 
period  at  which  the  excesses  of  the  Revolution  were  at  their  height,  and 
produced  that  indelible  impression  of  the  atrocities  of  Jacobinism  which 
made  the  reaction  irresistibly  dominant  in  England.  And  during  this 
same  period,  when,  according  to  all  rational  calculations,  France  ought  to 
have  been  entirely  bankrupt,  when  she  should  have  been  utterly 
prostrated  by  internal  dissensions,  when  her  armies  ought  to  have  been 
practically  impossible  to  levy  or,  when  levied,  to  lead,  she  carried  on 
her  government,  fought  with  continuous  success  by  land  against  the 
gathered  armies  of  more  than  half  Europe,  and  produced  mainly  from  the 
lower  social  ranks  generals  of  the  highest  ability — who  were  seldom  given 
the  chance  of  blundering  twice,  since  failure  was  virtually  construed  as  a 
proof  of  treachery  to  the  republic.  Even  before  the  Directory  was 
established  two  of  France's  enemies,  Prussia  and  Spain,  had  withdrawn 
from  the  European  coalition;  and  before  the  end  of  1797  the  French 
victories  on  the  Continent  had  broken  it  up  altogether  and  Great  Britain 
was  left  standing  alone. 

Now  we  have  seen  that  to  the  very  last  Pitt  had  continued  firmly  con- 
vinced that  the  British  Empire  would  remain  a  neutral  spectator  of  the 
events   on   the  Continent.      Like    Walpole,  he    had   believed  that   the   one 


726 


THE   ERA   OF    REVOLUTIONS 


fundamental  necessity  for  England  was  peaceful  recuperation  and  commercial 
development.  Like  Walpole,  he  had  succeeded  in  accumulating  the  sinews 
of  war  without  making  any  preparation  to  carry  it  on  should  it  be  forced 
upon  him.  And,  like  Walpole,  when  war  was  forced  upon  him  he  did  not 
know  how  to  organise  it.  But,  unlike  Walpole,  when  war  came  he  faced 
it  with  indomitable  resolution,  in  a  high  spirit  of  patriotism  which  the  whole 
nation  caught  from  him,  even  as  it  had  been  inspired  with  a  like  spirit  by 
his  father.     In  soite  of  mismanagement,  neither  Pitt,  nor  the  nation,  nor 

the  king  ever  faltered  even  in  the 
darkest  hours,  nor  did  the  king  or 
the  nation  ever  slacken  their  con- 
fidence in  "  the  pilot  who  weathered 
the  storm." 

Pitt's  lead  was  immediately 
followed  by  the  accession  to  the 
coalition  of  Holland  and  the  Bour- 
bon Powers  of  Spain  and  Naples. 
Virtually  it  was  only  the  outer  ring 
of  the  Scandinavian  states,  Russia 
and  Turkey,  with  the  Venetian 
Republic  and  Portugal,  which 
stood  aloof.  And  besides  these 
enemies  of  France  outside  there 
were  still  royalist  centres  in  the 
country  itself  which  of  necessity 
distracted  a  share  of  the  French 
government's  attention.  Until  the 
fall  of  the  Girondins  in  summer, 
there  was  a  check  to  the  successes 
of  the  French  arms  which  had 
been  so  marked  during  the  winter. 
But  from  the  time  when  Carnot  on  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety 
devoted  himself  to  the  military  administration,  he  earned  his  title  of 
"  Organiser  of  Victory." 

The  royalist  insurrection  in  La  Vendee  was  crushed.  The  Prussians 
and  the  Austrian  and  British  armies  in  the  Netherlands,  after  capturing 
Valenciennes  and  Mainz,  failed  to  co-operate  for  an  effective  invasion  and 
wasted  their  opportunities.  In  the  South  the  royalists  at  Toulon,  sheltered 
by  the  guns  of  a  British  squadron  under  Admiral  Hood,  defied  the  besieging 
forces  of  the  republic  until  the  genius  of  a  young  artillery  officer.  Napoleon 
Buonaparte,  devised  and  executed  a  movement  which  made  resistance  hope- 
less. The  royalists  were  taken  on  board  the  British  ships,  and  Toulon 
was  abandoned  to  the  republicans.  The  attacks  of  Sardinia  on  the  south- 
east, and  of  Spain  on  the  south-west,  were  repulsed  and  followed  by  counter 
attacks.     Austria  and  Prussia  quarrelled  over  the  partition  of  Poland,  instead 


Napoleon  Buonaparte. 
(From  the  unfinished  painling  by  David. ) 


THE    WAR   WITH    THE    REPUBLIC  727 

of  devoting  their  attention  to  the  French  war  ;  and  along  the  Ihie  of  the 
Rhine  and  in  the  Netherlands  the  French,  under  the  command  of  Jourdan, 
Heche,  and  Pichegru,  once  more  drove  back  the  hostile  armies. 

Nor  did  any  better  success  attend  the  arms  of  the  coalition  in  1794. 
Prussia,  already  threatening  to  withdraw,  was  only  prevented  from  doing 
so  by  a  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  which  paid  her  a  large  subsidy  for  the 
maintenance  of  sixty  thousand  men  ;  and  then  the  Prussian  army  remained 
persistently  inactive,  because  the  whole  real  interest  of  the  Prussian  govern- 
ment was  concentrated  upon  Poland.  Before  the  end  of  the  year  the 
British  had  been  driven  back  out  of  the 
Netherlands  into  Holland,  and  the  whole  of 
the  Austrian  and  Prussian  forces  were  on  the 
further  side  of  the  Rhine  ;  while  the  French 
were  making  progress  on  the  Italian  side  of 
the  Alps  and  the  Spanish  side  of  the  Pyrenees. 
In  one  field  alone  were  the  allies  successful. 
Britain  had  fully  recovered  her  naval  as- 
cendency, although  she  made  nothing  like 
a  full  use  of  it  because  of  the  lack  of  direc- 
tion at  headquarters.  There  was  no  organised 
strategical  plan.  Nevertheless  the  republican 
government  had  too  much  to  do  on  land 
to  organise  fleets  which  could  hold  their 
own  against  such  a  commander  as  Lord 
Howe,  whose  victory  off  Ushant  on  the 
ist  of  June  was  the  only  relieving  event  of 
the  year.  The  French  fleet  was  conducting 
a     convoy     of    corn-ships     to     Brest,     when 

Howe  caught  it  and  shattered  it,  though  the  corn-ships  made  their 
escape. 

British  self-respect  was  saved  by  Lord  Howe's  victory,  for  the  British 
performances  on  land  were  far  from  creditable.  The  Navy  preserved  the 
great  tradition  which  made  it  possible,  if  difficult,  for  capacity  and  merit  to 
win  recognition  even  in  the  absence  of  any  very  marked  aristocratic  con- 
nection. But  commands  in  the  Army  were  still  an  aristocratic  preserve 
in  which  connection  outweighed  demerit.  As  a  matter  of  course  the  chief 
command  was  given  to  the  king's  second  son,  the  Duke  of  York,  who,  at  the 
head  of  an  army,  was  thoroughly  inefficient,  although  when  he  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  administrative  control  he  did  very  much  better  work.  But 
the  fact  remained  that  he  was  wholly  unfitted  to  cope  with  generals  of  the 
order  of  Jourdan  or  Pichegru.  His  incapacity  was  not  redeemed  by  any 
efficiency  in  his  subordinates,  still  less  in  the  wholly  incompetent  military 
administration  at  home. 

Before  the  end  of  1794  Pichegru  had  invaded  Holland,  and  had  taken 
possession   of   the    Dutch   fleet    in   the  Texel.     The   stadtholder,   William, 


"  The  greatest  general  of"  the  age — 

General  Complaint." 
[From  a  caricature  of  1796  by  Woodward.] 


728  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

withdrew  to  England  ;  the  now  dominant  republican  party  in  Holland, 
always  inclined  to  France,  accepted  the  French  alliance  ;  and  Holland  was 
transformed  into  the  Batavian  Republic.  In  April  1795  Prussia  deserted 
the  coalition  and  made  peace  with  France  by  the  Treaty  of  Basle  ;  Spain 
followed  suit  in  June.  But  neither  Austria  nor  Great  Britain  would  make 
peace  except  on  condition  of  the  restoration  of  the  Netherlands  to  Austria. 
The  Austrian  generals  too  met  with  better  success,  and  Pichegru,  dis- 
satisfied with  the  order  of  things  in  France,  was  as  inactive  as  he  could 
venture  to  be.  But  the  estabhshment  of  the  Directory  at  the  end  of  the 
year  gave  France  a  more  stable  government,  and  early  in  1796  the 
command   of   the   French   armies  in  the  north    of    Italy  was  entrusted  to 

Buonaparte,  to  whose  services  the  Directory 
were  indebted  for  the  successful  coup  d'etat 
which  had  placed  them  in  power. 

The  brilliant  campaign  of  the  young 
general  of  six-and-twenty  made  the  French 
complete  masters  of  North  Italy  before  the 
end  of  the  year,  and  established  Buonaparte's 
reputation  ;  although  the  invasion  of  Austria 
by  co-operating  armies  under  Jourdan  and 
Moreau  was  foiled  by  the  skill  of  the  Arch- 
duke Charles,  who  fell  upon  Jourdan  before 
a  junction  could  be  effected,  and  crushed  him, 
so  that  Moreau  was  also  obliged  to  fall  back. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  British  fleet  failed 
^^  to  accomplish  anything  of  importance.  Its 
energies  had  been  dissipated  in  the  futile 
seizure  of  islands,  which  were  perfectly  use- 
less from  a  military  point  of  view.  Admiral 
Hotham,  who  held  the  Mediterranean  command,  was  a  hopelessly  un- 
enterprising person,  who,  when  he  caught  a  French  fleet  which  he  ought 
to  have  annihilated,  considered  that  he  had  ''  done  very  well"  in  capturing 
a  couple  of  ships,  to  the  intense  disgust  of  Nelson,  who  was  serving  under 
him.  More  ominous,  however,  was  the  fact  that  the  Dutch  fleet  was  now 
virtually  under  French  control,  though  it  was  not  yet  able  to  take  the 
seas;  and  the  further  fact  that  in  the  late  summer  Spain  entered  upon  an 
alliance  with  the  French  Republic  which,  therefore,  had  three  fleets  at  its 
disposal.  Hotham,  in  the  Mediterranean,  was  happily  displaced  by  Admiral 
Jervis  ;  but  the  alarm  created  at  headquarters  by  the  transfer  of  an  actual 
preponderance  of  ships  to  France  caused  that  great  sailor's  activities 
to  be  crippled  by  instructions  that  he  was  to  evacuate  the  Mediterranean 
itself. 

At  the  turn  of  the  year,  then,  the  danger  was  grave.  Austria  had  just 
failed  in  one  great  effort  to  recover  Lombardy,  and  was  preparing  another 
which   was   to   be   equally  unsuccessful.       The  Dutch  fleet  was  being  made 


"A  model  oflicer 
[From  Rowl.iiidso 


caricature,  1796.] 


THE 

ready  in  the  Texel, 


WAR    WITH    THE    REPUBLIC 

and  a   French   fleet  was   blockaded  at   Brest 


729 

but   the 

Spanish  fleet  was  very  much  larger  than  Jervis's  squadron  at  Gibraltar.  If 
that  fleet  succeeded  in  evading  or  overwhelming  Jervis,  a  complete  disaster 
might  easily  result.  In  February,  however,  that  particular  question  was 
decisively  settled.  The  Spaniards,  with  twenty-seven  sail  of  the  line,  sailed 
from  Cartagena  for  Cadiz.  On  February  14th,  Jervis,  cruising  ol'f  Cape  St. 
Vincent  with  fifteen  ships  of  the  line,  fell  in  with  them.  Ten  of  the 
Spaniards  were  separated  from  the  rest  to  leeward,  and  Jervis  sailed  down 
to  engage  the  main  body.  The  battle  was  practically  decided  by  the  action 
of  Commodore  Nelson,  w^ho,  supported  by  two  other  captains,  left  the 
formal  line  of  battle  to  engage  five  of  the  Spaniards  which  were  endeavour- 
ing to  join  the  leeward  division.  The 
manoeuvre  threw  the  Spanish  line  into 
confusion,  and  the  result  was  a  decisive 
victory.  Although  only  four  of  the  enemy's 
ships  were  taken,  the  action  completely 
demonstrated  the  utter  inefficiency  of  the 
Spanish  Navy.  It  was  made  evident  that 
this  supposed  accession  of  strength  to  the 
maritime  power  of  France  was  illusory. 
Nelson's  manoeuvre  was  in  contravention 
of  orders ;  nevertheless  it  won  the  hearty 
approval  of  the  admiral,  who  fully  re- 
cognised his  subordinate's  justification. 
Jervis  was  rewarded  with  an  earldom  and 
the  title  of  St.  Vincent,  and  Nelson  was 
gazetted   Rear-Admiral. 

Still  the  danger  was  not  past.  It  was 
manifest  that  Britain's  power  and  even  her  existence  depended  upon  the 
Navy  ;  and  in  April  the  fleet  at  Spithead  mutinied.  The  men's  grievances 
were  flagrant  and  intolerable.  They  had  petitioned  for  redress  and  their 
petitions  were  ignored.  The  Spithead  mutiny  was  orderly  and  well  or- 
ganised. There  was  no  violence,  but  the  men  stood  together.  The 
justice  of  their  demands  was  so  conspicuous  that  all  were  conceded, 
including  the  removal  of  officers  of  whose  tyranny  they  complained. 
The  men  promptly  returned  to  their  obedience,  and  there  appears  to  be 
no  doubt  that  they  were  determined  throughout  to  be  perfectly  loyal 
though  resolute  in  insisting  on  the  redress  of  grievances. 

More  serious,  however,  was  another  mutiny  wiiich  broke  out  a  month 
later  in  the  squadron  at  the  Nore.  Here  the  ringleaders  were  men  who 
had  become  imbued  with  the  French  revolutionary  doctrines ;  and  while 
these  had  the  upper  hand  the  danger  w^as  extreme.  The  mutiny  spread 
through  the  North  Sea  fleet,  w^hose  duty  it  \va.s  to  keep  guard  over  the 
Dutch  fleet  in  the  Texel,  which  was  expected  to  put  to  sea  immediately.  All 
but  two  of  the  ships  deserted  and  joined  the  mutineers  at  the  Nore.      Still 


Admiral  Duncan. 
[After  the  portrait  by  Hoppner.] 


730  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

Admiral  Duncan  with  his  two  ships  sailed  for  the  Texel  and  adopted  the 
rather  simple  device  of  signalling  to  an  imaginary  fleet  in  the  offing,  in 
order  that  the  Dutch  might  believe  that  the  British  were  present  in  force. 
Happily,  however,  they  were  not  ready  to  come  out.  Then  the  loyal 
minority  began  to  get  the  upper  hand  among  the  mutineers  ;  one  ship  after 
another  returned  to  its  obedience,  and  the  ringleaders  were  handed  over 
to  the  authorities.  The  real  grievances  were  remedied,  and  only  eighteen  of 
the  worst  offenders  were  put  to  death,  the  Government  recognising  that 
the  men  had  been  led  astray  and  were  honestly  repentant  of  their  treason. 

Meanwhile  Buonaparte  (or  Bonaparte,  as  he 
now  spelt  his  name)  had  been  continuing  his 
victorious  career,  and  had  extracted  from  the 
Austrians  at  Lobau  a  provisional  agreement 
which  was  in  effect  ratified  by  the  substantive 
Treaty  of  Campo  Formio  in  October.  Pitt  at 
this  stage  was  ready  to  go  great  lengths  to 
procure  a  peace.  But  a  change  in  the  per- 
sonnel of  the  French  Directory  confirmed  in 
power  the  group  most  hostile  to  Britain  ;  and 
the  only  terms  which  the  French  chose  to  dis- 
cuss were  impossible  for  British  acceptance. 
Negotiations  were  broken  off,  and  the  Dutch 
came  out  of  the  Texel  only  to  be  decisively 
beaten  in  an  engagement  of  the  traditional 
character  at  Camperdown  by  Admiral  Duncan. 
There  was  no  doubt  about  the  spirit  of  the 
fleet  when  it  came  to  actual  fighting.  Duncan 
shattered  the  Dutch  fleet,  in  spite  of  the 
enemy's  obstinate  courage,  as  Jervis  had  shattered  that  of  Spain.  The 
great  crisis  was  over,  although  Great  Britain  was  formally  left  in  complete 
isolation  by  the  signing  of  the  Treaty  of  Campo  Formio  six  days  after 
Camperdown. 

Some  months  earlier  in  the  year  there  had  been  a  serious  financial 
crisis  in  England.  There  had  been  a  heavy  drain  upon  the  supply  of  gold 
in  the  country,  and  a  run  upon  the  Bank  of  England  was  threatened.  The 
crisis  was  met  by  an  order  suspending  cash  payments,  which  was  confirmed 
by  an  Act  of  Parliament  extending  it  to  the  close  of  the  war.  The  loyalty 
and  confidence  of  the  mercantile  community  were  displayed  by  its  readi- 
ness to  accept  the  Bank's  notes,  although  they  would  not  be  convertible 
into  currency  until  the  war  was  over ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  even  under 
these  conditions  the  value  of  the  Bank  paper  was  scarcely  depreciated. 


'  Grandfather "  George  with  the 
Princess  Charlotte. 

by  Woodward,  1796.] 


THE    WAR    WITH    THE    REPUBLIC  731 


II 

THE   SECOND   STAGE 

A  point  had  now  been  reached  in  the  war  when  the  French  Repubhc 
had  estabhshed  itself  in  possession  of  the  natural  boundaries  of  France, 
and,  beyond  its  own  borders,  had  set  up  in  the  north  of  Italy  and  in 
Holland  republics  which  were  virtually  dependencies,  while  Switzerland  as 
the  '*  Helvetic  Republic  "  was  practically  in  the  same  position.  Spain  was 
the  ally  of  France,  as  in  the  days  when  a  Bourbon  reigned.  The  victorious 
General  Bonaparte  had  been  careful  to  avoid  humiliating  Austria,  whose 
friendship  he  desired,  while  Prussia  had  long  ceased  to  be  hostile.  The  one 
remaining  enemy  recognised  was  Britain,  and  the  French  Directory  was 
determined  upon  her  humiliation.  What  was  of  more  importance  than  the 
determination  of  the  Directory  was  the  determination  of  France's  most  dis- 
tinguished general,  of  whom  the  Directory  itself  was  beginning  to  stand  in 
no  little  fear  ;  for  he  had  ignored  orders  and  acted  on  his  own  responsibility 
both  in  campaigning  and  in  negotiating,  after  a  fashion  which  showed  that 
the  nominal  servant  of  the  state  might  very  soon  aim  at  making  himself  its 
master. 

Bonaparte  was  bent  on  the  destruction  of  England,  but  Camperdown 
had  at  any  rate  deferred  the  possibility  of  immediately  carrying  out  the  plan 
of  sweeping  the  British  Navy  off  the  Channel  with  the  combined  fleets  of 
France,  Spain,  and  Holland,  and  flinging  an  army  of  invasion  upon  her 
shores.  Ostensibly,  however,  this  was  still  the  scheme  which  was  in  pre- 
paration in  the  winter  and  spring  following  the  Treaty  of  Campo  Formio, 
Bonaparte  was  appointed  to  the  command  of  the  army  of  invasion.  Never- 
theless, the  scheme  which  he  was  revolving  in  his  mind  was  less  obvious 
but  more  tremendous.  He  had  conceived  the  idea  of  an  Asiatic  conquest 
which  should  enable  him  to  set  out  to  achieve  the  empire  of  the  West  with 
Asia  as  his  base.  The  British  Empire  was  already  the  dominant  power  in 
India  ;  in  India  it  should  be  destroyed,  and  the  way  to  India  lay  through 
Egypt.  The  supreme  defect  in  all  Bonaparte's  schemes  of  conquest  lay 
in  his  failure  to  understand  the  enormous  importance  of  sea  power  ;  and 
because  he  did  not  understand  it  every  one  of  his  schemes  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  British  was  brought  to  nought,  from  his  Egyptian  expedition  to 
his  Continental  System. 

Bonaparte's  plan,  then,  was  to  seize  upon  Egypt  and  Syria  and  to  make 
them  the  base  for  further  conquest.  The  Directory  was  not  ill-pleased  at 
the  prospect  of  getting  its  alarmingly  powerful  servant  out  of  the  way,  and 
it  readily  adopted  his  plan.  The  proposal  of  invading  England  was 
only   a    feint.     Egypt  was    the    real  objective  of    the  Toulon    armament, 


1Z^ 


THE   ERA   OF    REVOLUTIONS 


although  Egypt   was  technically  a   province  of  the  Turkish    Empire  with 
which  France  had  no  quarrel. 

The  Navy  did  not  believe  that  the  Toulon  fleet  was  intended  for  the 
invasion  of  England,  a  project  which  for  the  time  had  in  fact  been 
rendered  impracticable.  But  Nelson  was  detached  by  Jervis  to  take 
charge  of  it.  The  expedition  succeeded  in  sailing  however  before  Nelson's 
arrival.      Nelson,   finding    that    his    prey    had    escaped    and    guessing    its 


BATTLE     OF 


THE    NILE 


P'  AUGUST      1798 


BAY  OF         ABOUKIR 


P      O/abouk, 


0: 


BAY    OF   ABOUKIR    . 

SHOWING    SITE  -OF  * 

THE      BATTLF 


CENE     OF   ACri 


BAY         OF        ABOUKIR 


^:::^::r^ 


The  Battle  of  the  Nile  in  Aboukir  Bay,  August  I,  1798. 

destination,  made  straight  for  Alexandria  ;  but  Bonaparte  took  Malta 
en  route,  so  that  the  British  fleet  missed  the  PYench  fleet,  reached  Alexandria 
before  it,  found  no  trace  of  it,  and  started  again  to  hunt  for  the  quarry. 
Two  days  later  the  French  came  to  Alexandria,  the  fleets  having  passed 
each  other  in  hazy  weather.  Bonaparte  landed,  and  began  the  subjugation 
of  Egypt,  which  was  to  be  followed  by  that  of  Syria,  and  then  by  further 
developments.  Nelson  left  Alexandria  on  July  loth,  but  after  some  vain 
searching  he  got  news  of  the  movements  of  the  French,  which  brought 
him  back  again,  and  on  August  ist  he  found  the  French  fleet  lying  in 
Aboukir  Bay. 


HORATIO,     VISCOUNT    NEI.SOX 
After  the  painting  by  Hoppner  at  St.  James's  Pala 


THE   WAR    WITH    THE    REPUBLIC  733 

In  each  fleet  there  were  thirteen  sail  of  the  Une,  but  the  French  ships 
were  bigger  and  carried  a  greater  weight  of  metal,  besides  having  four 
frigates  to  two  of  Nelson's.  The  French  were  lying  anchored  in  line  very 
nearly  from  south  to  north  with  shoals  on  their  left  when  the  British  came 
down  on  them  with  a  northerly  wind.  It  was  already  late  in  the  day,  but 
Nelson  resolved  to  fight.  Reckoning  that  where  there  was  room  for  French 
ships  to  swing  there  was  room  for  British  ships  to  sail,  his  five  leading 
ships  passed  down  on  the  left  of  the  French,  between  them  and  the  shoals, 
and  engaged  the  van.  The  rest  passed  down  on  the  French  right  and  also 
engaged  the  French  van,  which  was  thus  crushed  by  the  fire  on  both  sides, 
while  the  rear  was  unable  to  come  up  to  its  assistance.  The  battle  raged 
through  the  night ;  the  great  French  flag-ship,  the  Orient,  was  blown  up  ; 
and  in  the  morning  the  French  fleet  had  ceased  to  exist.  Only  two 
vessels  escaped ;  one  besides  the  Orient  was  burnt,  and  nine  were  captured. 
The  battle  of  the  Nile  or  Aboukir  Bay  gave  the  British  not  a  mere 
ascendency  in  the  Mediterranean  but  control,  absolute,  unqualified,  and 
irresistible.  Bonaparte  and  his  army  in  Egypt  were  completely  cut  oft' 
from  all  communication  with  France.  The  overwhelming  supremacy  won 
by  Hawke  thirty-nine  years  before  at  Quiberon  was  at  last  completely 
restored  by  Nelson's  victory  of  the  Nile. 

To  that  victory  must  also  be  attributed  the  formation  of  the  second 
European  coalition  against  France.  Moderation  on  the  part  of  France 
might  have  kept  Europe  acquiescent  in  the  arrangements  established  by 
the  Treaty  of  Campo  Formio  ;  but  early  in  1798  she  took  aggressive 
action  against  the  Papal  States,  and  added  a  Roman  Republic  to  those 
which  she  had  already  established  in  Northern  Italy,  The  Tsarina 
Catherine  of  Russia,  intent  on  her  own  designs  in  the  East,  had  stood 
aloof  from  the  complications  of  Western  Europe,  though  favourably  dis- 
posed towards  France,  because  French  activity  was  conveniently  embar- 
rassing to  her  own  neighbours  Prussia  and  Austria.  But  Catherine  died 
at  the  end  of  1796,  and  the  new  Tsar  Paul  I.  hated  the  French  Revolution 
and  looked  askance  upon  the  multiplication  of  republics.  He  was  further 
excited  by  the  French  seizure  of  Malta  when  Bonaparte  was  on  his  way  to 
Egypt ;  for  Malta  was  the  stronghold  of  the  ancient  Order  of  the  Knights 
of  St.  John,  whom  he  regarded  as  being  under  his  special  protection. 
Even  at  an  earlier  stage,  when  the  British  fleets  had  mutinied  at  the  Nore, 
he  had  shown  his  friendliness  to  Britain  by  detaining  a  Russian  squadron 
in  British  waters  to  give  help  until  the  mutiny  should  be  over.  Now  he 
began  actively  to  negotiate  for  a  new  coalition,  and  encouraged  the  Sultan 
of  Turkey  to  declare  war  upon  France  in  consequence  of  Bonaparte's  un- 
warrantable intrusion  in  Egypt.  Pitt  eagerly  associated  himself  with  the 
'  Tsar.  Naples  was  threatened  by  the  French  aggression  in  Italy  ;  and 
after  the  battle  of  the  Nile  the  presence  of  Nelson  with  his  fleet  on  the 
Italian  coast  encouraged  the  king  and  queen  of  Naples  to  make  war  upon 
France — a  short  war,  which    resulted    in    the    ejection    of    the   monarchs 


734  THE   ERA   OF    REVOLUTIONS 

from  Naples  and  the  establishment  there  of  another  republic  called  the 
"  Parthenopean  "  ;  it  did  not  however  extend  over  Sicily.  A  treaty  at  the 
close  of  the  year  allied  Britain  with  Russia,  Turkey,  and  Naples.  Two 
months  later  Austria,  which  had  been  haggling  over  terms,  joined  the  new 
coalition. 

Bonaparte,  though  isolated  in  Egypt,  did  not  abate  his  designs.  He 
opened  a  correspondence  with  Tippu  Sultan  of  Mysore,  and  having  estab- 
lished his  own  government  in  Egypt,  marched  into  Syria.  But  before  he 
could  follow  the  example  of  Alexander  the  Great  and  plunge  into  Asia,  it 
was  necessary  to  secure  the  port  of  Acre,  which  would  otherwise  be  a  gate- 
way through  which  hostile  armies  could  be  poured  upon  his  rear.  But 
Acre  defied  him.  Sir  Sidney  Smith,  in  command  of  the  British  squadron 
in  the  Levant,  intercepted  the  siege  materials  which  he  was  endeavouring  to 
obtain  from  France,  and  the  stronghold  could  only  be  invested  on  the  land 
side.  British  sailors  took  vigorous  part  in  the  Turkish  governor's  stubborn 
defence;  by  the  end  of  May  Bonaparte  had  to  retire  foiled,  wdth  no 
alternative  but  to  fall  back  upon  Egypt.  There  he  received  news  which 
decided  him  that  the  time  had  come  when  he  should  leave  Egypt  and 
return  to  France  to  seize  the  supreme  control  of  the  state.  With  a  few 
comrades  he  slipped  away  from  Egypt,  evaded  hostile  ships,  and  landed 
in  France.  At  the  end  of  the  year  the  Directory  was  overthrown  and 
Bonaparte  w^as  proclaimed  First  Consul,  which  meant  that  for  practical 
purposes  he  was  the  absolute  ruler  of  the  nominal  republic. 

Meanwhile  general  success  had  at  first  attended  the  arms  of  the  coalition. 
A  Russian  army  entered  Italy  under  the  command  of  Suvarov.  The  French 
met  with  crushing  defeats  and  were  all  but  cleared  out  of  the  country.  A 
British  expedition  against  Holland  under  the  command  of  the  Duke  of 
York  captured  the  Dutch  fleet  in  the  Texel. 

The  royalists  at  Naples  succeeded  in  restoring  the  Bourbon  monarchy 
with  help  from  Nelson,  in  circumstances  for  which  he  has  been  severely  and 
justifiably  blamed,  since  the  restoration  was  accompanied  by  a  savagely 
vindictive  punishment  of  the  rebels.  But  the  tide  turned.  The  British  in 
the  Low  Countries  met  with  some  reverses,  and  were  forced  to  a  capitulation 
under  which  they  retired  themselves  and  released  some  thousands  of  French 
and  Dutch  prisoners,  although  the  captured  fleet  which  had  been  carried 
to  Yarmouth  was  retained.  The  Austrians  and  the  Russians  quarrelled. 
Massena  in  Switzerland  inflicted  a  decisive  defeat  on  the  second  Russian 
army  under  Korsakof,  and  before  the  year  was  over  Russia  in  dudgeon 
withdrew  from  the  coalition. 

Bonaparte,  who,  long  before  he  assumed  the  title  of  Emperor,  began 
to  use  his  first  name  Napoleon,  made  overtures  for  a  general  peace  ;  but 
he  offended  diplomatic  susceptibilities  by  addressing  himself  directly  to  the 
king  of  England.  Had  there  been  any  mutual  confidence,  Fox  and  his 
followers  would  have  been  fully  justified  in  their  contention  that  there  was 
now  an  opportunity  for  a  lasting  settlement ;  but  there  was  at  least  ample 


THE   WAR    WITH    THE    REPUBLIC  yi^s 

justification  for  lack  of  confidence  in  the  French  professions,  which  were 
interpreted  as  having  no  other  object  than  that  of  gaining  time  for  the 
organisation  of  further  aggressive  designs.  On  the  other  hand,  the  tone  of 
the  British  in  the  negotiations  revived  the  popular  hostiUty  in  France, 
which  had  been  diminishing.  Austria  saw  no  prospect  of  terms  which 
would  satisfy  her,  the  negotiations  fell  through,  and  the  war  continued. 

Another  Italian  campaign  conducted  by  Napoleon  ended  triumphantly 
in  the  victory  of  Marengo,  which  in  effect  paralysed  Austria.  Again 
negotiations  were  opened ;  the  French  attempt  to  treat  separately  with 
Austria  and  with  Britain  failed,  and  then  Napoleon  tried  to  obtain  an 
armistice,  naval  as  well  as  military.  This  did  not  suit  Pitt,  since  it  would 
have  enabled  the  French  to  send  supplies  to  Egypt  and  to  Malta,  which 
was  now  being  blockaded.  The  negotiations  broke  down,  Malta  was  taken, 
but  when  hostilities  were  renewed  between  France  and  Austria  a  quite 
decisive  victory  was  won  by  Moreau  at  Hohenlinden.  Napoleon  was  able 
to  dictate  his  own  terms  to  Austria,  and  the  Treaty  of  Luneville  once  again 
left  Great  Britain  isolated. 

The  isolation  was  the  more  serious  because  the  Tsar  Paul  had  com- 
pletely changed  his  front.  If  he  hated  the  Revolution  he  had  discovered  in 
Bonaparte  an  incarnation  of  the  principles  of  absolutism  entirely  admirable. 
He  was  already  angry  with  Austria,  and  angry  with  England  for  standing  by 
her.  When  the  second  coalition  was  formed,  it  was  understood  that  if  the 
British  fleets  captured  Malta  the  island  would  pass  practically  under  his  pro- 
tection ;  but  since  his  withdrawal  that  was  no  longer  to  be  expected.  He 
was  dreaming  of  a  conquest  of  India,  and  he  revived  the  old  grievance  of 
the  Baltic  Powers  that  the  British  interpretation  of  maritime  law  was  destruc- 
tive of  neutral  trade.  France,  it  is  true,  was  not  more  careful  of  the  rights 
of  neutrals  when  they  clashed  with  her  own  interests,  but  the  British  fleet 
could  enforce  the  views  of  the  British  government,  while  the  French  fleet 
was  practically  inoperative  ;  so  Paul  now  proposed  to  revive  the  Armed 
Neutrality.     The  treaty  of  the  Baltic  Powers  was  signed  in  December. 

The  British  answer  was  decisive.  There  had  been  no  positive  act  of 
war  on  the  part  of  the  Baltic  Powers,  but  it  was  scarcely  possible  to  wait 
while  they  were  arranging  to  place  their  fleets  at  the  service  of  France.  A 
fleet  was  despatched  to  coerce  the  Danes,  Nelson  being  second  in  command 
with  Sir  Hyde  Parker  as  his  chief.  Nelson  forced  his  way  into  the  harbour 
of  Copenhagen,  where,  after  a  furious  engagement  in  which  he  ignored  the 
admiral's  signal  to  retire,  the  Danes  were  forced  to  submission  and  sur- 
rendered their  fleet  to  the  British.  The  Swedes  had  no  inclination  to 
meet  with  similar  treatment,  and  the  assassination  of  the  Tsar  placed  on  the 
Russian  throne  the  young  prince  Alexander  I,,  who  was  completely  out  of 
sympathy  with  his  father's  policy  and  very  soon  made  terms  with  the 
British. 

Ten  days  before  the  battle  of  the  Baltic  a  decisive  blow  was  struck 
against  the  French  army  of  occupation  in   Egypt  ;  Sir  Ralph  Abercrombie 


-Jib  TPIE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

landed  at  Aboukir  on  March  21,  and  routed  the  French.  Although  the 
gallant  general  himself  was  killed,  the  French  troops  were  shut  up  in 
Alexandria,  while  a  Turkish  army  was  besieging  Cairo,  which  was  taken  in 
June.  Reinforcements  from  India  joined  the  British  force,  and  Alexandria 
surrendered  in  August.  The  French  troops  were  allowed  to  return  to 
France,  but  their  ships  remained  in  possession  of  the  victors. 

While  Bonaparte  was  scheming  for  the  conquest  of  India,  the  British 
ascendency  there  w.is  confirmed,  and  the  British  dominion  extended  by 
the  Governor-General,  Lord  Mornington,  better  known  as  the  Marquess 
Wellesley,  the  elder  brother  of  the  still  more  famous  Duke  of  Wellington. 
The  rule  of  Sir  John  Shore,  the  successor  of  Cornwallis,  was  deficient  in 
firmness,  and  the  native  powers,  especially  Mysore,  were  developing  hopes 
of  overthrowing  the  British,  when  Mornington  arrived  in  India  just  as 
Bonaparte  was  preparing  to  sail  for  Egypt.  Tippu,  the  Bhonsla,  and 
Sindhia  all   had  forces  under    French   officers  ;    and  Tippu    at    least    was 


Seringapatani,  Tippu's  capital,  stormed  in  1 799. 
[Taken  from  a  view  in  Home's  "  Mysore,"  Madras,  1794.  ] 


in  active  correspondence  with  the  French  commandant  at  Mauritius. 
Mornington  acted  promptly.  He  applied  immediate  pressure  to  the  Nizam, 
who  dismissed  his  French  officers  and  accepted  in  place  of  the  force  which 
had  been  maintained  a  British  contingent — that  is  to  say,  a  sepoy  army  with 
British  officers — theoretically  for  the  defence  of  his  dominions  against  the 
aggression  of  native  powers  ;  for  the  maintenance  of  which  force  he  ceded 
territory,  a  system  known  as  that  of  "  subsidiary  alliances."  Similar  pressure 
was  brought  to  bear  upon  Sindhia,  and  then  Mornington  proceeded  against 
Tippu. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Tippu's  father  had  usurped  the  sovereignty 
of  Mysore  not  forty  years  before,  and  that  Tippu  himself  was  a  fanatical 
Mohammedan  ruling  by  the  sword  over  subjects  who  were  for  the  most 
part  Hindus.  The  war  with  Tippu  was  emphatically  a  war  with  a  dynasty, 
not  with  a  state  ;  and  it  was  necessitated  by  the  plain  fact  that  Tippu  was 
in  alliance  with  France  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  the  British  power. 
Tippu  rejected  the  British  ultimatum,  and  in  1799  the  British  troops 
stormed  Seringapatam.  The  Sultan  himself  was  killed.  Mornington  re- 
instated the  representative  of  the  previous  Hindu  dynasty  as  lord  of  the  old 
Mysore   territory,    and    annexed    (he   rest   of   Tippu's    dominion,    though    a 


THE   WAR    WITPI    THE    REPUBLIC  737 

portion  was  restored  to  the  Nizam.  These  districts,  however,  were  re- 
troceded  by  him  for  the  permanent  maintenance  of  the  protecting  British 
contingent. 

The  fall  of  Alexandria  was  the  last  phase  of  the  active  hostilities.  The 
British  were  ready  enough  for  peace  if  they  could  have  it  with  security ; 
Napoleon  wanted  it,  we  are  entitled  to  believe,  in  order  to  organise  the 
isolation  and  coercion  of  the  British,  since  it  was  clear  enough  that  as 
matters  stood  coercion  was  not  likely  to  be  effective.  The  preliminaries  of 
peace  were  agreed  upon  in  October,  but  the  British  Government  was  no 
longer  that  of  Pitt,  who  had  resigned  office  in  March.  The  battle  of  the 
Baltic  was  actually  fought  under  the  auspices  of  the  Addington  administra- 
tion. Pitt  had  carried  the  Treaty  of  Union  with  Ireland,  but  the  king's  flat 
refusal  to  agree  to  Catholic  Emancipation,  to  which  Pitt  and  some  of  his 
colleagues  were  absolutely  pledged  as  an  accompaniment  of  the  Union, 
compelled  the  minister  and  some  of  his  supporters  to  resign.  The  change 
of  ministry  did  not  involve  transfer  of  power  to  the  Opposition  ;  it  merely 
meant  that  Pitt  and  the  colleagues  who  were  pledged  to  Catholic  Emancipa- 
tion gave  a  qualified  support  from  outside  to  their  former  colleagues,  who 
remained  in  office  with  some  new  associates.  The  authority  and  capacity 
of  the  new  ministry  was  seriously  diminished  by  the  withdrawals ;  but  as 
the  Rockinghams  thirty-five  years  before  would  have  preferred  to  remain 
under  the  leadership  of  the  elder  Pitt,  so  the  Addington  ministry  now 
would  have  preferred  to  remain  under  the  leadership  of  the  younger.  The 
Addington  ministry  made  the  peace  which  became  definitive  as  the  Treaty 
of  Amiens  in  March  1802,  but  barely  two  years  elapsed  before  Pitt  was 
recalled  to  the  helm. 

The  treaty  embodied  the  belief  of  Pitt  himself  and  of  some  but  by  no 
means  all  of  his  former  colleagues  that  the  need  for  war  was  over,  that 
France  and  Europe  had  learnt  their  lesson,  and  that  a  time  of  general  peace 
and  recuperation  was  at  hand.  Concession,  therefore,  was  carried  so  far 
that  Britain  agreed  to  restore  all  her  conquests  with  the  exception  of  Ceylon 
and  Trinidad.  In  these  restitutions  was  included  that  of  Cape  Colony  to 
the  Dutch  ;  it  had  been  ceded  by  the  Stadtholder  to  prevent  its  seizure  by 
the  French,  after  his  retreat  from  Holland,  but  before  his  government  had 
been  technically  set  aside,  and  the  British  had  taken  possession  after  a  formal 
show  of  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  Dutch  colonists.  It  was  to  be  re- 
occupied  later  and  to  remain  a  permanent  British  possession.  But  even 
before  the  Treaty  of  Amiens  was  signed,  it  w^as  becoming  evident  that  the 
peace  had  in  it  no  element  of  permanence.  The  joy  with  which  it  was 
hailed  in  England  was  premature. 


3  A 


738  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 


III 

IRELAND  AND  THE   UNION 

Ireland  had  achieved  legislative  independence  with  the  constitution  of 
1782,  confirmed  by  the  Renunciatory  Act  of  the  following  year.  She  had 
refused  to  surrender  any  portion  of  that  independence  even  as  the  price  of 
the  final  removd  of  hampering  commercial  restrictions.  She  had  asserted 
it  again  very  emphatically  at  the  time  of  the  Regency  Bill,  when  the  Irish 
parliament,  led  by  Grattan,  refused  to  recognise  the  right  of  the  parliament 
at  Westminster  to  control  the  regency  for  Ireland,  and  sent  a  deputation  to 
London  to  offer  the  regency  to  the  Prince  of  Wales  on  its  own  account — 
a  proceeding  of  which  the  effectiveness  was  somewhat  damaged  by  the 
fact  that  by  the  time  the  deputation  reached  London  the  king  had  been 
restored  to  health  and  there  was  no  regency  to  offer.  The  prosperity  of 
the  country  advanced  rapidly  during  the  years  of  peace,  since  the  conces- 
sions already  made  greatly  extended  Irish  commerce  ;  the  paralysis  of  the 
Catholic  population  had  at  least  been  diminished  by  the  relaxation  of  the 
Penal  Code  ;  the  spirit  of  hopefulness  stimulated  enterprise,  and  agriculture 
assumed  a  new  activity. 

But  an  independent  parliament  could  be  regarded  only  as  a  first  step 
towards  the  reform  of  flagrant  abuses  which  powerful  interests  were  still 
energetic  in  preserving.  The  executive  was  still  responsible  to  the  Crown, 
not  to  parliament ;  parliament  itself  was  infinitely  less  representative  of  the 
actual  electorate  and  more  subject  to  the  control  of  corrupt  influences 
than  even  the  parliament  at  Westminster  ;  and  on  religious  grounds  the 
electorate  itself  was  restricted  to  the  Protestant  community,  who  formed 
less  than  a  fourth  of  the  population,  while  the  Protestant  dissenters  were 
in  a  worse  position  than  their  brethren  in  England. 

The  Irish  parliament  then  was  in  effect  controlled  by  the  group  whose 
interest  it  was  to  preserve  an  unreformed  representation,  while  those  who 
desired  reform  were  in  disagreement  on  the  Catholic  question.  This  con- 
trolling majority  was  thoroughly  loyal  to  the  British  connection  ;  but  the 
guarantee  of  their  loyalty  was  their  firm  conviction  that  the  Protestant 
ascendency,  their  own  ascendency,  rested  upon  British  support.  Had 
Grattan  been  the  leader  of  a  majority  the  loyalty  of  the  parliament  would 
hardly  have  been  less,  for  Grattan  had  a  splendid  faith  in  mutual  trust  and 
honour  as  the  curative  for  misunderstandings.  For  such  mutual  trust 
he  pleaded  earnestly,  and  on  the  same  principles  he  desired  to  place  his 
Catholic  fellow-countrymen  on  the  same  footing  as  the  Protestants,  and  to 
trust  in  the  loyalty  which  the  Catholic  gentry  had  already  displayed  so  con- 
spicuously. Had  the  Catholic  gentry  been  freely  admitted  to  public  life, 
it  is  certain  that  they  would  have  proved  themselves  worthy  of  the  confi- 


rUK   UNION    WITH    IRELAND  739 

dence  reposed  in  them.  In  short,  a  reformed  Irish  parHament  would  in  ah' 
probabiHty  have  been  a  loyal  parliament.  But  the  one  reform  which  was 
conceded,  pressed  upon  the  ascendency  party  by  Pitt,  and  accepted  by  it 
not  without  reluctance,  was  not  calculated  to  improve  the  position.  In 
1792  the  franchise  was  extended  so  as  to  admit  Catholics  to  the  electorate, 
but  they  were  still  excluded  from  parliament  and  from  office.  In  other 
words,  the  leaders  were  kept  out  of  active  public  life  and  distrusted,  while 
the  rank  and  file  were  admitted  to  the  franchise. 

This  measure  came  just  before  the  declaration  of  war  between  France 
and  Great  Britain,  when  the  Revolution  in  France  w'as  already  unmistak- 
ably triumphant,  and  the  French  Revolution,  following  upon  the  American 
Revolution,  had  sown  dangerous  seed  in  Ireland.  For  there  a  fruitful  soil 
was  provided  among  the  Protestant  dissenters  with  their  Puritan  tradition, 
the  Catholic  proletariat  with  its  ill-defined  but  acute  consciousness  of 
oppression,  and  an  agrarian  population  which,  whether  Protestant  or 
Catholic,  had  a  lively  sense  of  hostility  to  the  landlords  and  still  more  to 
the  middlemen — a  chain  of  whom  was  generally  interposed  between  the 
absentee  landlords  and  tenantry.  It  was  to  this  community  of  interests 
hostile  to  the  existing  order  that  the  young  lawyer  Wolfe  Tone  appealed 
w^hen  he  started  the  Society  of  the  United  Irishmen  in  1791. 

Wolfe  Tone  himself  was  imbued  with  many  of  the  ideas  of  the  French 
Revolution,  and  his  own  ultimate  aim  was  to  create  an  Irish  republic.  But 
these  aims  were  not  yet  to  be  acknowledged.  The  first  thing  was  to  get 
rid  of  dissension  and  unite  the  Irish  people  in  a  demand  for  the  redress  of 
grievances.  The  time  had  not  yet  come  for  treating  the  British  connection 
as  the  root  cause  of  the  grievances.  The  Protestant  population  w^ere  to 
combine  with  the  Catholics  in  a  demand  for  full  political  rights  irrespec- 
tive of  religion,  and  the  Society  of  the  United  Irishmen,  with  its  starting- 
point  among  the  Protestants  of  Ulster,  virtually  leagued  itself  with  the 
*' Catholic  Committee,"  which  had  been  in  existence  for  more  than  thirty 
years.  That  committee  had  already  changed  its  character,  having  become 
democratised  by  the  secession  from  it  of  many  Catholics  who  had  taken 
alarm  at  the  anti-clerical  aspects  of  the  French  Revolution.  On  the  other 
hand,  while  the  active  propaganda  of  the  new  movement  was  accompanied 
by  an  increase  of  agrarian  disturbance,  it  intensified  also  the  repressive 
activities  of  the  ascendency  party  which  dominated  both  parliament  and 
the  executive. 

In  1795  a  new  viceroy.  Lord  Fitzwilliam,  realised  the  essential  justice 
of  the  Catholic  demands,  and  reform  seemed  to  be  at  hand  ;  but  the 
ascendency  group,  led  by  the  Chancellor  Fitzgibbon,  proved  too  strong 
for  him.  Fitzwilliam  was  recalled,  Fitzgibbon  was  made  Earl  of  Clare, 
and  in  his  hands  the  new  viceroy,  Lord  Camden,  virtually  placed  himself. 
And  now  a  fresh  element  of  chaos  was  introduced  by  a  revival  of  religious 
animosities.  The  Protestants  associated  with  the  United  Irish  Movement 
were    in   the    main,   though    not    exclusively,   Presbyterians.     But    in    the 


740  THE   ERA    OF   REVOLUTIONS 

popular  terminology  of  tlie  day,  Protestants  meant  the  preponderant  body 
who  belonged  to  the  Established  Church  and  were  free  from  political 
disabilities.  These  Ulster  Protestants  formed  the  opposition  societies 
called  the  "  Peep  o'  Day  Boys,"  a  name  which  gave  place  to  that  of 
"Orangemen"  in  commemoration  of  William  of  Orange.  For  the  past 
four  years  the  Peep  o'  Day  Boys  had  been  in  frequent  collision  with  the 
supporters  of  the  United  Irishmen  ;  and  now  the  Orange  society  developed 
a  sort  of  crusade  against  the  Catholic  peasantry,  with  the  result  that  large 
numbers  all  over  Ireland  began  to  enroll  themselves  in  the  Society  of 
United  Irishmen,  which  welcomed  them  with  open  arms. 

Nevertheless,  Catholic  Ireland  was  not  at  this  time  ripe  for  rebellion, 
though  Wolfe  Tone  imagined  that  it  was.  He  betook  himself  to  France, 
dropped  the  mask,  and  had  no  difficulty  in  persuading  the  French  govern- 
ment to  despatch  a  large  expedition  under  the  command  of  Hoche  to  land 
in  Ireland.  It  was  the  moment  when  British  naval  ascendency  was  still  in 
the  balance,  just  before  Jervis's  victory  at  Cape  St.  Vincent.  The  expedition 
did  not  land  ;  it  was  driven  off  by  tempests.  But  it  is  remarkable  that  when 
its  arrival  was  hourly  expected  there  was  no  sign  of  a  rising  in  Ireland  itself. 

Still,  through  1797*  while  the  religious  strife  raged  chiefly  in  Ulster, 
the  organisers  of  rebellion  were  arming  and  drilling  constantly  increasing 
numbers  of  the  Catholic  peasantry.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Government 
adopted  vigorous  repressive  measures  for  the  seizure  of  arms  and  the 
insurrectionary  ringleaders  ;  and  this  work  was  done  chiefly  by  the  Ulster 
yeomanry,  who  were  in  fact  Orange  volunteers  imbued  with  the  passions  of 
the  religious  strife.  All  the  progress  towards  harmony,  of  which  there  had 
seemed  to  be  such  high  promise  when  Grattan's  parliament  was  created,  was 
done  away  with,  and  all  the  old  animosities  were  again  raised  to  their 
highest  pitch.  The  unrestrained  brutalities  of  the  government  soldiery 
were  answered  by  deeds  of  corresponding  savagery.  There  was  no  one  to 
control,  to  organise,  or  to  restrain  the  insurrectionary  movement,  because 
the  Government  had  seized  its  chiefs;  and  in  May  1798  a  desperate  but 
abortive  rebellion  blazed  out  in  the  counties  of  Wicklow  and  Wexford, 
where  the  struggle  was  practically  between  Catholics  and  Protestants 
without  qualification. 

The  suppression  of  the  insurrection  was  secured  by  the  decisive  defeat 
of  the  insurgents  at  Vinegar  Hill;  and  the  fortunate  appointment  of  Corn- 
wallis,the  former  Governor-General  of  India, as  Lord-Lieutenant, insured  that 
so  far  as  lay  in  his  power  the  final  suppression  of  the  rebellion  would  be 
conducted  as  leniently  as  possible.  But  the  whole  episode  was  made 
hideous  by  barbarous  conduct  on  both  sides,  though  it  was  accompanied  by 
redeeming  deeds  of  heroic  courage.  Nor  was  it  possible  even  for  Corn- 
vvallis  to  prevent  continued  excesses  on  the  part  of  the  side  which  had  won. 
And  Grattan's  parliament  had  failed  so  utterly  to  fulfil  Grattan's  own  hopes, 
it  had  become  so  completely  the  instrument  of  the  oligarchy,  that  Grattan 
himself  had  seceded  from  it  in  despair. 


THE    UNION    WITH    IRELAND  741 

One  more  incident  of  the  rebellion  is  to  be  noted.  F'rance  did  not 
repeat  the  attempt  of  1796,  and  Bonaparte  was  absorbed  in  the  Egyptian 
expedition.  Nevertheless  a  small  French  force  was  landed  in  the  west ;  its 
leader,  General  Humbert,  scattered  a  large  force  of  militia  which  was  de- 
spatched against  him,  at  what  was  called  the  "Race  of  Castlebar,"  and  he 
was  able  to  give  a  good  deal  of  trouble  before  he  was  finally  forced  to 
surrender.  But  practically  outside  the  counties  of  Wicklow  and  Wexford 
the  insurrection  never  made  head. 

The  conclusion  forced  upon  Cornwallis  in  Ireland  and  upon  Pitt  in 
England  was  that  the  sister  island  would  never  have  a  healthy  government 
except  through  an  incorporating  union  with  Great  Britain.  The  complete 
absorption  of  power  by  the  Irish  oligarchy,  their  provocative  oppression 
before  the  rebellion,  and  their  tyrannous  abuse  of  their  position  when  it 
was  over,  were  condemned  by  Cornwallis  in  the  strongest  terms,  though 
perhaps  his  condemnation  was  more  inclusive  and  more  sweeping  than  the 
circumstances  altogether  warranted.  But  the  outstanding  fact  remained 
that  government  by  the  oligarchy  was  intolerable,  and  would  inevitably 
keep  the  country  in  a  state  of  seething  sedition.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the 
very  much  larger  subject  population  were  admitted  to  political  equality, 
they  in  their  turn  would  be  overwhelmingly  predominant,  and  would  show 
very  little  mercy  in  penalising  their  former  rulers  for  all  the  misdeeds  of 
the  past.  An  incorporating  union  would  give  the  control  to  the  parliament 
at  Westminster,  which  could  deal  out  even-handed  justice,  since  it  would 
be  dominated  by  neither  of  the  Irish  parties  ;  and  at  the  same  time  there 
would  be  no  Nationalist  grievance,  because  Ireland  would  stand  on  the 
same  footing  in  the  Imperial  parliament  as  England  and  Scotland — a  very 
different  thing  from  the  state  of  affairs  before  1782,  when  a  British  parlia- 
ment in  which  Ireland  was  unrepresented  actively  controlled  the  govern- 
ment of  Ireland.  An  incorporating  union  therefore  was  the  condition 
without  which  it  was  vain  to  hope  for  a  loyal  and  peaceful  Ireland. 

But  neither  Pitt  nor  Cornwallis  imagined  that  a  union  would  of  itself 
suffice  to  make  Ireland  peaceful  and  loyal.  There  was  in  any  case  the 
initial  difficulty  that  the  Irish  Nationalist  sentiment  was  as  strong  as  it  had 
been  in  Scotland  at  the  beginning  of  the  century.  The  majority  of  Irish- 
men from  Grattan  himself  down  believed  that  the  country  could  work  out 
its  own  salvation  under  a  reformed  government  ;  that  is,  the  leaders  of 
Irish  opinion  believed  that  if  the  grievances  of  the  Catholic  population  were 
removed  and  the  parliament  were  made  truly  representative,  the  vengeful 
spirit  would  fade,  animosities  would  die  down,  and  Ireland  would  justify 
the  confidence  that  had  been  reposed  in  her.  The  mere  fact  that  these 
leaders  resented  the  loss  of  independence  made  it  all  the  more  imperative, 
if  Irish  loyalty  was  to  be  attained,  that  a  union  should  be  accompanied  by 
the  decisive  removal  of  grievances.  The  fatal  defect  of  the  Union  was  that 
Pitt,  aware  of  this  necessity,  allowed  it  to  be  understood  in  Ireland  that  the 
Act  of  Union  would  be  accompanied  by  the  removal  of  the  acknovvledged 


742  THE   ERA   OF    REVOLUTIONS 

grievances,  without  himself  taking  steps  to  make  the  reforms  an  integral 
part  of  the  Union.  And  when  the  Union  had  been  ^carried,  the  EngHsh 
minister  found  himself  brought  up  against  the  blank  wall  of  the  king's  abso- 
lute refusal  to  remedy  the  grievances  of  the  Catholics.  Pitt  and  others 
salved  their  consciences  by  resignation,  but  that  was  the  end.  Pitt  gave  the 
king  his  promise  not  to  raise  the  question  again,  and  he  returned  to  office 
when  his  presence  was  again  imperatively  needed  at  the  helm,  without 
making  the  fulfilment  of  his  pledges  a  condition. 

The  proposal  for  an  incorporating  union  was  approved  by  large  majori- 
ties at  Westminster,  but  was  virtually  defeated — that  is,  it  was  passed  by  a 
majority  of  only  one — in  the  Irish  House  of  Commons  w^hen  introduced  in 
1799  by  Lord  Castlereagh,  who  was  chief  secretary  to  Cornwallis.  But 
Pitt,  bent  on  the  measure,  decided  that  the  assent  of  the  Irish  parliament 
must  be  obtained  at  whatever  cost.  Cornwallis,  the  most  straightforward 
of  statesmen,  certainly  believed  that  he  had  authority  to  obtain  the  support 
of  Catholic  opinion  by  at  least  implying  that  the  religious  grievance  would 
be  removed.  But  the  vital  matter  was  to  procure  a  majority  in  parliament. 
Pitt  and  his  most  effective  agent,  Castlereagh,  were  entirely  opposed  to 
testing  public  opinion  by  a  general  election.  The  simpler  plan  was 
followed  of  applying  a  vigorous  and  unqualified  corruption  to  convert 
opponents  of  the  measure  into  friends.  Peerages,  places,  and  pensions 
were  lavishly  promised  or  scattered ;  there  may  not  have  been  bribery  in 
the  most  literal  sense,  but  every  man  who  had  his  price  obtained  it.  In 
the  year  1800  the  Acts  of  Union  were  passed  both  by  the  British  and  Irish 
parliaments,  and  in  1801  the  first  parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland  met  at  Westminster. 

The  Act  united  the  legislatures,  giving  Ireland  one  hundred  repre- 
sentatives ;  the  Irish  peers  elected  twenty-eight  representatives  of  their 
number  to  sit  in  the  House  of  Lords,  while  those  who  were  excluded 
from  that  chamber  were  eligible  to  the  House  of  Commons  for  any 
English  or  Scottish  constituencies ;  and  Ireland  was  to  contribute  two- 
seventeenths  to  the  imperial  revenue.  But  she  still  remained  with  a 
separate  administration  and  a  separate  judicial  system,  with  her  effective 
government  controlled  by  the  viceroy,  who  himself  continued  to  be  in- 
fluenced mainly  by  the  ascendency  party  ;  and  if  she  was  at  last  and 
decisively  freed  from  all  commercial  restrictions  and  placed  on  the  same 
footing  as  the  sister  island,  the  pledges  to  the  Catholics  were  ignored, 
and  their  grievances,  with  those  of  the  Protestant  dissenters,  remained 
unremedied.  As  for  the  reform  of  representation,  that  could  hardly 
have  been  carried  out  without  corresponding  reforms  in  England,  where 
the  fear  of  the  French  Revolution,  of  Jacobinism  and  anarchy,  deferred 
any  such  measure  for  a  generation. 


CHAPTER    XXXI 

THK  STRUGGLE   WITH   NAPOLEON 

I 


THE   BLACK   SHADOW   AND   TRAFALGAR 

The  British  people  were  anxious  for  peace,  anxious  to  believe  that  a 
durable  peace  was  possible.  It  accepted  the  Treaty  of  Amiens  with  satis- 
faction, willing  to  surrender  very  much  for  the  sake  of  a  general  pacification. 
But  Grenville  and  others  of  Pitt's  former 
colleagues  looked  askance,  mistrusting  the 
First  Consul,  who,  they  believed,  would 
merely  make  use  of  the  peace  in  order  to 
strengthen  his  own  position  and  that  of 
France,  and  then  turn  upon  Great  Britain. 
The  omens  which  had  even  preceded  the 
ratification  of  the  treaty  were  verified  by  the 
further  consolidation  of  the  French  ascen- 
dency in  the  lately  created  republics  out- 
side the  French  frontiers,  and  in  the  First 
Consul's  assumption  of  authority  in  dealing 
with  the  minor  German  states.  The  French 
ascendency  was  used  to  enforce  the  exclusion 
of  British  goods  from  the  ports  of  the  depen- 
dents of  France.  French  agents  for  com- 
mercial purposes  visited  Ireland  and  made 
themselves  familiar  with  British  ports  ;  the 
commercial  character  of  the  agents  was  more  than  dubious.  An  official 
"commercial"  report  regarding  Egypt  was  much  more  concerned  with 
the  facilities  for  reconquest  than  with  its  ostensible  subject. 

Protest  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain  as  to  the  actions  of  the  Republic 
on  the  Continent  were  in  effect  met  by  saying  that  they  were  none  of 
England's  business  ;  and  by  angry  complaints  that  the  French  emigres 
were  allowed  scandalously  to  traduce  the  First  Consul  in  the  British  Press, 
and  that  the  British  were  abstaining  from  their  obligation  under  the  Treaty 
of  Amiens  to  evacuate  Malta.  There  was  some  technical  warrant  for 
Napoleon's  attitude,  but  it  was  no  less  evident  that  he  was  violating 
the  understandings  upon  which  the  treaty  had  been  made.      In  plain  terms 

743 


George  III. 
■  the  painting  by  Sir  William  Beechey.J 


744  THE   ERA   OF    REVOLUTIONS 

it  was  soon  impossible  to  doubt  that  Napoleon  was  determined  to  rule 
Britain  out  of  all  voice  in  European  affairs,  to  ruin  her  commerce  by 
a  policy  of  exclusion,  and  to  enforce  her  submission  by  war  if  she  refused 
it  on  any  other  terms.  The  price  was  more  than  she  chose  to  pay. 
Reluctantly  but  with  grim  resolution  the  country  made  up  its  mind  to 
a  combat  a  outrance,  in  which  it  very  soon  felt  itself  to  be  fighting  not  only 
for  its  own  existence  but  for  the  liberties  of  Europe  dominated  by  the  will 
of  a  military  despot.  Fourteen  months  after  the  Treaty  of  Amiens  war 
was  once  more  declared  between  France  and  the  British  Empire,  a  war 
in  which  there  was  no  longer  any  pretence  that  France  was  the  champion 
of  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity;  it  was  a  war  for  the  destruction  of  the 
British  Empire,  and  its  vindictive  character  was  signalised  at  the  outset 
by  the  First  Consul's  decree  for  the  immediate  arrest  and  detention  as 
prisoners  of  war  of  all  British  subjects  then  travelling  in  France. 

Now  there  was  only  one  possible  method  by  which  Great  Britain,  single- 
handed,  could  strike  at  France,  and  that  was  by  crippling  her  marine  and 
destroying  her  seaborne  commerce.  The  invasion  of  France  by  a  British 
army  was  unthinkable.  There  were  two  methods  by  which  France  with  or 
without  allies  could  seek  to  strike  at  Britain,  invasion  and  the  destruction 
of  her  commerce  by  its  exclusion  from  Europe.  For  two  years  and  a  half 
both  plans  were  in  operation,  until  invasion  was  made  once  for  all  impossible 
by  Nelson's  last  victory  of  Trafalgar,  which  therefore  terminates  the  first 
phase  of  the  war.  But  Napoleon  had  not  yet  learnt,  nor  did  he  ever 
learn,  the  inherent  futility  of  attempting  to  annihilate  British  commerce 
without  destroying  the  British  naval  supremacy  ;  because  that  supremacy 
gave  her  in  effect  a  complete  monopoly  of  the  seaborne  trade  of  the  world. 
Europe  could  not  do  without  goods  which  could  only  be  brought  to  her 
by  British  ships.  Even  if  European  governments  were  willing,  European 
ports  could  not  be  closed  so  as  to  block  the  entry  of  commodities  which 
Europe  could  not  and  would  not  do  without.  The  fact  had  been  illustrated 
during  the  nine  years  of  the  first  war,  when,  as  in  the  Seven  Years'  War, 
British  commerce  had  persistently  expanded.  It  was  to  be  proved  to 
demonstration  in  the  second  war,  when  British  commerce  continued  to 
expand  and  Europe  continued  to  be  flooded  with  British  goods,  even  after 
there  was  scarcely  a  port  on  the  whole  European  seaboard  which  was  not 
theoretically  closed  to  British  merchandise. 

During  the  first  phase  of  the  war  then,  while  the  French  control  of 
ports  outside  the  French  dominion  was  limited,  it  was  palpable  that 
British  commerce  could  at  the  worst  be  only  hampered.  The  British  fleets 
swept  the  seas  with  none  to  say  them  nay  ;  and  they  continued  to  assert 
the  right  of  search  and  the  inclusive  doctrines  as  to  contraband  of  war 
which  iiad  been  protested  against  by  the  Armed  Neutrality  in  1780  and  in 
1 80 1  as  destructive  of  the  legitimate  trade  of  neutrals.  Napoleon's  grand 
object  during  this  time  was  to  effect  an  invasion  of  England,  and  for  two 
years  and  a  half  th.it    black   shadow   hung   over   the   countrv.      Across  the 


THE   STRUGGLE   WITH    NAPOLEON  745 

Channel  troops  were  collected,  and  flotillas  were  gathered,  to  be  in  readiness  to 
embark  the  troops  at  a  moment's  notice  and  hurl  them  upon  the  English  shore. 
The  project  did  not  alarm  the  British  Admiralty,  which  was  satisfied  that 
its  own  dispositions  made  invasion  impossible.  The  mastery  of  the  sea  was 
secure.  Even  if  the  incredible  should  occur  and  for  a  few  days  there 
should  be  no  force  in  the  Channel  to  repel  invasion,  so  that  the  French 
flotillas  might  succeed  in  effecting  a  crossing  unmolested,  their  communica- 
tions would  at  once  be  cut  and  the  invading  force  would  soon  find  itself 
helpless.  Napoleon  seems  to  have  believed  in  the  possibility  of  making  the 
army  of  invasion  live  upon  the  invaded  country.  But  England  would  not 
have  been  easily  conquered  at  a  blow  ;  for  besides  the  regular  troops  who 
were  within  the  four  seas  and  the  partly  trained  militia,  vast  numbers  of  the 
civil  population  were  under  arms  drilling  and  train- 
ing as  volunteers,  while  it  does  not  appear  that 
Napoleon  ever  had  more  than  a  hundred  thousand 
men,  if  so  many,  ready  for  embarkation.  So 
while  there  was  no  little  popular  alarm,  and  the 
coming  of  "  Boney "  was  awaited  with  nervous 
anticipation,  the  Admiralty  were  under  no  appre- 
hensions. The  fleet  in  home  waters  was  a  more 
than  sufficient  guard.  It  was  Napoleon's  dream 
that  the  rest  of  the  British  fleet  might  be  enticed 
away,  and  that  in  its  absence  French  fleets  might  The  Double-Headed 

be  so  combined   as  to  secure   the  mastery  of  the  .      ovemment. 

.  .  .  ,  ,  [A  caricature  of  the  alliance  of  Pitt 

Channel   at  least  for  a  time  ;  but  the  dream  was    and  Kox,  from  Jaime's  "  Muse'e  de  la 

....  ,  ^  Caricature."] 

chimerical,  as  the  event  demonstrated.      For   two 

years  French  and  British  lay  facing  each  other  on  the  Channel  watching 
and  waiting  before  any  further  attempt  could  be  made  to  carry  out 
Napoleon's  plan,  and  then  it  broke  down  utterly  and  ruinously. 

Within  a  few  months  after  the  declaration  of  war,  an  abortive  insur- 
rection in  Ireland  stirred  up  by  the  enthusiast,  Robert  Emmet,  was  easily 
suppressed.  But  the  Addington  ministry  was  tottering,  and  Pitt's  re- 
sumption of  the  leadership  was  imperatively  called  for.  It  was  his  own 
wish  to  emphasise  the  national  character  of  the  struggle  by  forming  not  a 
party  but  a  national  ministry,  which  should  include  both  Fox,  who  had 
persistently  opposed  the  first  war,  and  Grenville,  who  had  opposed  the 
peace.  Fox,  although  the  king  flatly  refused  to  admit  him  to  the  ministry, 
urged  his  own  followers  to  support  the  Government.  Grenville  himself 
refused  to  take  office,  and  after  all  the  strength  of  Pitt's  Cabinet  lay  entirely 
in  Pitt  himself.  But  if  his  leadership  inspired  the  country  with  confidence, 
it  was  nevertheless  not  to  him  but  to  the  admirable  strategical  arrange- 
ments for  which  the  chief  credit  at  the  finish  was  due  to  Lord  Barham  at 
the  Admiralty,  that  Great  Britain  owed  her  security.  The  French  ports 
were  blockaded  not  in  the  sense  that  an  attempt  was  made  to  keep  them 
sealed  up,  but  in  the  seubC  that   it  was  hardly  possible  for  any  squadron  to 


746  THE   ERA   OF    REVOLUTIONS 

put  to  sea  without  being  detected  and  overpowered  ;  and  at  the  same  time 
there  were  complete  arrangements  for  a  concentration  of  forces  in  case  any 
accident  should  render  such  a  step  necessary.  Nelson  was  in  charge  in 
the  Mediterranean ;  Admiral  Cornwallis,  the  brother  of  the  Marquess, 
kept  watch  over  Brest ;  and  it  was  unlikely  that  a  fleet  would  get  out  from 
either  Brest  or  Toulon  without  being  forced  to  one  of  the  decisive  actions 
which  were  the  constant  desire  of  British  admirals. 

Pitt,  however,  w^as  not  satisfied  with  watching  and  waiting.  As  before, 
he  bent  his  efforts  to  the  formation  of  a  new  coalition.  Almost  at  the 
moment  of  Pitt's  return  to  office,  Europe  was  standing  aghast  at  the 
murder  of  the  Due  d'Enghien,  the  representative  of  the  junior  branch  of 
the  Bourbons,  who  had  been  trapped  on  German  soil,  carried  over  the 
French  frontier,  and  shot  after  a  mock  trial  by  a  military  commission.  Two 
months  after  the  murder  Napoleon  v^'as  proclaimed  Emperor,  and  the 
French  Republic  was  at  an  end,  as  it  had  been  in  fact  if  not  in  name  ever 
since  Napoleon  became  First  Consul.  The  crime  excited  the  deep  indig- 
nation of  the  Russian  Tsar  ;  while  the  proclamation  of  the  new  Empire  was 
alarming  to  the  head  of  the  historic  Holy  Roman  Empire.  The  Powers 
began  to  arm,  though  Russia  was  the  only  one  of  them  which  as  yet  was 
thoroughly  determined  upon  war.  Napoleon's  ambitions  were  emphasised 
when  the  North  Italian  Republic  invited  him  to  become  its  king  and  he 
accepted  the  invitation.  The  dependent  republics  were  forced  to  re- 
organise themselves  at  his  dictation.  But  it  was  not  till  April  of  1805  that 
Russia  and  Great  Britain  formed  a  definite  league  to  which  Austria  was 

o 

immediately  added  ;  while  Prussia,  which  hoped  to  get  Hanover  from 
Napoleon  (who  had  taken  possession  of  it)  as  a  reward  of  neutrality,  still 
held  aloof.  On  the  other  hand,  Napoleon  forced  upon  Spain  a  new  treaty 
which  placed  her  fleet  at  his  disposal.  To  all  appearance  he  paid  little 
attention  to  the  new  coalition,  but  w\'is  engaged  upon  preparing  the  stroke 
which  was  to  clear  the  way  for  the  invasion  of  England. 

The  plan  was  that  Admiral  Villeneuve  should  sail  from  Toulon,  pick  up 
Spanish  reinforcements,  decoy  Nelson  away  to  the  West  Indies  and  leave 
him  there,  and  then  return  to  co-operate  with  the  Brest  fleet  in  crushing 
Cornwallis  and  clearing  the  Channel.  Villeneuve  succeeded  in  carrying  out 
a  part  of  his  programme.  He  slipped  out  of  Toulon,  evaded  Nelson, 
attached  a  Spanish  squadron  at  Cadiz,  and  made  for  the  West  Indies. 
Nelson,  after  starting  on  a  false  scent,  went  in  pursuit,  leaving  Collingwood 
behind  to  keep  ward  over  Cadiz.  The  quarry  escaped  him,  but  a  swift 
brig  carried  warning  to  England  ;  the  Channel  fleet  was  concentrated  at 
the  west  of  the  Channel,  and  Calder  was  detached  from  Ferrol  with  thirteen 
ships  of  the  line  to  deal  with  Villeneuve,  who  had  twenty.  Nelson,  mean- 
while, was  on  his  way  back  to  join  Collingwood's  squadron  at  Cadiz.  Calder 
found  Villeneuve  off  Cape  Finisterre  and  engaged  him.  The  battle  itself 
was  not  of  a  decisive  character,  but  was  decisive  in  its  effects,  since 
Villeneuve  ran  for  Corunna,  and  Calder  returned  to  the  main  fleet,  to  be 


THE    STRUGGLE    WITH    NAPOLEON  747 

coiirt-martiallcd  for  having  been  contented  with  the  capture  of  two  ships. 
By  this  time  Nelson  had  already  joined  Collingwood ;  and  Napoleon's  great 
naval  coup  was  completely  brought  to  nought.  Nelson  himself  returned 
home  for  a  few  weeks,  while  Villeneuve  gave  up  all  idea  of  raising  the 
blockade  of  Brest,  and  turned  his  attentions  towards  Cadiz.  Calder's 
action    was    fought    on    July    22nd.      On   August    15th   Villeneuve    sailed 


I,oid  Nelson. 
[From  the  painting  by  Sir  William  Beechey,  R.A.  ] 


from    Corunna     for    Cadiz,    and    on    September     29th     Nelson     rejoined 
Collingwood. 

Stirred  by  bitter  taunts  flung  at  him  by  the  Emperor,  Villeneuve  put 
to  sea  with  thirty-three  ships  of  the  line,  French  and  Spanish,  and  five 
frigates.  Nelson,  with  twenty-seven  ships,  caught  him  on  October  21st  off 
Trafalgar  between  Cadiz  and  Gibraltar.  Nelson  was  to  windward,  with  a 
north-west  wind  to  carry  him  down  on  the  enemy's  line,  which  was  heading 
from  south  to  north.  As  at  the  Nile,  he  resolved  to  use  his  opportunity  to 
annihilate  the  Franco-Spanish  fleet  in  spite  of  its  superior  numbers.     The 


748  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

method  of  the  attack  was  unusual  but  decisive.  Nelson's  fleet  bore  down 
in  two  parallel  lines,  headed  by  Nelson  himself  and  by  Collingwood,  almost 
at  right  angles  to  the  French  line,  which  was  pierced  at  two  points.  The 
van  was  cut  off  and  kept  out  of  action,  while  the  centre  and  rear  were 
shattered  by  Nelson  and  Collingwood,  every  ship  being  taken  or  destroyed. 
Even  the  van  could  not  escape  completely,  since  four  of  them  were  taken 

besides  the  eighteen  prizes  secured 
in  the  main  action.  The  victory 
was  absolutely  overwhelming.  The 
British  supremacy  had  never  in 
fact  been  seriously  endangered  for 
a  moment  since  the  battle  of 
Camperdown  ;  the  work  had  been 
completed  by  Nelson  in  the  bay 
of  Aboukir.  Trafalgar  made  an 
end  of  all  serious  resistance  to  the 
British  monopoly  of  the  seas.  It 
was  the  last  real  naval  action  of 
the  war,  because  after  it  there  was 
no  navy  to  fight.  Nevertheless  the 
victory  was  dearly  bought  at  the 
price  of  the  death  of  him  who  by 
universal  assent  is  accounted  the 
greatest  sea-captain  that  the  world 
has  known.  Nelson's  career  of 
glory  had  reached  its  glorious 
close. 

The  triumph  of  Trafalgar  dis- 
persed once  for  all  that  shadow 
of  invasion  which  had  hung  over 
England.  But  Napoleon,  the  world 
at  large,  even  perhaps  Britain  her- 
self, were  made  blind  to  its  de- 
cisiveness by  the  crushing  of  the 
European  coalition  at  Austerlitz.  When  Villeneuve  sailed  from  Corunna 
for  Cadiz  instead  of  for  Brest,  the  Emperor  of  the  French  saw  that  his 
dream  of  an  invasion  of  England  had  melted  into  air.  With  character- 
istic promptitude  he  turned  upon  the  foes  who  were  slowly  gathering 
against  him  in  the  east.  The  Austrians  had  massed  an  advance  army 
at  Ulm.  The  Russian  armies  were  still  far  away.  The  German  prin- 
cipalities which  lay  between  the  French  frontier  and  Ulm  were  already 
virtually  under  Napoleon's  heel.  He  poured  his  armies  through  their 
territories,  swooped  upon  Uhn,  and  compelled  th.o  whole  Austrian  force 
there  to  capitulate  on  the  day  before  Trafalgar  was  fought. 

The   way   lay   open    to    Vienna,   which   was   soon    occupied  ;     but  the 


Admiral  Lurd  Colliii.Twoud. 


THE   STRUGGLE   WITH    NAPOLEON  749 

Russians  were  now  advancing,  and  the  rest  of  the  Austrian  army,  which 
had  fallen  back,  moved  to  join  them.  On  December  2nd,  at  Austerlitz, 
Napoleon  won  what  was  perhaps  the  most  brilliant  of  all  his  victories  over 
the  combination  of  Russians  and  Austrians.  The  Russians  retreated ; 
the  Austrian  resistance  was  annihilated.  Prussia,  which  had  just  resolved 
to  join  the  coalition,  returned  to  its  attitude  of  neutrality,  and  Napoleon's 
triumph  on  the  Continent  was  complete.  "  Roll  up  that  map  of  Europe," 
said  Pitt;  "it  will  not  be  wanted  again  for  ten  years."      His  own  end  was 


,^       '^'SH  FLEET     3F       ....,|| 


VICE-ADM  I  R  Al.     COLLINGWOOD 


-{ir: 


Ofll 


PRfKCC    0C9    ACTURIAS 


The  Battle  of  Trafalgar,  October  21,  1805. 

very  near.  On  January  23,  1806,  three  months  and  two  days  after 
Trafalgar,  the  great  English  statesman,  whose  last  years  had  been  devoted 
to  the  struggle  with  France,  followed  to  the  grave  the  great  English  sailor 
who  had  struck  for  Britain  the  decisive  blow  in  the  struggle. 


II 


THE   CONTINENTAL   SYSTEM 

The  death  of  Pitt  necessitated  the  formation  of  a  new  ministry  on  the 
lines  which  Pitt  himself  had  desired  when  he  took  office  for  the  last  time. 


750  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

The  king  himself  could  no  longer  resist  the  inclusion  of  Fox  in  a  National 
government.  Grenville  was  the  head  of  the  '*  Ministry  of  all  the  Talents." 
But  eight  months  after  his  great  rival  Fox  too  died.  In  these  last  months 
of  his  life  he  saw  secured  one  great  reform  upon  which  his  heart  had  long 
been  set.  The  resolutions  demanding  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade 
were  at  last  carried  in  both  Houses,  though  the  consequent  Act  was  not 
passed  until  Fox  had  disappeared  from  the  scene.  But  Fox  learnt  in  office 
the  vanity  of  his  persistent  hope  and  belief  that  a  durable  peace  could  be 
made  with  Napoleon.  The  Emperor  had  no  objection  to  negotiations,  but 
he  had  no  intention  of  being  baulked  or  hampered  in  carrying  out  the 
smallest  fragment  of  his  ambitious  designs.  From  Austerlitz  onwards, 
through  1806  at  least,  Napoleon's  career  was  one  of  steady  and  successful 
aggression  with  only  one  unimportant  check.  Prussia  very  soon  accepted 
his  conditions  and  closed  her  ports  to  British  trade,  getting  Hanover  as  her 
reward.  The  Bourbon  dynasty  was  again  driven  out  of  Naples  and  re- 
tained only  the  island  of  Sicily  under  British  protection.  The  mainland 
was  made  a  kingdom  for  Napoleon's  brother  Joseph  ;  Holland  with  enlarged 
borders  was  made  a  kingdom  for  another  brother,  Louis.  The  Rhine  states 
of  the  Empire  were  formed  into  the  Confederation  of  the  Rhine,  with  duchies 
and  principalities  distributed  among  Napoleon's  marshals.  The  Holy 
Roman  Empire  was  formally  dissolved  ;  the  Austrian  Emperor  was  the 
Austrian  Emperor  and  nothing  more.  The  king  of  Prussia  at  last  awoke 
to  the  fact  that  the  French  Emperor  was  playing  with  him  ;  too  late 
he  challenged  his  mighty  adversary,  and  in  October  Prussia  was  brought 
completely  under  Napoleon's  heel  by  the  victories  of  Jena  and  Auerstadt. 
Frederick  William  had  to  fall  back  upon  Russian  support. 

The  negotiations  with.  Fox  broke  down  over  the  Enghsh  minister's 
refusal  to  cede  Sicily  or  to  desert  the  Tsar.  But  the  Ministry  of  all  the 
Talents,  failing  through  no  fault  of  its  own  to  procure  an  honourable  peace, 
did  not  understand  the  conduct  of  war.  It  clung  to  the  old  tradition  of 
sending  here  and  there  desultory  expeditions  with  no  chance  of  accom- 
plishing permanent  results.  Thus  it  sent  to  Southern  Italy  a  force  under 
General  Stuart,  who  won  at  Maida  a  victory  over  a  superior  force  of  French 
veterans,  which  somewhat  raised  the  prestige  of  British  troops  and  lowered 
that  of  the  French  ;  but  the  success  was  not  followed  up  and  the  expedition 
was  withdrawn.  Another  expedition  sent  to  Buenos  Ayres  by  way  of 
striking  a  blow  at  the  Spanish  government  in  South  America  ended  in  igno- 
minious disaster  in  1807.  The  one  distinctive  gain  to  the  British  Empire 
in  1806  was  the  effective  re-occupation  of  Cape  Colony,  which  Fox  re- 
fused to  surrender. 

Six  months  after  Fox's  death  the  Grenville  ministry  resigned,  in 
March  1807,  on  a  constitutional  question.  Defeated  by  the  king's  rejection 
of  a  proposal  to  admit  Roman  Catholics  to  commissions  in  the  Army  and 
Navy,  it  formally  refused  the  king's  demand  that  it  should  pledge  itself 
not   to   raise   tiie  question   again.      Resolutions  declaring  the  right  of  the 


THE    STRUGGLE    WITH    NAPOLEON  751 

ministry  to  tender  advice  at  its  own  discretion  were  shelved,  the  ministry 
resigned,  and  reactionary  Toryism  was  estabHshcd  in  power  for  twenty 
years.  During  those  twenty  years  the  strifes  and  divisions,  as  under  the 
long  Whig  ascendency  of  the  last  century,  w^ere  not  strifes  of  party  principle 
but  of  antagonistic  personalities.  But  the  events  of  1806  had  the  effect  of 
removing  the  last  shred  of  doubt  that  the  struggle  with  Napoleon  would  have 
to  be  fought  out  to  the  bitter  end,  and  also  of  bringing  home  a  new  conviction 
that  Napoleon  was  not  to  be  defeated  by  the  old  system  of  alliances  with 
continental  dynasties.  Pitt  had  grasped  the  fact  before  his  death.  Dynastic 
interests  would  never  form  a  solid  ground  for  a  combination  which  could 
hold  Napoleon  permanently  in  check.  Napoleon  meant  to  be  master  of 
Europe,  and  only  when  nations,  not  dynasties,  rose  against  the  oppressor 
would  combinations  be  effective.  To  national  uprisings  Britain  would 
give  her  hearty  support,  but  she  would  no  longer  devote  herself  to  forming 
coalitions  of  the  old  type. 

Already,  in  1806,  Napoleon  struck  the  first  blow  which  was  intended 
to  bring  the  "  nation  of  shopkeepers "  to  its  knees.  When  after  Jena 
Napoleon  conducted  his  triumphal  progress  through  Prussia  to  Berlin, 
he  issued  from  the  Prussian  capital  the  Berlin  Decree  which  was  to 
annihilate  British  commerce.  Every  port  in  every  dependent  state  and  in 
every  state  in  alliance  with  France  was  to  be  closed  to  British  goods.  It 
was  tolerably  apparent  that  every  state  which  did  not  so  close  its  ports 
would  very  soon  be  treated  by  France  as  an  enemy.  The  British  Govern- 
ment responded  with  the  Orders  in  Council,  declaring  all  ports  so  closed  to 
be  in  a  state  of  blockade,  and  therefore  not  open  to  any  commerce  at  all. 
Further  Napoleonic  decrees  were  met  by  further  Orders  in  Council  of  the 
same  drastic  type.  British  action  was  of  course  represented  as  having  for 
its  purpose  the  destruction  of  all  neutral  commerce  and  the  appropriation 
of  the  trade  of  the  world.  That  was  very  nearly  the  effect,  but  it  was  not 
the  intention.  The  Orders  in  Council  were  measures  of  war.  The  conquest 
was  a  plain  trial  of  strength.  If  Europe  could  preserve  her  commerce 
while  excluding  the  British  at  the  dictation  of  Napoleon,  the  British  Empire 
would  be  ruined  ;  if  she  could  not,  the  British  Empire  would  not  be  ruined  ; 
but  European  commerce  would,  and  Europe  would  feel  that  she  owed  her 
woes  to  the  dictatorship  of  Napoleon.  The  commercial  war  would  be  a 
means  to  excite  Europe  to  shake  itself  free  from  the  Napoleonic  yoke. 

Early  in  1807  Napoleon  received  a  check  from  the  Russians  in  alliance 
with  the  Prussian  king  at  the  battle  of  Eylau  ;  but  four  months  later  he 
won  a  decisive  victory  at  Friedland,  which,  with  other  circumstances,  caused 
the  Tsar  to  change  his  policy.  Alexander  was  angry  with  Britain,  which, 
owing  chiefly  to  inefficiency  in  the  administration,  had  failed  to  send  him 
the  support  he  expected.  His  alliance  with  Prussia,  now  absolutely  at 
Napoleon's  mercy,  was  of  no  use  to  him.  The  two  Emperors  met  and 
held  a  secret  conclave  on  a  raft  in  midstream  at  Tilsit,  where  they  made 
a  compact  under  which  the  Tsar  was  to  unite  with  his  new  ally  in  com- 


752 


THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 


pelling  the  still  neutral  minor  states  to  close  their  ports,  while  his  own 
were  also  to  be  closed,  to  the  British.  Prussia  was  shorn  of  its  western 
territories,  out  of   which    a  kingdom   of   Westphalia  was  patched   up   for 


still    another    of    Napoleon's 
in   Poland   were    taken   away 


brothers,  Jerome,  while  her  annexations 
and  converted  into  the  grand  duchy  of 
Warsaw. 

George  Canning,  however,  received  in- 
formation of  the  secret  articles  of  the  treaty  ; 
he  had  become  Foreign  Secretary  on  the 
fall  of  the  Grenville  ministry.  Although  it 
was  impossible  to  produce  any  public  justi- 
fication, he  promptly  despatched  an  expedi- 
tion to  Denmark,  offering  her  the  British 
alliance,  and  demanding  as  on  the  previous 
occasion  that  she  should  surrender  her  fleet 
into  British  keeping.  It  was  the  obvious 
intention  of  the  new  alliance  to  absorb  all 
the  European  fleets  ;  and,  in  view  of  the 
danger.  Canning  had  no  hesitation  in  ignor- 
ing customary  rules.  Denmark  refused. 
Copenhagen  was  bombarded  ;  Denmark 
yielded,  and  her  fleet  was  carried  off.  It 
may  be  doubted  whether  Britain  had  any- 
thing serious  to  fear  from  any  possible  com- 
bination of  foreign  navies,  and  whether  she 
did  not  rather  lose  by  making  Danish  senti- 
ment bitterly  hostile  and  by  violating  the 
accepted  conventions  which  are  called  the 
Public  Law  of  Europe.  But  the  danger 
was  there,  and  Canning's  action  put  an  end 
to  it. 

Napoleon,  like  Canning  himself,  certainly 
believed  that  the  high-handed  action  of  the 
British  minister  had  gone  far  to  foil  his  plans  ;  for  his  indignation 
was  genuine,  and  was  certainly  not  in  fact  based,  as  he  professed,  on 
his  respect  for  the  Public  Law  of  Europe,  which  he  only  recognised 
himself  when  it  suited  him.  His  denunciations  were  made  scarcely  more 
convincing  by  the  coercion  which  he  applied  to  Portugal  to  bring  it 
within  the  ring-fence  of  his  Continental  System,  the  name  he  gave  to  the 
scheme  for  the  exclusion  of  British  commerce.  A  French  army  under 
Junot  marched  into  Portugal;  but  the  royal  family,  instead  of  submitting 
to  Napoleon,  embarked  upon  British  ships  and  betook  itself  to  the  great 
Portuguese  colony  of  Brazil.  Canning's  coercion  of  Denmark,  though  it 
failed  to  bring  about  the  alliance  with  the  Northern  Powers  for  which  he 
liad  hoped,  liad  the  very  clear  justification  that  it  might  at  least  be  regarded 


The  Eni]"  i    i    ^  >,.  1.    n. 
[From  the  painting  by  Delaroche. ] 


THE   STRUGGLE    WITH    NAPOLEON  753 

as  a  necessary  act  of  self-defence.  It  was  not  possible  to  apply  a  similar 
defence  to  Napoleon's  seizure  of  Portugal. 

Before  the  end  of  the  year,  then,  Russia  had  declared  war  upon  Britain, 
and  there  was  scarcely  a  free  port  left  along  the  whole  European  coastline 
from  which  British  goods  were  not  excluded.  It  is  an  ironical  commentary 
on  Napoleon's  programme  that  he  found  himself  obliged  to  grant  licences 
to  purchase  and  sell  British  goods,  both  manufactures  and  raw  materials, 
which  the  Continent  could  not  produce  out  of  its  own  resources  ;  while 
smuggling,  if  a  dangerous  business,  became  both  a  very  extensive  and  a 
very  lucrative  one. 

The  seizure  of  Portugal,  where  Junot  very  soon  set  aside  the  Portuguese 
government  and  took  over  the  administration,  was  the  first  step  towards 
the  opening  of  an  entirely  new  phase  in  the  war.  It  is  probable  that 
Napoleon  was  already  resolved  to  annex  Spain  as  well  as  Portugal  to  the 
French  Empire.  The  royal  family  of  Spain  played  into  his  hands.  The 
king,  Charles  IV.,  the  queen,  the  heir-apparent  Ferdinand,  and  the  minister 
Godoy,  formed  perhaps  a  group  as  despicable  as  any  which  ever  held  in 
its  hands  the  government  of  a  great  nation.  The  Crown  Prince  and  the 
minister,  the  queen's  favourite,  were  very  much  at  feud.  Both  parties 
intrigued  with  the  P>ench  Emperor,  who  found  in  the  Portuguese  troubles 
a  sufficient  excuse  for  throwing  French  troops  into  Spain.  These  were  at 
first  rather  welcomed  by  the  populace,  who  imagined  that  they  had  come 
to  take  the  part  of  Ferdinand,  who  was  popular  simply  for  the  reason  that 
Godoy  was  detested.  But  Napoleon  enticed  both  the  king  and  his  son 
over  the  border  to  Bayonne,  where  both  became  parties  to  a  compact  by 
which  both  king  and  prince  abdicated  the  Spanish  throne  ;  whereupon 
Napoleon  proclaimed  his  own  brother  Joseph  king  of  Spain,  transferring 
him  thither  from  Naples,  while  he  passed  on  the  crown  of  Naples  to  his 
brother-in-law,  Joachim  Murat. 

It  was  a  simple  and  easy  bargain,  but  it  left  out  of  count  the  possibility 
that  the  Spanish  people  might  have  something  to  say.  They  had.  They 
regarded  Joseph  Bonaparte  as  a  usurper  and  Ferdinand's  abdication  as 
having  been  extorted  from  him  by  force.  In  every  province  the  people 
rose  in  arms,  and  committees  called  juntas  were  formed  to  conduct  resist- 
ance to  the  usurper.  Before  the  end  of  July  a  considerable  French  force 
was  compelled  to  capitulate  to  the  insurgents  at  Baylen.  Napoleon  dis- 
covered that  Spain  would  have  to  be  conquered  before  his  brother  could 
occupy  the  throne.  He  did  not  anticipate  much  difficulty  in  the  task  ;  but 
he  had  never  before  had  to  overcome  a  fiercely  hostile  people,  and  he  had 
never  before  had  to  do  battle  with  an  efftcient  British  army.  Both  those 
experiences  were  before  him  now  and  made  havoc  of  his  calculations. 


3B 


754  THE   ERA    OF   REVOLUTIONS 


III 

THE   PENINSULA  WAR 

Portugal  had  palpably  and  unmistakably  been  coerced  ;  the  national 
government  had  in  no  sense  accepted  the  French  supremacy,  it  had  merely 
submitted  to  irresistibly  superior  force.  As  Portugal's  ally,  Britain  had 
full  warrant  for  intervening.  Technically  the  case  was  different  with 
Spain.  Formally  the  Bourbon  dynasty  had  abdicated  of  its  own  free  will, 
and  the  new  king  had  been  elected  by  a  body  masquerading  as  a  national 
assembly.  Technically  therefore  the  Spanish  insurgents  were  rebels.  But 
this  did  not  prevent  the  British  Government  from  recognising  its  oppor- 
tunity and  espousing  their  cause.  The  capitulation  of  Baylen  gave  promise 
that  the  Spaniards  would  not  collapse,  that  they  were  embarking  on  an 
adventure  which  was  not  altogether  desperate  ;  and  the  rising  of  the 
Spaniards  encouraged  the  idea  of  helping  Portugal  to  break  from  the  bonds 
which  had  just  been  imposed  upon  her.  The  country  would  be  entirely 
friendly,  and  the  British  command  of  the  sea  secured  free  entry  and  un- 
interrupted communication,  whereas  French  armies  could  only  get  to 
Portugal  through  hostile  Spanish  territory.  If  Portugal  were  secured  it 
would  become  a  base  whence  the  Spanish  insurgents  could  be  supported 
and  helped  to  eject  the  P'rench.  The  Peninsula  War,  which  began  with  the 
landing  of  British  troops  in  Portugal  on  August  13,  1808,  was  a  new 
departure.  For  the  first  time  a  British  army  under  a  British  general  was 
about  to  take  the  lead  in  a  land  war  against  a  European  power.  Even  in 
Marlborough's  day  that  great  general's  achievements  were  only  in  part  due 
to  the  British  army.  The  British  did  not  fight  their  battles  single-handed  ; 
but  in  the  Peninsula,  although  invaluable  service  was  rendered  in  the  war 
by  the  Spanish  guerillas,  Wellington's  own  battles  were  fought  and  won 
by  British  troops  who  received  practically  no  assistance  from  the  Spanish 
regulars  who  were  acting  with  them.  Hitherto  throughout  the  great 
struggle  with  France,  at  any  rate  for  a  hundred  years,  nearly  all  the  British 
honours  had  fallen  to  British  seamen.  Now  that  there  were  no  honours 
left  for  British  seamen  to  win,  British  soldiers  took  their  share,  not  in 
India  and  America  only  but  in  Europe. 

The  British  force  of  twelve  thousand  men  was  under  the  immediate 
command  of  Sir  Arthur  Wellesley,  as  yet  known  only  as  a  "sepoy  general," 
on  account  of  his  brilliant  services  in  India  during  his  brother's  Governor- 
Generalship,  to  which  we  shall  presently  revert.  Reinforcements  were 
following  under  Sir  John  Moore,  but  the  two  commanders  were  to  be  sub- 
ordinate to  two  senior  officers.  Sir  Harry  Burrard  and  Sir  Hew  Dalrymple, 
when  they  should  arrive  in  the  Peninsula.  Wellesley  landed  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Mondcgo,  marched  towards  Lisbon,  and  was  met  by  Junot  at  Vimiero. 


THE    STRUGGLE   WITH    NAPOLEON  755 

Junot  attacked  aiul  was  repulsed.  Wellesley  was  confident  tliat,  left  to 
himself,  he  could  have  crushed  him.  But  the  pursuit  was  stopped  by  the 
arrival  of  Burrard  and  Dalrymple  in  succession.  Reinforced  by  Moore,  the 
army  continued  its  march  upon  Lisbon,  and  the  senior  generals  agreed  to 
the  convention  of  Cintra,  which  permitted  the  whole  French  force  to 
evacuate  Portugal  and  to  be  simply  carried  back  by  sea  to  France  in 
British  ships  ;  at  the  same  time  a  Russian  fleet,  blockaded  in  the  Tagus, 
was  compelled  to  surrender.  British  public  opinion  was  enraged  at  the 
easy  terms  granted  to  the  French. 
Dalrymple,  Burrard,  and  Wellesley 
were  all  recalled  for  an  enquiry, 
and  the  command  in  Portugal,  now 
clear  of  the  French,  was  left  to  Sir 
John  Moore.  Happily  the  enquiry 
completely  cleared  Wellesley  of 
responsibility  for  the  convention 
itself  and  for  the  failure  to  make  the 
victory  of  Vimiero  complete,  and 
he  returned  to  take  up  the  com- 
mand again  in  the  following  spring. 
Meanwhile  Napoleon,  who  was 
as  angry  with  Junot  as  the  British 
were  with  their  generals,  resolved 
to  carry  out  the  conquest  of  Spain 
in  person.  The  trouble  in  Spain, 
in  his  eyes,  was  merely  an  inter- 
ruption to  his  scheme  for  dominat- 
ing the  rest  of  Europe,  for  which 
one  decisive  campaign  would  set 
him  free.  He  seemed  likely  to  carry  out  his  programme,  for  the  armies 
of  the  Spanish  insurgents  were  quickly  scattered,  and  by  the  end  of 
November  Joseph  Bonaparte  was  restored  to  the  throne  in  Madrid.  But 
the  Emperor's  apparently  easy  triumph  was  made  vain  by  Sir  John  Moore's 
brilliant  diversion  in  the  North.  Marching  with  twenty  thousand  men  from 
Portugal,  he  struck  at  the  French  line  of  communication  with  the  Pyrenees. 
Napoleon  would  not  himself  wait  to  crush  the  audacious  Scot,  but  hurried 
back  to  France,  leaving  the  operations  in  Spain  to  Soult.  As  Soult  advanced, 
Moore  retreated.  His  one  object  had  been  to  draw  off  a  large  French  army 
in  pursuit,  whereby  it  would  become  impossible  for  the  French  to  secure  their 
mastery  in  the  South.  The  move  was  entirely  successful.  The  retreat  to 
the  coast,  where  a  British  flotilla  was  to  take  off  tl.e  army  at  Corunna,  was 
an  operation  of  extreme  difficulty  and  danger  carried  out  with  great  skill. 
At  the  last  moment  Sir  John  had  to  turn  at  bay  at  Corunna,  where  Soult  was 
decisively  beaten  off,  and  the  embarkation  was  effected.  But  the  battle  cost 
England  the  life  of  the  great  soldier,  who  was  buried  on  the  field  of  victory. 


Sir  John  Moore. 
[From  an  engraving  after  a  sketch  portrait.] 


^^(i  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

Moore  s  diversion  had  made  it  necessary  for  the  French  to  do  the 
business  of  suppressing  Spain  all  over  again.  Sundry  of  Napoleon's 
marshals  and  a  quarter  of  a  million  soldiers  were  left  in. the  Peninsula,  but 
Napoleon  himself  was  taken  up  with  other  affairs.  Austria,  calculating  that 
any  successes  would  lead  to  a  general  German  uprising,  declared  war,  and 
the  first  movements  seemed  to  promise  well.  But  before  the  anticipated 
uprising  took  place  Napoleon  himself  was  in  the  field.  By  the  middle  of 
May  he  was  in  Vienna,  and  in  the  first  v;eek  of  July  his  victory  at  Wagram, 
although  very  far  from  being  a  crushing  one,  induced  Austria  to  change  her 
policy  and  in  effect  to  submit.  The  Treaty  of  Vienna  in  October  deprived 
her  of  extensive  districts,  cutting  her  off  completely  from  the  sea,  and 
rewarding  Bavaria  at  her  expense.  It  was  followed  by  a  further 
humiliation,  since  Napoleon  demanded  and  obtained  the  hand  of  an 
Austrian  princess,  Marie  Louise,  in  marriage,  divorcing  his  wife  Josephine 
for  that  purpose. 

Napoleon  also  in  this  year,  1810,  deposed  his  brother  Louis  from  the 
throne  of  Holland,  chiefly  for  resisting  the  order  to  exclude  British 
commerce,  whereby  Holland  was  being  ruined.  Holland  itself  and  with  it 
or  after  it  all  the  coastal  districts  of  North  Germany  were  incorporated  with 
France.  But  this  involved  the  annexation  of  Oldenburg,  which,  for 
personal  reasons,  deeply  offended  the  Russian  Tsar,  who  had  for  some  time 
past  been  increasingly  irritated  by  Napoleon's  proceedings.  In  December 
1 8 10  the  Tsar  expressed  his  displeasure  by  withdrawing  from  the  Con- 
tinental System  and  opening  his  ports  to  British  commerce.  From  that 
time  the  coercion  of  Russia  became  Napoleon's  great  object,  because  liis 
whole  policy  for  the  destruction  of  England  depended  upon  making  the 
Continental  System  complete.  The  coercion  of  Russia  took  final  shape  in 
that  terrible  Moscow  expedition  of  181  2,  which  was  the  beginning  of  the  end 
of  Napoleon's  power.  This  sketch  has  been  necessary,  in  order  to  explain 
why  Napoleon  never  himself  took  in  hand  the  business  of  annihilating  the 
British  in  the  Peninsula,  but  left  the  work  to  his  marshals — every  one  of 
whom  found  Wellington  fully  his  match — while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  fact 
that  a  quarter  of  a  million  men  were  permanently  locked  up  in  Spain 
enormously  increased  his  difficulties  when  he  found  himself  fighting  for 
life  after  the  Moscow  disaster.  We  may  now  turn  to  the  continuous 
history  of  the  Peninsula  War. 

Sir  Arthur  Wellesley,  whom  we  may  for  the  future  refer  to  by  the 
familiar  title  of  Wellington,  since  he  was  made  Viscount  Wellington  after 
the  battle  of  Talavera  in  July  of  this  year,  1809,  returned  to  take  the 
supreme  command  in  Portugal  in  April.  He  was  satisfied  that  Portugal 
with  her  mountainous  borders  could  be  defended  against  invaders,  while 
his  own  communications  with  England  were  assured  by  sea.  Portugal 
was  to  be  made  the  base  for  invading  Spain  and  co-operating  with  the  in- 
surgent armies.  The  northern  line  for  invasion  was  commanded  on  the 
Spanish   frontier  by  the  fortress  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  the  southern   by  that 


THE    STRUGGLE    WITH    NAPOLEON  ^^^ 

of  Badajoz.  The  first  business  was  to  drive  Soult  with  his  army  out  of 
Northern  Portugal,  and  this  was  effected  in  May.  The  next  was  to  co- 
operate with  the  Spaniards  by  invading  Spain  and  marching  upon  Madrid. 

The  Spanish  forces  were  badly  directed  and  badly  handled.  The  British 
general  met  the  French  under  the  command  of  the  Marshals  Jourdan  and 
Victor  at  Talavera,  and  routed  them  after  a  hot  engagement.  The  victory 
won  Wellington  his  peerage  ;  defeat  might  have  wrought  the  annihilation 
of  the  British  army,  as  Soult  had  already  reorganised  the  northern  force 
and  was  threatening  the   communications  with  Portugal.     But  even  this 


The  Spanish  Peninsula  showing  the  area  and  centres  of  the  War  of  1808-1S13. 

victory  proved  only  the  immense  danger  of  a  further  advance,  and  the  in- 
efHciency  of  the  Spanish  troops.  Wellington  fell  back  into  Portugal,  where 
he  spent  his  time  for  the  next  year  in  organising  his  army  and  the  great 
system  of  defence  against  which  the  French  legions  were  to  be  rolled  in 
vain.  For  Wagram  set  Napoleon  free  to  flood  Spain  with  additional  troops, 
and  offensive  operations  were  out  of  the  question  for  Wellington. 

In  the  eyes  of  the  public,  Talavera  was  the  one  redeeming  feature 
among  the  events  of  the  year,  and  that  appeared  small  enough.  A  great 
battle  and  a  glorious  victory  are  not  expected  to  be  the  prelude  to  a  re- 
treat, and  there  were  not  wanting  those  who  clamoured  against  the  whole 
idea  of  the   Peninsula  campaign.      ISIen  were    inclined  to   believe  that  on 


758  THE   ERA    OF   REVOLUTIONS 

land  Napoleon  was  invincible,  and  hitherto  the  British  record  had  not 
suggested  that  British  armies  and  British  generals  were  capable  of  defying 
him.  It  was  to  the  credit  of  the  strongest  members  of  the  Government, 
and  of  some  of  the  Whigs  who  were  by  no  means  friendly  to  the  Govern- 
ment, that  they  held  doggedly  to  the  war  and  to  the  support  of  Wellington, 
the  Whigs  being  actuated  mainly  by  the  principle  that  we  were  fighting  in 
the  Peninsula  for  the  liberty  of  a  nation  rightly  struggling  to  be  free. 

Public  uneasiness  too  was  intensified  by  the  mismanagement  in  other 
fields.  The  Government  having  taken  upon  itself  the  heroic  burden  of 
Portugal  also  took  upon  itself  to  attack  France  in  Holland.  The  idea  in 
itself  was  perhaps  not  unsound.  The  Walcheren  expedition,  if  despatched 
in  time,  ought  to  have  created  a  diversion  which  would  have  seriously 
complicated  the  Wagram  campaign  for  Napoleon.  But  it  was  hopelessly 
mismanaged.  It  ought  to  have  been  a  sudden  stroke  at  Antwerp,  but  its 
start  was  delayed,  so  that  the  French  had  time  to  prepare.  The  army  was 
placed  under  the  incompetent  Earl  of  Chatham,  the  elder  brother  of 
William  Pitt.  The  naval  force  was  under  Sir  Richard  Strachan.  More 
time  was  wasted  on  the  quite  unnecessary  capture  of  Flushing ;  the  com- 
manders failed  to  co-operate,  and  their  blundering  is  commemorated  in  the 
popular  rhyme — 

"  Lord  Chatham  with  his  sword  drawn 
Was  waiting  for  Sir  Richard  Strachan. 
Sir  Richard,  longing  to  be  at  'em, 
Was  waiting  for  the  Earl  of  Chatham."' 

Having  captured  Flushing  the  force  found  that  Antwerp  had  been  made 
impregnable.  It  settled  down  in  the  Isle  of  Walcheren  without  medical 
supplies,  and  there  fell  a  prey  to  malaria.  The  men  died  like  flies,  and 
before  the  end  of  the  year  the  shattered  remnant  of  a  much  vaunted  expedi- 
tion had  to  be  brought  home  again. 

At  the  end  of  this  year  the  Duke  of  Portland,  the  titular  head  of  the 
ministry,  resigned,  and  shortly  afterwards  died.  His  resignation  had  been 
preceded  by  those  of  George  Canning  and  Castlereagh,  who  had  quarrelled 
so  bitterly  over  a  misunderstanding  that  they  fought  a  duel,  after  which  it 
was  practically  impossible  for  either  of  them  to  remain  in  office.  Cannmg's 
place  in  the  new  ministry  headed  by  Perceval  was  taken  by  the  Marquess 
Wellesley,  and  young  Lord  Palmerston  joined  the  government  as  Secretary 
at  War,  though  without  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet — an  office  which  he  retained 
for  the  next  eighteen  years.  The  changes  involved  no  alteration  of 
policy  ;  even  Wellesley's  presence  in  the  Cabinet  was  hardly  a  stronger 
guarantee  of  support  for  his  brother  at  the  seat  of  war  than  Canning's  had 
been.  At  the  end  of  1810  the  king's  brain-malady  returned,  and  conse- 
quently a  Regency  Bill  appointing  the  Prince  of  Wales  regent  with  un- 
limited powers  was  passed  in  the  following  year.  The  situation  was 
practically  unaffected   thereby,  for  the  heir-apparent  was   no   longer,  as   in 


THE  STRUGGLE   WITH    NAPOLEON  759 

1788,  intimately  associated  with  the  leaders  of  the  Whig  party,  which  was 
now  in  a  hopeless  minority. 

In  18 10  Napoleon,  annoyed  by  the  continuation  of  the  Peninsula  War, 
resolved  to  sweep  away  the  obstructing  British,  and  sent  Massena  with  a 
Grand  Army  to  carry  out  the  task.  Soult  mastered  the  whole  of  the 
southern  province  of  Spain,  Andalusia,  with  the  exception  of  Cadiz,  which 
defied  him.  Suchet  mastered  Aragon,  and  W^ellington,  with  some  thirty 
thousand  British  troops,  was  intended  to  be  the  prey  of  perhaps  the  ablest  of 
the  French  marshals  with  seventy  thousand  men.  Inadequately  supported 
with  men  and  money  from  home  in  consequence  of  the  Walcheren  fiasco, 
the  British  general  could  only  stand  on  the  defensive,  with  the  additional 
danger  before  him  that  Soult  from  the  South  might  co-operate  with 
Massena.  From  this  the  jealousies  of  the  French  marshals  delivered  him. 
Massena's  advance  at  first  was  unchecked.  He  secured  Ciudad  Rodrigo 
and  Almeida,  a  strong  fortress  within  the  Portuguese  frontier.  He 
intended  to  sweep  the  British  into  the  sea,  but  Wellington  had  perfected 
his  defensive  preparations.  At  the  end  of  September  he  met  and  repulsed 
at  Busaco  the  attack  of  Massena,  who  was  disappointed  by  finding  that  the 
Portuguese  troops  with  his  adversary  were  by  no  means  to  be  despised. 
But  Busaco  was  merely  a  check.  Wellington  fell  back  into  the  peninsula 
whereon  Lisbon  stands. 

Then  Massena  suddenly  found  himself  confronted  by  the  lines  of 
Torres  Vedras,  and  realised  that  Wellington's  engineers  had  made  them 
completely  impregnable.  Also  he  found  that  Wellington  had  very  care- 
fully denuded  the  whole  surrounding  country  of  supplies  which,  with  the 
rural  population,  had  been  collected  within  his  lines.  For  nearly  five 
months,  from  the  middle  of  November,  Massena  lay  powerless  to  strike, 
with  an  army  gradually  famishing  and  perpetually  harassed  by  the 
Portuguese  guerillas.  In  March  he  began  his  retreat,  while  Soult  con- 
fined himself  to  capturing  Badajoz  on  the  south.  Wellington  followed 
and  laid  siege  to  Almeida.  Massena,  with  his  weakened  army,  attempted  a 
relief,  but  was  beaten  after  two  days  of  critical  fighting  at  Fuentes  d'Oiioro, 
and  Almeida  was  taken,  though  the  garrison  broke  its  way  out. 

W^ithin  a  fortnight  Beresford  had  fought  and  won  the  sanguinary 
battle  of  Albuera  in  the  south.  He  was  attempting  to  recover  Badajoz, 
when  Soult  attacked  him  with  twenty-three  thousand  men.  Of  Beresford's 
force  only  some  ten  thousand  were  British  troops,  and  upon  them  fell  nearly 
the  whole  of  the  fighting.  More  than  a  third  of  their  number  fell,  but 
Soult  was  driven  off  with  a  loss  of  six  thousand,  Wellington,  having 
cleared  the  North,  hastened  to  join  Beresford  ;  but  Marmont,  who  had 
taken  Massena's  place,  combined  forces  with  Soult,  and  the  siege  of 
Badajoz  had  to  be  abandoned.  Wellington  made  a  dash  upon  Ciudad 
Rodrigo,  but  Marmont  foiled  the  movement  and  he  had  to  fall  back  again 
into  Portugal.  Apparently  he  had  achieved  little  enough  ;  it  was  still  only 
within    Portugal   that    he    was    master.     Nevertheless   his    operations    had 


760  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

served  perpetually  to  relieve  the  pressure  upon  the  Spanish  guerillas,  who, 
throughout  the  war,  showed  a  resourcefulness  and  a  fighting  capacity  in 
marked  contrast  to  that  of  the  official  Spanish  troops  ;  while  their 
activities  at  the  same  time  helped  the  jealousies  of  the  French  marshals  to 
prevent  the  overwhelming  concentrations  of  French  troops  which  might 
have  pinned  Wellington  to  Torres  Vedras. 

So,  at  the  end  of  1811,  Wellington  had  not  been  driven  into  the  sea, 
though  it  was  still  possible  to  argue  with  honest  conviction  that  the  war 
in  the  Peninsula  was  producing  no  results  commensurate  with  the  heavy 
expenditure  of  blood  and  treasure.  But  its  justification  was  near  at  hand. 
Napoleon  was  planning  his  Russian  expedition,  and,  instead  of  reinforcing 
the  army  in  the  Peninsula,  he  was  reducing  its  numbers  in  the  winter  and 
spring  in  order  to  strengthen  his  Grand  Army  for  Moscow.  He  may 
have  been  misled  too  by  the  successful  operations  of  Suchet  in  the  east  of 
Spain. 

Thus  at  last  the  time  was  ripe  for  Wellington  to  begin  a  series  of  more 


Badajuz  and  its  Citadel  from  the  north  bank  of  the  River  Guadiana. 
[From  a  view  taken  in  1813.] 

actively  offensive  operations.  Suddenly  in  January  he  sprang  upon  Ciudad 
Rodrigo  ;  Marmont  began  a  movement  for  its  rescue,  but  not  in  time  to  pre- 
vent Wellington  from  carrying  it  by  assault.  Unsuspicious  of  Wellington's 
designs,  Marmont  again  retired  to  winter  quarters.  Again  the  British 
general  struck  and  struck  hard,  this  time  to  the  southward,  falling  upon 
Badajoz,  which  was  carried  by  escalade  after  furious  fighting,  in  which 
the  most  desperate  courage  and  determination  were  displayed  both  by 
defenders  and  assailants  ;  although  both  here  and  at  Ciudad  Rodrigo  the 
splendid  valour  of  the  British  soldiery  was  marred  by  the  brutal  excesses 
in  which  the  troops,  which  got  utterly  out  of  hand,  indulged  after  the 
victory.      Ciudad  Rodrigo  and  Badajoz  were  the  gates  of  Spain. 

Badajoz  fell  in  April.  Wellington  would  probably  have  been  glad  to 
tempt  Sou  it  into  an  immediate  engagement  while  his  own  men  were  in  the 
full  tide  of  confidence  gained  by  their  last  triinnph.  But  Soult  was  not  to 
be  tempted,  and  Wellington  could  not  leave  Badajoz  till  the  fortifications 
had  been  reinstated.  P>y  that  time  it  was  becoming  imperative  that  he 
should   deal   with  Marmont  in  the  North,  for  the  Spaniards  had  failed  to 


THE   STRUGGLE    WITH    NAPOLEON  761 

carry  out  the  advice  given  them  by  the  British  commander  and  the 
country  was  still  open.  Northward,  therefore,  he  turned,  despatching 
General  Hill  to  secure  the  passage  of  the  Tagus  at  Almarez — the  only  line 
by  which  it  was  possible  to  effect  a  junction  with  the  Northern  army. 
Hill's  work  was  admirably  done.  The  position  was  strongly  held  by  the 
French,  but  the  movement  for  its  capture  was  skilfully  concealed ;  it  was 
rushed  by  a  brilliant  attack,  the  pontoon  bridge  was  demolished,  the 
magazine  and  stores  w^ere  destroyed,  and  the  communications  between 
Soult  and  Marmont  were  completely  severed. 

In  June  the  Salamanca  campaign  opened.  The  combatants  were  not 
unequally  matched  in  point  either  of  numbers  or  of  the  military  genius  of 
the  commanders.  Neither  was  willing  to  iight  an  indecisive  battle.  It 
was  not  till  the  middle  of  July  that  the  movements  of  the  two  armies,  each 
endeavouring  to  secure  a  decisively  superior  position  in  which  it  could 
compel  the  other  to  fight  on  its  own  terms,  brought  on  the  crisis  and  the 
actual  battle  of  Salamanca,  which  was  fought  on  July  22nd.  The  decisive 
moment  came  when  Marmont  attempted  to  carry  out  an  enveloping 
movement  on  Wellington's  flank,  which,  if  it  had  been  accomplished 
successfully,  would  have  given  him  a  decisive  victory.  But  there  was  a 
moment  when  the  extending  of  Marmont's  lines  opened  a  gap,  and  the 
moment  was  seized  by  his  adversary.  Wellington  broke  the  line,  cut  off 
the  centre  and  the  left  from  the  right  wing,  and  rolled  them  up.  Fifteen 
thousand  of  the  French  army  were  killed,  wounded,  or  prisoners. 
Three  weeks  later  Wellington  was  in  Madrid,  hailed  with  frantic  joy  as 
their  saviour  by  the  enthusiastic  populace.  But  even  Salamanca  did  not 
mean  that  Spain  was  won  ;  a  concentration  of  the  French  armies  would 
still  bring  a  greatly  superior  force  against  the  British.  Before  the  end  of 
the  year  Wellington  was  once  more  behind  the  Portuguese  frontier.  The 
decisive  blow  was  still  deferred. 

Meanwhile,  the  ministry  at  home  had  again  been  modified.  Early  in 
the  year  Wellesley,  dissatisfied  with  the  treatment  meted  out  both  to  him- 
self and  to  his  brother,  resigned,  and  Castlereagh  took  his  place  as  Foreign 
Secretary.  Then  in  May  the  Prime  Minister  Perceval  was  assassinated  by 
a  lunatic,  and  his  place  at  the  head  of  the  ministry  was  taken  by  Lord 
Liverpool,  a  man  somewhat  of  the  Pelham  type,  not  a  distinguished 
statesman  but  endowed  with  an  abnormal  capacity  for  reconciling  hostile 
elements.  Wellesley  would  not  return  to  the  ministry,  and  there  was  not 
room  in  one  Cabinet  for  George  Canning  as  well  as  Castlereagh.  Castle- 
reagh, however,  was  no  less  determined  than  Wellesley  himself  to  carry  the 
struggle  with  Napoleon  in  general,  and  in  the  Peninsula  in  particular,  to  a 
decisive  conclusion. 

While  Wellington  and  Marmont  were  manoeuvring  for  the  mastery 
before  Salamanca,  Napoleon  was  launching  his  expedition  against  Russia. 
Both  Prussia  and  Austria  found  discretion  the  better  part  of  valour  and 
stood  nominally  as  his  allies,  his  troops  being  given  free  passage  through 


762  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

the  Prussian  territories.  At  the  end  of  June  the  Grand  Army  entered 
Russian  Poland,  where  it  was  generally  welcomed  by  the  Poles.  But 
the  Russians  played  the  Fabian  game,  retreating  before  the  half 
million  men  whom  Napoleon  was  leading.  Not  till  September  did  they 
stay  to  give  battle,  when  they  faced  the  Emperor  at  Borodino.  The 
slaughter  on  both  sides  was  terrific,  but,  though  the  Russians  left  the 
French  masters  of  the  field,  they  were  not  routed  but  continued  their 
retreat.  On  the  14th,  a  week  after  Borodino,  Napoleon  reached  Moscow. 
He  found  the  city  deserted  and  empty  ;  the  next  day  it  was  in  flames. 
For  five  weeks  the  Emperor  remained  at  Moscow — though  half  the  town 
was  a  charred  ruin — vainly  hoping  that  the  Tsar  would  come  to  terms. 
Then  he  began  his  retreat  by  a  different  route,  for  on  the  line  of  his 
advance  his  army  must  have  perished  of  sheer  starvation.  The  Russians 
gave  him  one  fierce  battle,  in  which  the  victory  lay  with  the  French,  but 
by  this  time  the  Grand  Army  was  already  shattered.  It  was  not  worth 
while  for  the  Russians  to  accept  another  general  engagement  ;  they  were 
content  to  cut  off  supplies  and  perpetually  harass  the  retreat  of  the 
starving  army.  Then  the  severities  of  a  Russian  winter  came  to  their 
aid.  At  the  crossing  of  the  Beresina  the  French  escaped  annihilation  and 
no  more.  Napoleon  deserted  his  force,  leaving  Murat  to  conduct  the 
retreat  ;  it  was  a  mere  remnant  of  the  Grand  Army  that  re-entered  Prussia 
in  December.  The  effect  of  the  disaster  was  tremendous.  Within  three 
months  the  King  of  Prussia,  swept  away  by  the  uprising  of  the  national  spirit, 
formally  allied  himself  with  Russia,  declared  war  against  France,  and 
issued  an  appeal  to  all  Germany  to  join  in  a  war  of  liberation.  Austria 
for  the  time  held  aloof.  But  meanwhile  the  amazing  energy  of  Napoleon 
had  produced  a  new  army  with  which  he  twice  defeated  the  allies  before 
the  end  of  May.  Then  an  armistice  proved  fatal,  for  it  enabled  the  allies 
to  improve  their  organisation  and  to  bring  Austria  into  the  coalition.  Even 
then  Napoleon  won  a  great  battle  at  Dresden  in  August,  but  in  the  middle 
of  October  the  gathered  nations  overwhelmed  him  at  Leipzig.  Napoleon 
was  no  longer  fighting  to  dominate  Europe.  The  question  now  was 
whether  Europe  would  crush  Napoleon.  And  Europe  was  only  just 
beginning  to  believe  that  in  fighting  against  Napoleon  it  was  not  fighting 
against  Fate. 

But  Britain's  particular  concern  was  with  the  Peninsula.  The  Moscow 
disaster  compelled  Napoleon  to  withdraw  more  troops  from  Spain,  and 
Wellington  prepared  for  a  decisive  campaign.  In  May  he  crossed  the 
Portuguese  frontier,  and  on  June  21st  he  met  Marshal  Jourdan  and  King 
Joseph  at  Vittoria.  The  French  army  was  shattered,  and  fled  in  rout 
to  the  Pyrenees,  leaving  behind  the  whole  of  its  artillery  and  stores,  a 
million  of  money,  and  the  accumulated  spoils  of  many  years.  Except 
in  the  extreme  north,  the  Peninsula  was  practically  clear  of  the  enemy 
by  the  end  of  June.  The  British  army  in  Spain  was  now  to  become  the 
invader  of  France.     Nevertheless,  it  was  only  after  a  long  series  of  stubborn 


THE    STRUGGLE    WITH    NAPOLEON  763 

engagements  with  Soult  that  WelHngton  made  good  a  footing  on  French 
soil.  The  last  fierce  battle,  itself  an  indecisive  one,  was  fought  at  Toulouse 
on  April  10,  18 14.  And  that  battle  itself  was  a  sheer  waste  of  life; 
for  the  allies  had  taken  heart  of  grace,  poured  into  France,  and  taken 
possession  of  Paris  ;  and  on  April  6th  Napoleon  had  abdicated.  Louis 
XVIII.  was  proclaimed  King  of  France,  and  Europe  permitted  Napoleon 
to  retire  to  the  principality  of  the  island  of  Elba  in  the  Mediterranean. 


IV 
INDIA  AND   AMERICA 

In  1 812  Britain  had  become  involved  on  her  own  account  in  a  separate 
war  with  the  United  States,  and  throughout  the  whole  period  of  the  contest 
with  Napoleon  she  had  been  establishing  and  extending  her  dominion  in 
India.  To  these  two  fields  we  shall  now  turn  our  attention  before  proceed- 
ing with  the  events  in  Europe  during  the  fifteen  months  which  elapsed 
between  Napoleon's  abdication  and  his  final  overthrow. 

At  the  close  of  the  century  Lord  Mornington,  who  had  just  been  created 
Marquess  Wellesley,  was  Governor-General  of  India,  had  completed  the 
overthrow  of  Tippu  Sultan,  and  had  annexed  the  greater  portion  of  his 
territories  to  the  British  dominion.  Wellesley  was  the  first  British 
Governor-General  who  deliberately  and  of  set  purpose  sought  to  add  to 
the  realms  under  direct  British  administration.  Clive,  after  the  conquest 
of  Bengal,  which  had  not  been  designed,  desired  no  further  expansion  ; 
Warren  Hastings  had  had  enough  to  do  in  organising  and  maintaining  what 
was  already  secured,  and  the  acquisitions  of  territory  under  Cornwallis  had 
been  forced  upon  the  Governor-General.  His  successor.  Shore,  had  pur- 
sued a  policy  of  non-intervention  to  a  point  which  had  aroused  in  native 
potentates  new  hopes  of  overthrowing  the  British  dominion.  Wellesley 
was  the  first  to  recognise  that  an  actual  paramount  power  was  a  necessity 
in  India,  where  each  native  potentate  desired  supremacy  for  himself.  It 
was  clear  to  Wellesley  that  if  the  British  were  to  remain  in  India  at  all  it 
must  be  in  the  character  of  paramount  power.  The  overthrow  of  Tippu 
was  a  palpable  necessity  which  would  have  been  as  patent  to  Cornwallis  as 
to  W^ellesley  himself  ;  it  could  not  properly  be  called  an  act  of  aggression. 
But  to  W^ellesley  it  w^as  not  an  inconvenient  but  a  welcome  necessity. 

His  great  instrument  in  establishing  British  ascendency  was  the  system 
of  subsidiary  alliances,  the  system  under  which  the  country  powers  were 
guaranteed  British  protection  against  aggressors  by  virtually  surrendering 
the  control  of  their  military  force  to  the  British.  Their  main  standing 
army  at  least  became  under  these  conditions  a  British  contingent ;  an 
army,  that  is,  of  sepoys  disciplined  and  commanded  by  British  officers. 
The  payment  of  the  force  could  not  be  left  to  the  potentates  ;  it  must  be 


764  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

maintained  by  the  British,  and  therefore  the  potentate  must  guarantee  the 
cost  to  the  British.  The  one  secure  guarantee  was  the  cession  of  territories, 
which  provided  a  sufficient  revenue  for  the  purpose.  Thus  a  double  end 
was  served.  The  potentate,  while  he  was  secured  against  aggression,  could 
by  no  means  defy  the  advice  of  the  power  which  controlled  his  soldiery  ; 
he  had  in  effect  become  a  dependant,  and  at  the  same  time  the  British  had 
become  the  effective  possessors  and  administrators  of  new  territories.  On 
these  lines  subsidiary  alliances  were  made,  and  districts  were  ceded  by  the 
Nizam  and  the  Nawab  of  Oudh.  The  persistent  misrule  and  the  exten- 
sive debts  of  the  Nawab  of  the  Carnatic  provided  a  sufficient  ground  for 
pensioning  off  the  dynasty,  annexing  the  province,  and  placing  it  under 
direct  British  administration.  Dynastic  questions  at  Tanjur  and  Surat 
were  settled  when  the  British  took  over  the  control  of  administration  as  a 
condition  of  recognising  the  technical  succession  of  the  respective  claimants. 

Rivalries  and  hostilities  between  the  heads  of  the  different  branches  of 
the  Maratha  confederacy  gave  Wellesley  another  opportunity.  Each  of 
them  had  stoutly  refused  the  British  proffer  of  a  subsidiary  alliance  until 
the  Peishwa  at  Puna  accepted  a  treaty  as  a  lesser  evil  than  subjection  to 
Holkar.  The  result  was  that  Sindhia  and  the  Bhonsla  tried  to  bring  about 
a  combined  Maratha  resistance,  and  so  brought  on  the  Maratha  war,  from 
which  at  first  the  jealous  Holkar  stood  aloof.  Sindhia,  the  most  northerly 
of  the  Maratha  chiefs,  from  his  position  at  Gwalior  generally  held  control 
of  the  Mogul.  He  had  organised  his  forces  upon  the  Europeon  model 
under  French  officers.  When  war  was  declared  in  August  1803  this  force 
was  in  the  north,  but  Sindhia  himself  with  a  second  army  was  on  the 
borders  of  the  Deccan  to  co-operate  with  the  Bhonsla.  It  was  in  this 
southern  war  that  the  Governor-General's  brother,  Arthur  Wellesley,  won 
the  laurels  to  which  chiefly  he  owed  his  subsequent  appointment  to  the 
command  in  the  Peninsula.  His  small  force  completely  routed  Sindhia 
and  the  Bhonsla,  first  at  Assaye  and  then  at  Argaon.  Meanwhile,  in  the 
north  Lake  had  defeated  Sindhia's  French  general  at  Delhi,  captured  the 
person  of  the  Mogul,  and  then  crushed  the  Marathas  at  Laswari.  By  the 
end  of  the  year  both  Sindhia  and  the  Bhonsla  had  made  peace,  surrender- 
ing their  claims  to  chautli  from  other  princes,  and  ceding  considerable 
districts,  some  of  which  were  handed  over  to  the  Nizam.  Incidentally 
Sindhia  agreed  to  dismiss  his  French  officers,  and  both  agreed  to  accept 
British  arbitration  in  disputes  with  native  powers.  The  treaty  completed 
the  line  of  British  territory  along  the  whole  seaboard  from  Calcutta  to 
Madras,  but  it  also  in  effect  transferred  the  guardianship  of  the  Mogul 
from  Sindhia  to  the  British,  so  simplifying  their  recognition  as  the  sovereign 
power. 

It  was  unfortunate  that  Holkar  now  chose  to  rise  on  his  own  account, 
and  that  Colonel  Monson,  who  was  sent  to  deal  with  him,  was  obliged  to 
beat  a  hasty  and  disorderly  retreat,  which  brcMight  much  discredit  on  the 
British  arms.      Holkar  ventured  to  attack  Delhi,  but  was  beaten  off  and 


THE   STRUGGLE    WITH    NAPOLEON  765 

driven  out  of  the  northern  territory  by  General  Fraser.  It  was  at  this  time 
that  Wellesley  was  recalled,  owing  to  the  alarm  which  his  expansive  policy 
had  aroused  among  the  directors.  Cornwallis  returned  once  more  to  the 
scene  of  his  former  labours,  but  only  to  die  ;  and  the  Governor-Generalship 
devolved  upon  Sir  George  Barlow.  The  appointment  was  not  a  happy  one, 
for  Holkar  was  granted  peace  upon  terms  which  excited  general  derision 
and  contempt  for  the  British. 

Barlow,  however,  was  superseded  in  1807  by  Lord  Minto,  who  very 
soon  realised  that  the  policy  of  non-intervention  was  impracticable,  and  also 
that  when  the  British  did  intervene  they  must  do  so  in  a  decisive  fashion. 
Minto's  Governor-Generalship  was  marked  by  the  establishment  of  friendly 
relations  between  the  British  Government  and  the  astute  statesman  and 
warrior,  Ranjit  Singh,  who  was  now  consolidating  into  a  very  powerful 
kingdom  the  confederacy  of  the  Sikhs  in  the  Punjab.  Not  very  happily 
also  began  the  opening  of  diplomatic  relations  with  Persia  and  with 
Afghanistan,  in  both  cases  owing  to  the  first  symptoms  of  the  nervousness 
which  Russia  was  to  inspire  throughout  the  century.  It  was  just  after  the 
Tsar  had  made  the  Treaty  of  Tilsit  with  Napoleon,  and  the  fear  of  Russian 
expansion  towards  the  Indian  border  was  never  from  that  time  forward 
absent  from  the  mind  of  the  British  government  in  India.  For  the  time, 
however,  the  alarm  was  allayed  by  the  rapidity  with  which  the  sudden 
friendship  between  the  Tsar  and  the  Emperor  cooled  down  and  changed 
into  hostility.  Otherwise  the  most  notable  ventures  of  Minto's  rule  were 
the  capture  of  Java  from  the  Dutch  and  of  Mauritius  from  the  French. 
This  latter  was  a  stroke  of  importance,  since  the  French  station  at  Mauritius 
lay  on  the  flank  of  the  communications  with  the  Cape ;  and  a  squadron 
from  the  Mauritius  was  generally  a  possible  danger  whenever  native  powers 
were  embroiled  with  the  British. 

But  Minto  also  w^as  too  aggressive  for  the  authorities  at  home,  and  he  in 
his  turn  was  superseded  by  Lord  Moira,  who  was  shortly  afterwards  created 
Marquess  of  Hastings.  The  new  Governor-General,  like  Minto  and  Wellesley, 
was  no  sooner  in  India  than  he  found  himself  obliged  to  throw  over  the 
policy  of  non-intervention,  although  he  had  arrived  fully  determined  to 
carry  it  out.  By  the  beginning  of  1814  he  found  himself  forced  into  a 
war  with  a  new  enemy,  the  Ghurkas  of  Nepal — a  very  valiant  race  of 
mountaineers,  who,  in  spite  of  their  small  numbers,  began  to  prey  upon  the 
people  in  the  plains  below  the  Himalayas.  The  first  expedition  sent  against 
them  was  so  disastrous  that  half  of  India  was  again  on  the  alert  for  the 
breakdown  of  the  British  ascendency,  but  the  stubborn  hill-men  were 
presently  mastered  in  spite  of  a  most  courageous  defence  by  the  skill  and 
persistence  of  Ochterlony.  The  treaty  which  ended  the  war  in  181 5  as  a 
matter  of  course  transferred  a  great  belt  of  territory  from  Nepal  to  the 
British  ;  but  it  also  had  the  unusual  effect  of  establishing  a  particularly 
loyal  and  enduring  friendship  between  the  Nepal  government  and  the 
Ghurka  race  on  the  one  side  and  the   British  on   the  other,  a  friendship 


766  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

of  inestimable  value  in  the  darkest  hours  of  the  history  of  the  British 
dominion  in  India.  The  rest  of  the  rule  of  Lord  Hastings  belongs  to  our 
next  chapter. 

The  war  with  the  United  States  arose  out  of  Britain's  use  of  her 
maritime  supremacy  and  the  injury  to  American  trade  caused  by  the 
Continental  System,  the  British  Orders  in  Council,  and  the  virtual  sup- 
pression of  neutral  traffic  which  the  Americans  attributed  to  the  high- 
handed tyranny  of  the  nation  from  which  they  had  separated  themselves. 
The  utility  of  the  Orders  in  Council  was  always  somewhat  doubtful,  even 
from  the  purely  British  point  of  view  ;  they  fell  into  abeyance  after  the 
death  of  their  most  determined  advocate  Perceval,  and  in  1812  they  were 
withdrawn.  But  the  mischief  was  done  ;  the  United  States  had  already 
declared  war.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  had  never  been  any  reconciliation 
between  the  two  nations,  which  still  felt  towards  each  other  the  bitterness 
engendered  by  a  fratricidal  struggle  ;  and  in  such  cases  a  cool  enquiry  into 
grievances  is  not  to  be  looked  for. 

When  the  war  began,  just  as  Wellington  and  Marmont  were  facing 
each  other  and  Napoleon  was  starting  for  Moscow,  the  British  Government 
gave  very  insufficient  attention  to  the  minor  contest  with  the  United  States, 
with  the  somewhat  astonishing  result  that  for  some  time  the  Americans 
were  uniformly  successful  at  sea.  On  the  other  hand,  their  reversion  to 
the  old  attempt  to  capture  Canada  brought  to  them  complete  disaster,  since 
the  United  Empire  Loyahsts  fought  against  them  with  all  the  animus 
inspired  by  the  events  which  had  driven  them  across  the  St.  Lawrence 
from  their  homes  in  the  south.  Canadians  remember  with  a  just  pride 
the  courage  and  skill  with  which  their  ancestors  repelled  the  invader.  In 
the  course  of  time  British  naval  supremacy  re-asserted  itself ;  but  the  only 
memorably  creditable  performance  of  British  sailors  was  the  famous  duel 
between  the  Shannon  and  the  Chcsnpeake.y  when  the  Chesapeake  was  forced 
to  surrender  after  fifteen  minutes  of  fighting,  although  the  two  ships  were 
equally  matched.  A  British  expedition  under  General  Ross  won  a  battle 
at  Bladensburg  and  burnt  Washington  ;  and  another  British  expedition, 
mainly  of  veteran  troops  from  the  Peninsula,  was  smashed  up  at  New 
Orleans  in  the  attempt  to  storm  impregnable  entrenchments.  Like  the 
battle  of  Toulouse,  this  last  engagement  was  a  sheer  waste,  because  a  treaty 
of  peace  between  the  belligerents  had  been  signed  at  Ghent  a  fortnight 
earlier,  on  Christmas  Eve,  1814. 

The  war  was  a  particularly  evil  one,  first,  because  it  could  have  been 
easily  averted  by  a  little  mutual  common-sense  and  good  temper  ;  secondly, 
because  it  served  no  good  purpose  for  either  side  ;  thirdly,  because  it  failed 
to  bring  out  on  either  side  those  virtues  which  are  supposed  to  decay 
unless  stimulated  by  hard  fighting ;  and,  fourthly,  because  it  left  an 
inheritance  of  extraordinary  bitterness  between  the  two  great  nations  of 
Britisji  race,  a  tradition  of  hostility  and  distrust  which  was  scarcely  allayed 
even  when  the  nineteenth  century  was  drawing  to  its  close.      In  one  single 


THE   STRUGGLE    WITH    NAPOLEON  767 

respect,  however,  the  British  Empire  may  be  held  to  have  benefited, 
because  that  war  made  impossible  any  such  rapprochement  between  the 
Canadians  and  their  southern  neighbours  as  might  have  tended  to  sever 
Canada  from  the  British  Empire. 


WATERLOO 

After  the  abdication  of  Napoleon  the  Powers  proceeded  to  settle  the 
affairs  of  Europe.  The  Bourbon  monarchy  was  restored  in  France,  though 
modified  by  constitutional  limitations.  The  Tsar,  and  Castlereagh  for  the 
British,  insisted  upon  generous  treatment  for  France  on  the  principle  that  it 
was  not  monarchical  France  but  the  Republic  and  Napoleon  that  had  been 
responsible  for  the  twenty  years  of  war.  Both  also  insisted  on  the  hmita- 
tion  of  the  powers  of  the  restored  monarchy  ;  Castlereagh  because  of  the 
pressure  of  British  public  opinion,  the  Tsar  because  he  was  at  this  time  an 
ardent  believer  in  theoretical  doctrines  of  Hberty.  It  was  the  honest  wish 
of  the  British  nation  and  of  the  British  Government  to  set  aside  selfish  con- 
siderations, and  to  strive  for  a  general  settlement  whose  permanence  would 
be  guaranteed  by  its  fairness  and  justice.  For  herself  Britain  claimed  little, 
and  was  willing  to  surrender  much  that  she  might  legitimately  have  claimed  ; 
it  is  noteworthy  that  her  most  persistent  demand  was  for  a  humanitarian 
agreement  for  the  suppression  of  the  slave  trade.  But  European  affairs 
could  not  be  settled  merely  upon  broad  principles  of  justice  when  pledges 
had  to  be  taken  into  consideration  which  had  nothing  to  do  with  broad 
principles  but  only  with  particular  interests.  After  a  preliminary  settlement 
a  Congress  of  the  Powers  was  appointed  to  meet  at  Vienna  in  the  winter, 
to  arrange  outstanding  questions  which  were  far  too  complicated  and  in- 
volved too  many  antagonistic  interests  to  be  settled  in  haste. 

We  need  not  here  follow  the  intricacies  of  diplomacy  at  the  Vienna 
Congress  during  the  winter  of  1 814-15.  Suspicions  and  jealousies  made  it 
no  easy  matter  to  re-arrange  the  distribution  of  European  territories  in  a 
manner  satisfactory  to  the  great  Powers,  to  say  nothing  of  the  minor  states  ; 
and  at  one  time,  in  January  18 15,  matters  had  gone  so  far  that  France, 
Austria,  and  Britain  made  a  secret  treaty  for  united  action  in  case  the 
obstinacy  of  Russia  and  Prussia  should  rekindle  a  European  conflagration. 
Still  compromises  were  being  achieved,  and  a  general  agreement  seemed  to 
be  approaching,  when  all  bickerings  and  quarrels  were  silenced  by  the 
startling  news  that  Napoleon  had  slipped  away  from  Elba,  landed  at  Cannes 
on  March  ist,  and  was  appealing  once  more  to  the  French  nation  to  rally 
to  his  standard. 

The  Bourbon  restoration  was  not  popular  in  France,  since  the  attitude 
of  the   royalists  on  their    return  from    exile  showed  that   they  had    learnt 


OF    REVOLUTIONS 


The    French 
against  him  answered  his 
Most  of  the  marshals  had  accepted  the 


768  THE   ERA 

nothing  from  the  Revolution.     Napoleon  proclaimed  that  he  was  coming 
to   restore    not   a  despotism  but   a  constitutional  system  ;  not   to    embroil 
Europe   but  to   preserve  the   principles  of  the  Revolution, 
troops  in  the   south  which  were   marched  out 
appeal  and  hailed  him  emperor. 
Bourbon  restoration  ;   those  who  were  true  to  the  monarchy  had  to  take 

flight  precipitately. 
Napoleon's  progress 
towards  Paris  be- 
came a  triumphal 
march  ;  Ney,  who 
advanced  against 
him  with  loud  and 
probably  sincere 
protestations  of 
loyalty  to  the  Bour- 
bons, fell  under  the 
spell  and  joined  his 
old  master.  On 
March  13th  the 
Powers  at  Vienna 
proclaimed  Napo- 
leon the  public 
enemy  of  Europe ; 
on  the  19th  King 
Louis  fled  from  Paris 
lo  Ghent;  on  the 
20th  Napoleon  him- 
self was  in  Paris. 
On  the  25th  the  four 
great  Powers  bound 
themselves  to  place 
a  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  men  apiece  in  the  field.  They  were  unanimous  in  the  conviction 
that  to  make  terms  with  Napoleon  would  be  futile  ;  that  his  promises  were 
insincere,  and  that  in  any  case  Napoleon,  once  more  at  the  head  of  the 
French  Empire,  could  not,  even  if  he  would,  resist  the  temptation  to  resume 
aggression. 

During  the  following  weeks  the  Powers  were  engaged  in  a  somewhat 
feverish  endeavour  to  bring  their  disbanded  armies  into  the  field.  Austria 
and  Russia,  remote  and  slow-moving,  could  not  hope  to  hurry  their  forces 
to  the  front ;  Napoleon  had  the  enormous  advantage  enjoyed  by  a  dictator 
who  holds  all  the  strings  in  his  own  hands.  At  the  beginning  of  June 
Wellington,  created  a  duke  in  1814,  was  in  command  of  the  allied  forces 
in    the    Netherlands,   numbering    ninety  thousand    men  ;    a    heterogeneous 


The  Diilce  of  "Wellington 

[After  the  pninting  by  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence,  P.R.A.j 


THE    STRUGGLE    WITH    NAPOLEON  769 

force,  of  which  some  thirty  thousand  were  British — mostly  raw  recruits, 
since  the  Peninsula  veterans  were  not  yet  back  from  America.  Some 
twenty  thousand  Brunswickers  and  Hanoverians  and  the  troops  of  the 
king's  German  legion,  which  had  distinguished  itself  in  the  Peninsula, 
were  also  thoroughly  to  be  relied  upon  ;  the  rest,  chiefly  Belgians  and 
Dutch,  did  not  inspire  confidence. 

The  Prussian  forces  under  Bliicher,  numbering  a  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand,  were  extended  a  little  to  the  eastward  between  Liege  and 
Charleroi.  Meanwhile,  behind  the  French  border  Napoleon's  energy  was 
concentrating   a   force    of    a 


hundred  andtwenty-fivethou- 
sand  men,  a  large  proportion 
of  them  veterans,  at  Valen- 
ciennes. Incidentally  a  diver- 
sion in  Napoleon's  favour  by 
Joachim  Murat,  King  of 
Naples,  collapsed  completely; 
Murat  had  to  fly  to  France, 
and  the  Bourbon  Ferdinand 
was  once  more  proclaimed 
king  of  the  Two  Sicilies. 

Napoleon's  strength  lay 
in  the  extraordinary  rapidity 
with  which  his  organisation 
worked.  The  longer  the  time 
allowed  to  the  allies,  the 
greater  would  be  the  forces 
massed  against  him  ;  and  his 
great  aim  was  to  be  able  to 
strike  at  them  in  detail  and 

destroy  them  separately  instead  of  allowing  them  to  be  massed  together  at 
all.  The  first  object,  therefore,  was  to  strike  between  Bliicher  and 
Wellington  before  they  could  concentrate  for  united  action.  Napoleon 
delivered  his  first  blow  before  his  enemies'  preparations  were  completed. 
On  June  12th  he  left  Paris  to  join  the  army.  On  June  15th  he  was  over 
the  frontier  and  swept  the  Prussian  advanced  corps  out  of  Charleroi, 
driving  it  back  on  the  main  body.  This  was  the  famous  night  of  the 
Duchess  of  Richmond's  ball  at  Brussels.  The  concentration  had  not 
yet  begun  ;  it  appears  still  to  have  been  Wellington's  conviction  that 
Napoleon's  intention  was  to  turn  his  left  and  cut  him  off  from  the  sea. 
Bliicher  hurried  up  his  forces  to  Ligny  ;  Wellington  promised  him  support 
if  he  were  not  himself  attacked.  Napoleon,  however,  despatched  Ney  to 
seize  the  cross-roads  at  Quatre  Bras,  while  he  himself  flung  his  main  attack 
upon  Bliicher  at  Ligny.  Ney  would  thus  be  able  to  hold  a  British  advance 
in  check  and  to  turn  Bliicher's  left  flank. 

3C 


The  Waterloo  Campaign. 


770  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

The  plan  miscarried,  but  only  in  part.  Some  of  the  allies  under  the 
Duke  of  Saxe-Weimar  occupied  Quatre  Bras  before  Ney's  arrival.  Ney 
did  not  attack  at  once,  British  regiments  were  hurried  to  the  front  one  after 
another,  Ney's  attacks  were  beaten  off,  and  before  the  end  of  the  day  the 
British  were  in  superior  force.  A  corps  under  D'Erlon  wavered  all  day 
between  Ligny  and  Quatre  Bras,  and  failed  to  render  any  help  in  either 
engagement.  The  result  was  that  although  the  Prussians  suffered  very 
heavy  losses  and  were  driven  from  the  field,  they  were  not  routed  but  made 
good  an  orderly  retreat  under  C0ver  of    night  ;  and   Bliicher,  instead  of 


v„.,,.| 


'^  i,V.Mon)f  S^  Jean  '^ 


VI     .-'w    .*/     ///;-^;';%iV^.- J.laHaye     ,.. -"^^    f^       ^^^^^ 

I      %  '1*%''*     ''  S^"      >W/         ri  Saints ,/         ;.„>o"  *^    .>--»^  .^^ 

=    ^'sj  efe  c%  r*a      '=.    %,i''V„  i  '»■" 


r\ 


^^  tiEJa 


Waterloo  :  the  opposing  armies. 

falling  back  upon  his  own  base  at  Namur  as  the  French  expected,  wheeled 
north  to  Wavre  in  order  if  possible  to  effect  a  junction  with  Wellington. 

Now,  if  Ney  and  D'Erlon  had  carried  out  their  task  without  a  hitch, 
Bliicher,  at  Ligny,  would  have  been  not  only  defeated  but  routed  ;  the 
Prussian  army  would  have  ceased  to  count.  As  it  was,  Napoleon  was 
perfectly  satisfied  that  Bliicher  had  fallen  back  in  accordance  with  all 
orthodox  rules  of  war  upon  Namur.  He  anticipated  no  difficulty  in  pre- 
venting his  reappearance  on  the  field,  and  to  this  end  he  despatched  a 
containing  force  under  Grouchy  on  the  17th,  while  he  prepared  with  his 
main  army  to  annihilate  Wellington. 

The  Duke,  who  was  informed  of  Bliicher's  movements,   drew   in  the 


THE   STRUGGLE    WITH    NAPOLEON  771 

forces  from  Quatre  Bras  and  established  himself  on  the  ridge  of  Mont  St. 
Jean  covering  the  way  to  Brussels.  Bliicher  had  promised  to  give  his  sup- 
port— if  he  could;  and  it  was  Wellington's  business — if  he  could — to  hold 
on  to  the  position  he  had  chosen  until  Bliicher  arrived.  The  event  of  the 
battle  depended  upon  the  Prussian's  ability  to  carry  out  his  provisional 
promise ;  that  is,  Wellington  was  bound  to  fight  with  a  view  to  winning  a 
decisive  victory  if  Bliicher  arrived,  although  there  was  an  exceedingly  strong 
presumption  that  if  Bliicher  did  not  arrive  at  all  he  would  find  the  task  of 
holding  his  ground  extremely  difficult,  especially  in  view  of  the  character 
of  his  troops.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  both  Wellington  and  Bliicher  succeeded 
in  carrying  out  the  roles  appropriated  to  them  respectively.  If  Bliicher 
had  failed,  Wellington  would  probably  have  been  forced  to  retreat.  If 
Wellington  had  failed,  a  worse  disaster  than  Ligny  would  probably  have 
awaited  Bliicher.  Neither  of  them  failed,  and  the  result  was  that  the 
French  army  was  shattered  to  pieces.  It  was  Wellington's  battle  because, 
unbeaten,  he  bore  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day.  It  was  the  Prussians' 
battle,  because  they  weakened  the  attack  upon  Wellington,  and,  having  first 
ensured  the  defeat,  turned  it  into  an  overwhelming  rout. 

Two  facts  combined  to  bring  about  Napoleon's  overthrow  by  making 
possible  the  concerted  action  of  British  and  Prussians.  The  cause  of  both 
was  in  part  at  least  Napoleon's  misleading  information  as  to  the  line  of 
Bliicher's  retreat.  The  first  regiments  falling  back  from  Ligny  had  made 
for  Namur.  Grouchy  followed  on  a  wrong  trail,  and  therefore  on  the 
1 8th  he  failed  to  contain  the  Prussian  army.  Napoleon  was  satisfied  that 
the  Prussians  could  not  arrive,  and  therefore  waited  till  the  i8th  before 
attacking  Wellington.  It  is  conceivable  that  if  Napoleon  had  opened  his 
attack  even  three  or  four  hours  sooner  than  he  did  the  Prussians  would 
not  have  arrived  in  time  to  prevent  him  from  carrying  Wellington's 
position.  But  it  is  by  no  means  clear  that  he  would  in  any  case  have 
carried  it.  He  relied  upon  tactics  which  had  proved  successful 
against  every  army  in  Europe  except  a  British  army  ;  but  the  peculiar 
British  method  had  been  employed  with  success  against  one  after  another 
of  his  best  marshals.  Broadly  speaking,  Napoleon's  method  was  to  hurl 
heavy  masses  of  troops  in  column  against  the  weak  point  in  the  extended 
line  of  the  enemy,  and  so  to  break  it  and  roll  it  up.  But  Soult  knew  by 
experience  that  the  thin  extended  British  line  would  stand  up  against  heavy 
masses  hurled  against  it  without  flinching.  The  column  against  the  line 
had  broken  the  troops  of  every  other  nation,  but  it  could  not  be  employed 
with  confidence  against  the  troops  of  Britain.  Napoleon,  it  must  be 
observed,  had  never  yet  met  the  British  in  battle  himself  ;  and  had  not 
learnt  by  personal  experience  the  lessons  which  had  been  brought  home  to 
some  of  his  marshals. 

In  the  early  morning,  then,  of  Sunday  June  18  Wellington  knew  that 
Bliicher  would  move  with  the  object  of  attacking  Napoleon's  right  flank ; 
Blucher    knew   that    Wellington   was    going  to    give   battle    at   Waterloo. 


772  THE    ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

Napoleon  believed  that  there  could  be  no  dangerous  movement  on  the 
part  of  the  Prussians.  Of  Wellington's  sixty-seven  thousand  men  scarcely 
one-third  were  British  troops,  another  third  could  be  thoroughly  depended 
upon,  but  the  balance  could  not.  Napoleon  had  seventy-four  thousand  men, 
and  was  very  much  better  provided  with  artillery  and  cavalry.  The  left  of 
the  allied  army  was  difficult  to  attack.  On  the  centre  and  right  the  slope 
was  not  sufficiently  steep  to  be  a  serious  obstacle.  The  centre,  however, 
was  covered  by  the  farm  of  La  Haye  Sainte,  the  right  by  the  Chateau  of 
Hougoumont.  A  dip  behind  the  crest  of  the  ridge  to  a  great  extent  con- 
cealed the  disposition  of  Wellington's  troops.  The  leading  feature  of 
Napoleon's  plan  was  to  clear  the  way  by  a  storm  of  artillery  fire  for  hurling 
cavalry  charges   on    the  centre  and  piercing    it ;   but    the  capture   of  La 


The  Chateau  of  Hougoumont  after  the  battle, 
[From  a  drawing  by  S.  Wharton  made  in  1815.] 


Haye  Sainte,  occupied  by  a  portion  of  the  king's   German  legion,   was  of 
material  importance  to  the  execution  of  this  design. 

The  two  arms,  then,  upon  which  Napoleon  chiefly  relied  were  the  artillery 
and  the  cavalry.  He  delayed  opening  the  attack  until  noon  in  order  that  the 
surface  of  the  ground  might  recover,  as  its  soaked  condition  interfered  with 
cavalry  operations.  The  firing  began,  to  cover  an  attack  upon  Hougou- 
mont, with  the  object  not  so  much  of  capturing  the  chateau  itself  as  of 
securing  a  position  in  the  surrounding  wood  which  would  prevent  the 
movement  of  troops  on  Wellington's  right.  Jerome  Bonaparte,  however, 
wasted  much  blood  and  energy  in  a  fruitless  attempt  to  storm  the  chateau, 
which  was  held  with  invincible  resolution  by  a  detachment  of  Guards.  This 
was  the  prelude  to  the  main  attack  on  the  centre,  which  was  opened  about 
1.30,  just  when  it  had  been  ascertained  that  a  Prussian  corps  was  ap- 
proaching from  Wavre.  D'Erlon's  corps  was  launched  against  La  Haye 
Sainte,  where  the  Germans  held  on  with  the  same  stubborn  valour  which 


THE   STRUGGLE    WITH    NAPOLEON 


773 


was  displayed  at  Hougoumont.  But  the  French  columns  rolled  up  the 
slope,  and  the  Dutch  regiments  which  held  the  ridge  at  that  point  broke 
and  fled.  As  the  French  topped  the  ridge,  it  seemed  for  a  moment  that  the 
day  was  won  ;  but  their  columns  were  shattered  and  swept  back  down  the 
slope  by  a  furious  charge  of  Ponsonby's  Union  Brigade — Royal  Dragoons, 
Inniskillings,  and  Scots  Greys.  The  brigade  crashed  up  the  slope  on  the 
other  side  of  the  valley,  disabled  a  number  of  the  French  guns,  and  was 
then  almost  cut  to  pieces  itself  by  a  fresh  force  of  French  Lancers  and 
Dragoons.  But  the  attack  had  been  repulsed,  and  the  Germans  still  held 
La  Haye  Sainte. 

The  time,  however,  had  now  come  for  Napoleon  to  launch  the  cavalry 


Waterloo :  the  crisis. 

charges  upon  the  British  centre ;  but  charge  after  charge  was  rolled  back. 
The  gunners  on  the  front  of  the  ridge  worked  their  guns  to  the  last  moment 
possible,  and  then  raced  for  shelter  to  the  hollow  squares  into  which  the 
infantry  were  formed  behind  the  ridge.  Against  the  squares  the  cavalry 
broke  in  vain.  The  British  and  German  horse  charged  upon  the  broken 
columns,  and  swept  them  back  and  down  the  hill  again.  The  squares  were 
repeatedly  enveloped  by  cavalry,  but  were  never  pierced  ;  and  the  French 
charges  were  not  supported  by  infantry,  in  part  at  least  because  these  were 
now  being  drawn  off  on  Napoleon's  right  to  hold  back  the  approaching 
Prussians.  It  was  not  till  seven  o'clock  that  Napoleon  struck  his  last  blow, 
sending  the  masses  of  his  Old  Guard  in  the  wake  of  the  cavalry  charges. 


774  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

But  the  invincible  veterans  had  met  their  match.  The  British  centre  was 
strengthened  by  regiments  called  in  from  the  wings  whose  movements  were 
concealed  from  the  enemy.  On  their  right  the  British  line  was  wheeled 
forward  so  as  to  pour  in  a  heavy  flank  fire  upon  the  mass  of  the  advancing 
columns.  Nevertheless  they  surged  over  the  ridge;  then  the  word  was 
given  to  the  Guards  who  were  lying  under  cover  to  stand  up  and  fire. 
Even  the  Old  Guard  staggered  before  the  withering  volley,  reeled  and  rolled 
down  the  slope  again  as  the  order  was  given  for  the  whole  British  line  to 
advance.  The  Prussians  had  swept  the  stubborn  defenders  out  of  Plan- 
chenoit  on  the  French  right,  and  were  thundering  in  upon  Napoleon's 
flank.  The  last  desperate  effort  had  failed,  the  defeat  became  a  rout,  and 
the  rout  a  headlong  sauve  qui  pent.  The  exhausted  British  halted,  but  far 
into  the  night  the  furious  Prussian  horse  took  their  revenge  for  Jena. 
Three  weeks  later  Napoleon  surrendered  himself  to  the  captain  of  H.M.S. 
Bellerophon. 


CHAPTER   XXXII 

FROM   WATERLOO   TO   THE   REFORM   BILL 

I 


CASTLEREAGH 

The  custodianship  of  the  fallen  Emperor  was  deputed  by  the  European 
Powers  to  Britain.  The  dread  he  inspired  could  be  allayed  only  by  caging 
him  in  the  remote  island  of  St.  Helena  in  the  South  Atlantic,  whence 
escape  was  impossible.  So  closed  the 
Titanic  tragedy  of  Napoleon's  career. 
The  Emperor  being  disposed  of,  the 
Powers  turned  to  the  settlement  of 
Europe.  Britain,  the  one  Power  which 
from  beginning  to  end  had  fought 
against  French  aggression,  had  never 
been  forced  to  make  terms,  had  never 
withdrawn  from  a  coalition,  and  had 
finally  borne  the  whole  stress  of  the 
great  fight  by  which  Napoleon  was 
ultimately  overthrown,  claimed  no  very 
great  share  of  the  spoils.  Malta  and 
the  Ionian  Islands  in  the  Mediterranean, 
the  Mauritius  and  Ceylon  in  the  Indian 
Ocean,  some  islands  in  the  West  Indies, 
and  the  Dutch  colony  at  the  Cape,  she 
was  fully  entitled  to  claim  by  right  of 
conquest ;  and  these  she  took,  although 
for  Cape  Colony  she  paid  solid  com- 
pensation in  cash  to  William  of  Orange,  on  whom  was  bestowed  the  crown 
of  a  new  kingdom  of  Holland,  which  includea  Belgium,  She  did  not 
succeed  in  her  efforts  to  persuade  the  Powers  to  unite  in  suppressing  the 
slave  trade,  though  a  general  declaration  condemning  it  was  issued.  What 
she  had  won  was  sufficient  to  secure  her  supremacy  in  the  Mediterranean 
and  the  complete  command  of  the  ocean  route  to  India,  which  could  always 
have  been  threatened  on  the  flank  by  a  Power  possessing  the  Cape  or 
Mauritius.  It  may  safely  be  claimed  that  no  other  Power  entitled  to  so 
much  would  have  been  content  with  so  little ;  but  it  was  enough,  for  it 

775 


Lord  Castlereagh. 
[After  the  portrait  by  Lawrence.] 


776  THE   ERA    OF   REVOLUTIONS 

assured  the  maritime  supremacy  which  made  her  further  expansion  certain. 
Moreover,  apart  from  the  treaty,  the  war  itself  had  not  only  confirmed  her 
commercial  supremacy  but  had  bestowed  upon  her  an  immense  lead  in  the 
new  industrialism  of  which  she  was  the  creator.  Great  as  the  strain  had 
been,  it  had  borne  less  heavily  upon  her  than  upon  any  other  nation  in 
Europe.  In  these  islands  alone  the  tramp  of  hostile  legions  had  been 
unheard.  Great  as  the  w^aste  of  British  lives  had  been,  in  every  other 
country  the  waste  had  been  far  greater.  Great  as  had  been  her  expenditure 
of  treasure,  her  commerce  alone  had  expanded,  while  that  of  other  countries 
had  been  almost  destroyed.  These  were  results  of  the  w^ar  worth  more 
than  any  other  claims  she  might  have  endeavoured  to  enforce. 

In  the  general  settlement  of  Europe  she  took  prominent  part  mainly  as 
a  restraining  influence.  But  for  Wellington,  France  would  have  suffered 
more  severely.  The  Duke,  however,  supported  by  Alexander  of  Russia, 
insisted  that  the  country  must  not  connect  the  Bourbon  restoration  with 
its  own  dismemberment,  and  it  was  given  back  its  boundaries  as  they  stood 
in  1 791.  British  influence  was  exerted  also  to  check  vindictive  action 
on  the  part  of  Ferdinand  of  the  Two  Sicilies.  Britain  and  Russia  also 
favoured  the  concession  of  constitutions,  in  other  words,  limitations  of 
absolutism,  which  were  promised  by  several  rulers,  since  there  was  some 
disposition  to  attribute  the  comparative  success  of  the  United  Kingdom  in 
the  great  struggle  to  the  superiority  of  its  political  system,  or  rather  to 
infer  the  superiority  of  its  system  from  its  success.  But  these  promises 
remained  unfulfilled.  The  Tsar's  enthusiasm  was  diverted  into  a  new 
channel  by  a  new  conception  of  his  imperial  duties  ;  the  claims  of  authority 
superseded  those  of  liberty,  and  though  Britain  declined  to  enter  the  Holy 
Alliance  which  was  conceived  and  shaped  by  Alexander,  she  offered  no 
effective  opposition  to  its  activities. 

The  Holy  Alliance  was  a  very  curious  phenomenon,  which  compels  us 
to  some  further  consideration  of  the  European  programme  at  this  period. 
There  were  two  movements  fundamentally  associated,  the  first  with  French 
Revolution,  and  the  second  with  the  downfall  of  Napoleon — the  democratic 
movement  and  the  nationalist  movement.  Before  the  French  Revolution 
the  whole  political  and  social  system  of  very  nearly  every  country  in 
Europe  rested  upon  privilege,  upon  the  conception  that  certain  members 
of  the  community  were  entitled  by  hereditary  or  by  ecclesiastical  right  to 
rule  over  the  rest  and  to  rule  in  their  own  interest.  In  Great  Britain,  in 
Holland,  and  in  Switzerland  a  very  much  larger  proportion  of  the  com- 
munity at  large  was  permitted  to  exercise  political  rights  than  in  other 
countries  ;  the  pressure  of  privilege  there,  though  sufficiently  heavy,  was 
very  much  less  than  elsewhere.  The  French  Revolution  was  primarily 
on  its  political  side  the  issue  of  the  demand  of  the  masses  of  the  people  for 
the  abolition  of  political  privileges  and  for  their  own  admission  to  political 
rights.  The  early  triumph  of  the  French  democracy  had  merged  in 
CKisarism,  but  Cicsarism  had  not  restored  the  old  system    of  aristocratic 


FROM    WATERLOO   TO   THE    REFORM  .BILL     ^jj 

and  ecclesiastical  privilege.  Within  limits  it  confirmed  instead  of  reversing 
the  democratic  movement.  And  it  did  so  outside  of  France  as  well  as 
within  it.  It  had  had  this  permanent  effect — that  it  awakened  the  craving 
for  political  liberty  throughout  the  classes  hitherto  excluded,  and  especially 
in  those  classes  which  had  not  been  universally  excluded. 

The  Nationalist  Movement,  on  the  other  hand,  was  not  the  cause  but  the 
outcome  of  the  long  war.  For  centuries  past  nationalism  had  played 
a  strong  part  in  the  histories  of  Britain,  France,  Spain,  and  Holland ; 
and  the  same  spirit  had  been  awakened  in  Prussia  comparatively  recently 
by  Frederick  the  Great.  Even  the  French  doctrine  of  natural  boundaries 
had  a  nationalist  basis,  because  the  people  within  those  boundaries  were 
both  by  race  and  by  language  French  rather  than  German  or  Italian. 
But  outside  these  countries  politicians  paid  no  attention  to  nationalism  ; 
their  consideration  was  bestowed  not  on  nationality  but  on  territory.  If 
one  half  of  the  Netherlands  had  achieved  national  freedom,  the  other 
half  had  fallen  first  under  the  dominion  of  the  Spanish  Hapsburgs,  then 
under  that  of  the  Austrian  Hapsburgs,  then  under  that  of  France,  and 
finally  was  transferred  by  the  Congress  of  Vienna  to  the  newly  erected 
kingdom  of  Holland.  German  territories  were  tossed  from  one  German 
prince  to  another.  In  Germany  itself  there  was  no  solidarity,  no  sense  of 
a  community  of  German  interests.  In  Italy  principalities  and  dukedoms  had 
been  transferred  from  one  to  another  of  the  great  Powers  in  almost  every 
treaty  signed  during  the  last  three  hundred  years  ;  there,  nationality  was 
simply  ignored.  But  it  had  been  ignored  more  flagrantly  than  ever  before 
by  Napoleon,  and  his  treatment  of  Spain,  Germany,  and  Italy  had  kindled 
national  sentiment  to  a  flame.  Hence  the  phase  of  the  war  which  followed 
upon  the  Moscow  expedition  was  a  nationalist  uprising,  an  uprising  of 
the  peoples  against  a  foreign  tyrant.  Throughout  Europe  the  events 
between  1789  and  1815  had  set  in  motion  these  two  movements,  the 
democratic  and  the  nationalist,  which,  acting  sometimes  but  not  always 
in  combination,  were  at  the  root  of  half  the  political  compHcations  of  the 
nineteenth  century. 

Now  the  Holy  Alliance  was  the  embodiment  of  the  principle  of  resistance 
to  both  these  movements.  It  was  born  in  the  brain  of  Alexander  I.,  who 
had  hitherto  been  an  ardent  advocate  of  liberal  ideas.  But  behind  the 
liberal  ideas  lay  a  rooted  conviction  of  the  divine  authority  which  rests 
in  kings.  The  king  is  responsible  to  God  but  not  to  his  people  for  the 
righteous  government  of  his  realm.  It  is  good  for  the  people  to  participate 
in  their  own  government  ;  therefore  the  king  will  do  well  to  allow  his 
people  as  large  a  share  in  the  government  as  they  are  fit  for  ;  but  the 
share  must  be  greater  or  less  or  non-existent  as  the  king  judges  best,  and 
the  people  have  no  right  to  call  his  judgment  to  account.  They  have  no 
right  to  rise  against  the  divinely  constituted  authority,  or  to  question  it ; 
they  have  to  accept  it.  Let  the  kings  therefore  enter  into  a  Holy  Alliance, 
forming    a  brotherhood   pledged   individually   to   act   righteously  towards 


778  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

their  own  subjects  and  mutually  to  support  each  other's  authority  and 
to  act  in  concert.  As  the  divine  authority  of  the  king  has  nothing  to  do 
with  nationalism,  it  followed  that  the  Holy  Alliance  became  practically 
an  instrument  for  enforcing  absolutism  without  regard  either  to  popular 
rights  or  to  nationalism.  Territories  were  defined  by  international  compact 
between  kings  who  were  pledged  to  support  each  other's  authority  in  those 
territories. 

The  princes  of  Europe  all  joined  the  league  or  expressed  their  sympathy, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Sultan  of  Turkey,  who,  not  being  a  Christian,  was 
so  to  speak  not  eligible.  Britain  however  stood  aloof.  Neither  the  king 
nor  the  prince  regent  in  his  place  could  join,  because  such  an  action  would 
have  been  absurd  on  any  basis  except  an  absolutist  theory  which  the 
British  constitution  expressly  rejected.  The  British  people  soon  saw  with 
displeasure  that  if,  as  it  boasted,  it  had  by  its  example  saved  Europe  from 
the  Napoleonic  despotism,  its  victory  was  going  to  be  turned  to  account 
in  order  to  keep  Europe  under  the  heel  of  minor  despotisms.  It  in- 
creasingly resented  the  acquiescence  of  its  Government  in  the  policy  of 
European  monarchists  ;  and  it  attributed  that  acquiescence  to  the  absolutist 
sympathies  of  the  Foreign  Minister  Castlereagh.  For,  however  strong 
the  reaction  had  been  in  England  itself,  the  whole  history  of  the  country 
compelled  it  to  sympathise  both  with  constitutionalism  as  against  absolutism, 
and  with  nationalism.  What  Britons  had  won  for  themselves  they  were 
willing  to  see  other  peoples  win. 

Nevertheless,  in  those  classes  at  least  which  controlled  the  government 
the  reaction  still  predominated.  They  would  have  resented  a  curtailment 
of  their  own  powers,  but  they  continued  to  be  afraid  of  any  extension  of 
political  liberty.  The  spectre  of  the  French  Revolution  was  not  laid. 
Every  reformer  was  assumed  to  be  a  covert  Jacobin,  and  it  was  held  that 
the  safety  of  the  state  demanded  the  severe  repression  of  all  complaints. 
Such,  too,  was  the  attitude  of  the  Government  in  an  exaggerated  degree. 
Criticism  was  an  offence  against  order,  and  discontent  a  proof  of  the  revo- 
lutionary spirit,  and  again  Castlereagh  was  popularly  fixed  upon  as  the 
moving  spirit  in  the  repressive  policy  of  the  Government. 

The  war  had  caused  distress,  the  price  of  food  had  risen  to  a  very  high 
point,  and  wages  had  fallen  because  the  supply  of  labour  was  greater  than 
the  demand  ;  the  more  so  because  the  output  of  the  new  machinery  was 
very  much  greater  than  tliat  of  the  old  hand  labour,  so  that  fewer  hands 
were  needed,  and  at  the  same  time  the  population  was  increasing  at  a  rapid 
rate.  Expansion  of  the  area  of  cultivation  had,  however,  hitherto  provided 
some  compensation.  But  the  peace  increased  distress  instead  of  diminish- 
ing it.  On  the  Continent  industrial  occupations  revived,  while  the  complete- 
ness of  the  British  monopoly  of  maritime  commerce  disappeared.  The 
market  being  overstocked  with  British  goods,  British  production  was 
checked.  In  the  natural  order  of  events  the  price  of  food-stuffs  in  Britain 
would  have  fallen,  and  the  purchasing  power  of  a  stationary  money  wage 


FROM    WATERLOO   TO   THE    REFORM    BILL     779 

would  have  increased,  so  that  distress  should  have  been  reduced.  Here, 
however,  the  Agricultural  Interest  in  parliament  intervened,  and  the  Corn 
Law  of  1 81 5  prohibited  the  importation  of  corn  whenever  the  price  in  the 
home  market  was  less  than  eighty  shillings  a  quarter.  Thus  the  high  price 
of  food  was  maintained,  while  the  other  conditions  were  tending  to  a 
diminution  of  wages  ;  and  even  the  corn  tax  was  insufficient  to  keep  under 
cultivation  much  of  the  land  which  had  been  brought  under  the  plough 
only  when  the  country  was  compelled  to  depend  wholly  upon  the  supply 
of  food  raised  within  the  four  seas. 

Here,  then,  is  a  sutBcient  indication  for  immediate  purposes  of  the 
economic  causes  of  unrest  and  discontent.  And  these  were  aggravated  by 
the  wasteful  finance  of  the  Government,  which  continued  after  the  peace 
the  extravagant  and  ill-irregulated  expenditure  which  the  country  had 
borne  with  during  the  time  of  the  war.  Parliamentary  criticism,  however, 
was  concentrated  upon  the  better  regulation  of  the  civil  list,  and  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  income  tax  which  had  been  introduced  by  Pitt  expressly  as  a 
war  tax.  The  Government  proposed  to  appropriate  the  tax  to  the  mainten- 
ance of  an  army  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men,  which,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  economists,  was  an  unnecessary  extravagance  in  time 
of  peace  ;  besides  which,  expenditure  on  the  army  was  made  the  more  un- 
popular by  the  suspicion  that  it  would  be  used  in  the  interests  of  the  Holy 
Alliance.  The  abolition  of  the  income  tax  was  carried  against  the  Govern- 
ment mainly  owing  to  the  energetic  agitation  of  Henry  Brougham. 

In  the  country  the  agricultural  and  industrial  depression  brought  about 
disorders  and  riots,  while  the  Government  held  fast  to  its  conviction  that 
the  remedy  for  these  was  to  be  found  in  severe  repression,  not  in  any 
attempt  to  investigate  and  deal  with  economic  causes.  Again  the  result 
was  to  intensify  in  the  sufferers  the  belief  first  that  relief  could  be  obtained 
only  by  their  own  acquisition  of  political  power,  and,  secondly,  that  the 
acquisition  of  political  power  would  bring  relief  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Agitators  clamoured  against  the  monarchy  and  the  constitution,  and  the 
Government  failed  to  distinguish  between  agitators  and  sober  reformers. 
The  Spafields  riot  in  December  18 16  led  in  the  following  year  to  sharp 
measures,  for  the  suppression  of  "  seditious  meetings  "  and  the  suspension 
of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act.  Nor  was  the  temper  of  the  ministry  improved 
by  a  serious  rebuff,  when  a  bookseller  named  Hone  was  acquitted  on  three 
several  charges  of  publishing  "blasphemous  and  seditious  libels." 

A  lull  during  1818  was  followed  by  renewed  agitation  during  the  next 
year,  culminating  in  the  affair  called  the  Peterloo  Massacre,  when  a  large 
assembly  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Manchester  was  dispersed  by  soldiery, 
certainly  with  insufficient  reason.  Half-a-dozen  persons  were  killed,  large 
numbers  who  had  assembled  without  any  sort  of  seditious  intent  were 
injured,  and  a  feeling  of  bitter  indignation  was  aroused.  Unfortunately 
the  Government  identified  itself  with  the  action  of  the  magistrates — which 
might  reasonably  have  been  condoned  as  an  error  of  judgment  in  a  difficult 


780  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

exigency — and  it  proceeded  to  pass  a  further  series  of  repressive  measures 
known  as  the  Six  Acts.  Of  the  six,  three  were  at  least  justifiable  on  the 
hypothesis  that  there  was  an  appreciable  danger  of  armed  insurrection 
Two,  directed  to  the  suppression  of  seditious  publications,  were  at  best 
liable  to  interpretation  as  a  tyrannical  interference  with  the  right  of  free 
criticism ;  while  the  sixth,  virtually  suppressing  all  public  meetings  unless 
summoned  by  the  principal  local  authorities,  was  a  wholly  inexcusable 
encroachment  upon  acknowledged  liberties.  The  general  soreness,  it  may 
be  remarked,  was  increased  by  the  persistent  neglect  of  the  Government  to 


Cato  Street,  the  scene  of  the  conspiracy  of  1S20. 
[From  a  contemporary  drawing.] 

accompany  its  repressive  measures  by  any  recognition  of  the  necessity  for 
remedial  legislation. 

In  1820  died  the  old  king,  who  for  the  last  eight  years  of  his  life  had 
been  entirely  incapacitated  by  brain  disease,  to  which  total  blindness  was 
added.  The  Prince  Regent  became  King  George  IV.,  but  no  change  was 
thereby  effected.  The  event  of  interest  which  followed  immediately  upon 
his  accession  to  the  throne  was  the  formation  of  a  wild  plot  known  as  the 
Cato  Street  Con-^piracy.  The  plotters,  who  were  persons  of  no  importance 
and  no  influence,  designed  to  murder  the  whole  ministry  at  a  Cabinet 
dinner.  Information  was  conveyed  to  the  authorities,  and  the  conspira- 
tors, who  offered  a  fierce  resistance,  were  seized  in  a  room  in  Cato  Street. 
Four  of  them  were  executed,  five  were  transported,  and  the  incident  was 
used  by  the  Government  as  a  proof  of  the  anarchical  spirit  abroad  which 
had  made  their  repressive  measures  a  necessity. 

Public  uneasiness  was  made  the  greater  by  the   absence  of  any  general 


FROM    WATERLOO   TO   THE    REFORM    BILL     7B1 

sentiment  of  loyalty  to  the  royal  family,  for  which  that  family  was  itself 
responsible.  The  old  king  was  held  in  respect,  even  in  honour  and  in 
affection,  by  many  of  his  subjects  who  could  appreciate  his  sterling  qualities 
and  forgive,  if  they  did  not  approve,  his  obstinacy  and  occasional  wrong- 
headedness.  His  consort  had  been  a  pattern  of  domestic  virtue.  But  none 
of  the  sons  of  George  III.  were  distinguished  by  similar  characteristics. 
For  a  long  time  the  nation's  hopes  were  fixed  upon  the  Princess  Charlotte, 
the  daughter  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  whose  premature  death  in  18 17  was 
generally  lamented  as  a  national  misfortune.  But  when  she  died  the  old 
king  had  no  legitimate  grandchild  living,  and  of  his  seven  sons  and  five 
daughters  the  youngest  was  forty.  The  Prince  Regent  was  held  in  general 
contempt  as  a  bad  husband  and  a  bad  father.  The  Duke  of  York  had  been 
notoriously  mixed  up  with  grave  scandals.  William,  Duke  of  Clarence,  and 
Edward,  Duke  of  Kent,  were  at  least  comparatively  respected,  but  they  as 
well  as  the  youngest  brother,  Adolphus,  Duke  of  Cambridge,  were  unmarried. 
The  fifth  brother,  Ernest,  Duke  of  Cumberland,  was  the  object  of  universal 
detestation,  so  much  so  that  his  accession  to  the  throne  might  have 
sufficed  to  bring  about  a  revolution,  while  the  sixth  brother  had  contracted 
a  morganatic  marriage  ;  so  that  the  future  of  the  monarchy  was  a  subject 
of  grave  apprehension.  The  year  after  the  Princess  Charlotte's  death  the 
three  unmarried  brothers  took  wives,  and  the  birth  of  the  Duke  of  Kent's 
daughter.  Princess  Victoria,  in  18 19,  provided  a  new  object  for  the  hopes  of 
the  nation  to  centre  upon,  since  it  was  felt  that  the  child's  life  alone  stood 
in  the  way  of  a  serious  crisis  in  the  early  future. 

Almost  the  first  proceedings  of  the  new  reign  brought  the  Crown  into 
fresh  contempt.  George  IV.,  when  Prince  of  Wales,  though  already  secretly 
married  morganatically,  had  taken  to  wife  the  Princess  Caroline  of  Bruns- 
wick. The  two  had  long  lived  apart,  and  the  princess  had  behaved  at  least 
with  flagrant  indiscretion  for  which  George  had  given  her  as  good  excuse 
as  any  husband  could.  On  her  husband's  accession  to  the  throne  she 
returned  to  England  to  demand  formal  recognition  as  queen,  giving  her 
due  status  in  the  Courts  of  Europe.  The  Government  replied  by  intro- 
ducing in  the  House  of  Lords  a  bill  to  deprive  her  of  her  title  and  to 
dissolve  the  marriage.  Popular  feeling  ran  exceedingly  high  during  the 
investigation  of  the  charges  on  which  the  bill  was  based.  The  bill  was 
carried  on  its  second  reading  in  the  House  of  Lords  by  a  majority  of 
twenty-eight ;  four  days  later  the  majority  for  the  third  reading  was  only 
nine.  The  Government,  now  certain  to  be  defeated  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  withdrew  the  bill.  Not  contented  with  this  effective  victory, 
she  attempted  in  the  next  year,  of  course  unsuccessfully,  to  enforce  her 
own  coronation  along  with  that  of  the  king,  an  undignified  performance 
by  which  she  lost  most  of  the  popularity  which  the  bill  had  procured 
for  her.  Within  three  weeks  of  the  coronation  she  was  dead  ;  but  the 
whole  of  the  proceedings  had  given  birth  to  unlimited  scandal,  and  had 
displayed    the   king's   character  in    a   singularly   odious   and   contemptible 


782  THE   ERA    OF   REVOLUTIONS 

light   which   destroyed  almost  the  last  shreds  of  popular  respect  for   the 
monarchy. 

Of  more  political  importance  than  the  elevation  of  the  Prince  Regent 
to  the  throne  were  the  changes  in  the  ministry  which  took  place  at  the 
close  of  18 2 1  and  during  1822.  Lord  Sidmoulh — formerly  Addington,  the 
head  of  the  ministry  which  had  been  responsible  for  the  Peace  of  Amiens 
— who  had  been  the  author  of  the  Six  Acts,  retired  from  the  Home  Secretary- 
ship, in  which  he  was  succeeded  by  Robert  Peel.  The  Marquess  Wellesley 
again  joined  the  Government  as  Viceroy  of  Ireland.  Then  in  August  1822 
Castlereagh,  who  was  just  on  the  point  of  setting  out  to  represent  Britain  at 
a  European  Congress  assembled  at  Verona,  committed  suicide,  and  was 
succeeded  at  the  Foreign  Office  by  George  Canning.  Few  ministers  have 
been  so  intensely  unpopular  in  the  country  as  Castlereagh,  and  his  death  was 
hailed  with  unseemly  acclamations  of  joy.  Posterity  has  been  more  just 
to  him  than  v/ere  his  contemporaries.  To  him  more  than  any  other  man, 
at  least  after  181 1  if  not  after  1808,  was  due  the  dogged  persistence  with 
which  the  French  war  was  maintained  ;  he,  more  than  any  other  man, 
through  good  and  evil  report  stood  by  Wellington  in  the  Peninsula  War. 
Less  of  the  responsibility  for  repressive  measures  at  home  belonged  to  him 
than  was  popularly  believed  ;  and  some  at  least  of  the  discredit  attaching 
to  the  foreign  policy  of  the  country  must  be  attributed  to  the  popularity 
achieved  by  his  rival  and  successor  at  the  Foreign  Ofhce,  George  Canning, 
and  to  misrepresentations  of  Castlereagh's  own  action. 


II 

CANNING   AND   HUSKISSON 

The  return  of  Canning  to  the  Foreign  Office  changed  British  foreign 
policy  not  in  theory  but  in  practice.  Since  1820  the  monarchs  of  the 
four  greater  European  Powers  had  been  alarmed  by  revolutionary  move- 
ments in  the  Spanish,  Italian,  and  Greek  Peninsulas.  In  Spain  and 
Portugal  and  in  the  Two  Sicilies  the  movements  were  constitutional ;  that 
is,  they  were  directed  to  the  establishment  of  constitutional  instead  of 
absolute  monarchies.  That  in  Greece  was  nationalist,  and  was  directed  to 
the  liberation  of  a  Christian  community  from  subjection  to  a  Mohammedan 
power.  The  Russian,  Prussian,  and  Austrian  monarchs  were  all  in  favour 
of  common  intervention,  in  arms  if  necessary,  in  the  former  cases.  Castle- 
reagh, on  the  other  hand,  discouraged  this  view  of  the  duties  of  the  monarchs 
of  Europe,  and  clearly  declined  to  make  Britain  a  party  to  such  joint 
action.  Canning  adopted  Castlereagh's  principles,  and  maintained  that 
every  country  should  be  left  to  settle  its  own  constitution  for  itself.  But 
Castlereagh  had  restricted  himself  to  abstention  from  interference  ;  Canning 
carried  the  principle  further,  and  let  it  be  understood  that  the  interference 


FROM    WATERLOO   TO   THE    REFORM    BILL     783 

of  other  Powers  on  behalf  of  the  absolutist  monarchs  might  compel  British 
intervention  on  the  other  side.  He  repudiated  both  the  doctrine  that  the 
Powers  were  bound  to  act  in  concert  and  the  doctrine  that  they  had  a 
right  to  interfere  in  the  private  concerns  of  their  neighbours.  His  action 
had  at  least  the  effect  of  preventing  other  Powers  from  helping  Spain  in 
the  reduction  of  her  American  colonies  which  were  in  revolt ;  with  the 
result  that  South  America  was  separated  from  the  Spanish  dominion. 
Castlereagh  had  in  effect  permitted  the  voice  of  England  to  be  neglected 
in  European  affairs.  Canning  reasserted  her  right  to  maintain  actively  as 
well  as  passively  the  principles  of  non-intervention.  The  firmness  of 
Canning's  attitude  revived  British  prestige 
on  the  Continent,  and  served  as  an  effective 
check  on  the  self-appointed  champions  of 
absolutism.  At  the  same  time  he  refused 
to  intervene  except  to  prevent  interven- 
tion. 

Modern  party  terminology  makes  it 
difficult  to  employ  necessary  words  and 
phrases  without  conveying  misapprehen- 
sions. Two  great  parties  have  appro- 
priated to  themselves  respectively  the 
complimentary  epithets  Liberal  and  Con- 
servative, although  there  is  no  sort  of 
opposition  between  Conservatism  and 
Liberalism.  Leaders  of  the  Liberal  party 
have  been  men  of  essentially  conservative 
mind  ;  leaders  of  the  Conservative  party  have  been  men  of  the  broadest 
sympathies.  It  is  not  therefore  in  a  party  sense  that  we  speak  of  the 
administration  after  Castlereagh's  death  as  a  distinctly  Liberal  one.  In 
the  party  sense,  an  administration  whose  chiefs  were  solidly  opposed 
to  Parliamentary  reform  could  by  no  means  be  described  as  Liberal. 
Peel,  one  of  its  most  active  members,  was  for  some  twenty  years  the 
recognised  leader  in  the  House  of  Commons  of  the  party  which  began 
to  appropriate  the  name  of  Conservatives.  Canning  had  entered  public 
life  as  the  enemy  of  the  French  Revolution  and  all  its  works,  and  was 
an  opponent  of  Parliamentary  reform  to  the  day  of  his  death.  But 
Canning  was  the  disciple  of  Burke  and  of  Pitt,  both  of  whom,  until  the 
French  Revolution,  were  conspicuously  men  of  liberal  mind,  opponents  of 
innovation  but  especially  of  reactionary  innovation.  Canning's  sympathies 
were  freely  extended  to  constitutionalist  and  nationalist  movements,  as 
Burke's  and  Pitt's  would  have  been.  Peel  does  not  present  himself  as  the 
disciple  either  of  Pitt  or  of  Burke.  But  he  was  a  man  who,  starting 
politically  with  an  exceedingly  narrow  outlook,  spent  the  whole  of  his  life 
in  gradually  extending  his  vision  and  adopting  new  views  as  he  slowly 
realised  the  force  of  arguments  which  ran  counter  to  the  postulates  with 


George  Canning. 
[After  the  portrait  by  Lawrence.] 


784  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

which  he  had  started.  Therefore  every  administration  of  which  Peel  was  a 
member  after  1822  was  distinguished  by  hberal  measures  at  least  in  some 
particulars. 

To  Canning  and  Peel  in  the  Liverpool  administration  was  added 
WiUiam  Huskisson,  who  joined  it  as  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade 
early  in  1823.  We  have  seen  how  the  Liberalism  of  Canning  displayed 
itself.  That  of  Peel  at  the  Home  Office  was  shown  chiefly  in  the  revision 
and  co-ordination  of  the  Criminal  Code.  Great  Britain  in  this  respect 
lagged  far  behind  most  of  the  nations  of  Europe.  There  were  some  two 
hundred  offences  in  the  Statute  Book  to  which  the  death  penalty  was 
attached,  from  petty  larceny  up  to  murder.  The  system  defeated  itself, 
as  Thomas  More  had  demonstrated  three  hundred  years  before.  It 
offered  a  direct  inducement  to  the  petty  offender  to  shield  himself  by  com- 
mitting murder  if  murder  gave  him  a  chance  of  escape,  since  the  penalty 
was  the  same.  It  offered  an  inducement  to  juries  to  acquit  wherever  there 
was  a  shadow  of  excuse  for  acquittal,  because  the  sentence  following  upon 
an  adverse  verdict  was  an  outrage  on  their  humanity.  Under  Peel's 
auspices  more  than  a  hundred  capital  offences  were  struck  off  the  list. 
Incidentally  London  also  owed  to  him  the  institution  of  an  efficient  police 
force,  popularly  nicknamed  in  consequence  "  Peelers  "  or  "  Bobbies,"  who 
took  the  place  of  the  wholly  inefficient  watchmen  or  "  Charlies,"  to  whose 
incompetent  guardianship  the  protection  of  property  and  the  maintenance  of 
order  had  hitherto  been  entrusted. 

Pitt  in  his  early  days  had  been  the  pioneer  of  Free  Trade.  But 
further  advance  in  that  direction  had  been  stopped  by  the  war,  and,  when 
the  war  closed,  the  protection  of  the  agricultural  interest  had  been  carried 
to  an  unprecedented  length  by  the  Corn  Law  of  1815.  In  a  Parliament 
consisting  mainly  of  landed  proprietors  or  their  nominees,  the  protection 
of  the  agricultural  interest  was  ensured,  not  because  it  was  consciously 
selfish  but  because  it  conscientiously  believed  that  the  nation  could  prosper 
only  if  agriculture  prospered  and  that  agriculture  could  not  prosper  un- 
protected. The  doctrines  of  Adam  Smith,  however,  had  made  their  way 
among  the  commercial  community.  In  1820  the  merchants  of  London 
and  of  Edinburgh  presented  petitions  urging  that  restrictions  on  commerce 
should  be  limited  to  taxation  for  purposes  of  revenue.  It  was  maintained 
that  free  imports  did  not  diminish  production,  except  of  goods  which 
cannot  compete  with  those  of  the  foreigner  in  the  open  market  ;  that  the 
energy  devoted  to  the  production  of  such  goods  under  a  protective  system 
is  merely  diverted  from  the  production  of  other  goods  for  which  the  free- 
trading  country  has  superior  facilities ;  that  in  the  stress  of  competition 
the  free-trading  country  will  discover  improved  methods  of  production 
which  will  still  give  it  an  equality  if  not  a  superiority  in  the  rivalry.  Pro- 
duction will  be  greater  if  left  to  flow  along  its  natural  channels  than  if  it 
is  artificially  directed  by  protection  into  other  channels;  checks  on  imports 
therefore  are  injurious  to  trade,  and  should  be  admitted  only  in  order  to 


FROM    WATERLOO  TO   THE   REFORM    BILL     785 

provide  the  revenue  required  for  the  government  of  the  country.  Such 
was  the  view  of  the  merchants,  though  obviously  it  was  not  the  view  of 
the  protected  trades,  each  of  which  profited  individually  from  the  pro- 
tection extended  to  itself,  while  it  only  shared  with  the  general  consumer 
the  burden  of  higher  prices  imposed  by  the  protection  of  other  trades. 

A  sudden  and  complete  reversal  of  the  existing  system  in  accordance 
with  the  principles  laid  down  by  the  mercantile  community  was  obviously 
not  practicable.  Free  Trade  could  only  be  introduced  by  degrees,  giving 
the  producers  time  to  adapt  themselves  to  the  changing  conditions.  But 
the  principles  of  Free  Trade  were  made  the  basis  of  Huskisson's  regime 
Like  Walpole,  Huskisson  believed  in  attracting  trade  and  making  London 
the  world's  central  mart.  The  most  effective  barrier  to  doing  so  was 
found  in  the  Navigation  Acts,  which  had  already  served  their  purpose  of 
securing  an  immense  British  maritime  preponderance,  a  preponderance 
so  great  that  the  protection  and  encouragement  once  looked  upon  as  a 
national  necessity  had  become  entirely  superfluous.  The  Act  now  operated 
only  so  as  to  diminish  the  volume  of  trade  by  the  partial  exclusion  of 
foreign  shipping,  without  providing  anything  like  an  equivalent  in  the 
expansion  of  British  shipping.  Now,  moreover,  there  was  a  serious  danger 
that  foreign  countries  would  retaliate  by  excluding  British  shipping  from 
their  ports,  a  process  which  had  proved  futile  enough  in  time  of  war  when 
the  British  Navy  could  be  brought  into  play,  but  would  not  necessarily 
be  so  futile  in"  time  of  peace.  Huskisson's  Reciprocity  of  Duties  Act 
authorised  the  conclusion  of  treaties  removing  the  existing  restrictions 
wherever  reciprocity  was  guaranteed.  Fifteen  such  treaties  were  made 
between  1824  and  1829.  The  ruin  of  the  British  marine  was  of  course 
prophesied,  but  in  fact  the  tonnage  of  mercantile  shipping  increased  nearly 
fifty  per  cent,  during  the  first  twenty  years  after  Huskisson's  Act  was 
passed,  whereas  in  the  preceding  twenty  years  it  had  increased  only  ten 
per  cent.  The  Navigation  Laws,  however,  were  not  actually  deleted  from 
the  Statute  Book  until  1849. 

Having  dealt  with  the  Navigation  Acts,  Huskisson  proceeded  with  the 
reduction  of  duties.  Between  1824  and  1826  several  such  reductions 
were  made  on  minor  articles.  The  duties  on  bar-iron  and  on  cotton  goods 
were  lowered  seventy  per  cent.,  but  the  most  important  changes  were  made 
with  regard  to  silk  and  wool.  In  the  case  of  wool  there  was  hot  opposition 
between  the  wool-growers  and  the  manufacturers,  for  the  former  desired 
at  the  same  time  to  have  the  existing  duties  on  the  export  of  wool  abolished 
and  those  on  its  import  retained,  whereby  they  would  have  procured  a 
monopoly  of  the  home  market  and  an  extension  of  their  markets  abroad. 
The  woollen  manufacturers,  on  the  other  hand,  wanted  the  export  duty 
increased  and  the  import  duties  removed,  so  that  they  might  get  their  raw 
material  as  cheaply  as  possible.  Huskisson  compromised  by  retaining  a 
low  duty  both  on  the  exports  and  on  the  imports.  The  result  was  an 
enormous  increase  in  the  imports,  but  while  there  was  no  increase  in  the 

3D 


786  THE   ERA   OF    REVOLUTIONS 

exports  the  British  wool-grower  still  found  an  entirely  adequate  market 
among  the  British  manufacturers. 

Very  much  the  same  thing  happened  with  silk.  Here  there  were  no 
objections  to  the  removal  of  duties  on  the  raw  material.  The  manu- 
facturers wanted  to  have  heavy  duties  on  French  silken  manufactures  but 
not  upon  the  spun  silk  which  was  their  raw  material  ;  whereas  the  silk 
spinners  saw  ruin  staring  them  in  the  face  if  spun  silk  came  in  from  abroad 
duty  free.  Huskisson  faced  the  problem  by  reducing  first  the  duty  on  raw 
silk  by  about  ninety- five  per  cent.,  and  then  that  upon  spun  silk  by  about 
fifty  per  cent.  French  silks  had  hitherto  been  prohibited,  consequently 
they  had  found  their  way  into  England  by  smuggling.  Now  a  duty  was 
put  upon  them  of  thirty  per  cent,  of  their  value.  Thereupon,  the  de- 
mand for  silks,  which  had  been  checked  by  the  high  price  and  by  the  vast 
increase  of  the  cotton  manufacture,  was  greatly  augmented,  the  manu- 
facturers adopted  improved  and  more  economical  methods,  and  English 
silks  not  only  almost  drove  those  of  France  out  of  the  home  market, 
but  were  very  soon  competing  successfully  with  them  in  the  markets 
of  the  Continent. 

The  last  year  of  Liverpool's  administration,  1826,  was  marked  by  a 
demonstration  of  vigour  in  Canning's  foreign  policy.  His  action  at  an 
earlier  stage  had  prevented  foreign  intervention  in  Portugal,  where  a 
constitutional  government  had  been  established.  Spain  was  occupied  with 
a  civil  war  of  its  own,  but  the  royalists  there  now  attempted  also  to 
interfere  in  Portugal.  An  appeal  from  the  Regent  was  answered  by  the 
mobilisation  of  a  British  force  and  a  warning  that  it  would  be  despatched 
to  Portugal  unless  the  Spanish  interference  ceased.  The  measure  was 
effective,  and  Portugal  was  left  alone. 

A  new  parliament  had  just  met  at  the  beginning  of  1827  when  a 
paralytic  stroke  compelled  the  retirement  of  Lord  Liverpool.  To  his 
exceptional  capacities  it  was  due  that  a  Cabinet  which  contained  so  many 
irreconcilables  had  held  together  for  so  long.  Peel  continued  to  associate 
himself  with  the  old  Tory  element,  which  was  exceedingly  distrustful  of 
both  Canning  and  Huskisson,  men  who  belonged  to  no  aristocratic  con- 
nection and  represented  ideas  which  were  alarming  to  the  old  Toryism. 
Both  were  impressed  with  the  evils  resulting  from  the  high  price  of  corn 
maintained  by  the  law  of  1815.  Both  were  strong  advocates  of  Catholic 
Emancipation,  which  was  now  becoming  a  burning  question.  A  Catholic 
Relief  Bill  was  passed  by  the  House  of  Commons  in  1826,  but  rejected  by 
the  Lords.  The  substitution  of  a  "sliding  scale"  for  the  prohibitive  Corn 
Law  was  carried  and  rejected  in  a  like  manner  early  in  1827.  About  the 
same  time  a  resolution  in  favour  of  Catholic  relief  was  defeated  ;  and  now, 
with  a  Cabinet  whose  members  held  irreconcilable  views  on  leading 
questions  of  the  day,  a  new  ministry  had  to  be  formed.  Canning  was 
invited  to  form  it,  and  a  number  of  the  leading  Tories  who  had  supported 
Liverpool  immediately  withdrew. 


FROM    WATERLOO   TO   THE   REFORM    BILL     787 

Canning  was  obliged  to  enter  on  a  virtual  alliance  with  the  Whigs, 
with  whom  he  was  in  fact  by  this  time  very  much  more  in  sympathy  than 
with  the  Tories.  But  he  was  not  destined  to  prove  whether  or  no  his 
brilliant  talents  fitted  him  for  the  supreme  office.  Within  four  months  of 
his  acceptance  of  the  position  of  Chief  Minister,  George  Canning  was 
dead,  leaving  to  posterity  an  elusive  impression  of  brilliant  but  erratic 
genius,  splendid  audacity,  fiery  patriotism,  and  a  puzzling  combination  of 
apparently  contradictory  political  principles.  For  Canning,  the  advocate 
of  political  liberties  abroad,  was,  like  Castlereagh  and  Peel,  the  determined 
opponent  of  political  reform  at  home.  The  consistent  supporter  of 
Catholic  Emancipation  would  have  nothing  to  say  to  the  repeal  of  the 
Test  Act.  The  enemy  of  the  Holy  Alliance  defended  the  Six  Acts  and 
similar  measures.  In  his  own  day  he  inspired  affection,  repulsion,  admira- 
tion, enthusiasm,  but  never  real  confidence.  He  began  public  life  with  the 
reputation  of  a  political  adventurer  ;  he  ended  it  at  the  moment  when  the 
helm  of  the  state  had  at  last  been  placed  in  his  hands.  But  he  never  had 
the  opportunity  of  showing  how  he  would  have  used  his  power. 


Ill 
REFORM 

On  Canning's  death  he  was  succeeded  as  Prime  Minister  by  Lord 
Goderich  who,  as  Frederick  Robinson,  had  been  one  of  his  colleagues  for 
the  last  four  years.  There  was  little  change  in  the  ministry,  but  its  strength 
had  lain  in  the  personality  of  Canning.  Goderich  was  inefficient,  and  resigned 
after  six  months,  when  the  Duke  of  Wellington  was  persuaded  to  undertake 
the  Premiership  in  spite  of  his  own  consciousness  that  the  position  was  one 
for  which  he  was  thoroughly  unfitted.  No  man  was  ever  more  absolutely 
sincere,  more  patriotic,  more  thoroughly  disinterested.  In  certain  emer- 
gencies, as  when  he  had  to  deal  with  the  Spaniards  or  when  the  victorious 
allies  entered  Paris,  no  man  could  have  shown  a  cooler  brain,  a  firmer  hand, 
a  stronger  grasp  of  the  situation.  But  party  politics  were  entirely  outside 
his  range,  and  he  was  wholly  out  of  touch  with  popular  feeling  ;  in  an 
independent  position  his  words,  his  counsels,  and  his  judgment  always 
carried  a  very  great  weight,  but  as  the  leader  of  a  party  he  invariably  found 
himself  conducting  retreats  from  positions  which,  very  much  against  his 
own  will,  he  had  learnt  to  recognise  as  practically  untenable. 

Goderich  resigned  precisely  five  months  after  Canning's  death.  His 
tenure  of  office  was  signalised  by  only  one  remarkable  event,  the  battle 
of  Navarino.  For  some  years  past  the  Greeks  had  been  engaged  in  the 
struggle  for  liberation  from  Turkish  rule,  for  which  Lord  Byron  gave  his 
life.  Russia  had  found  it  not  inconsistent  with  the  principles  of  the  Holy 
Alliance  to  encourage  the  Greeks,  with   the  expectation  that  by  acting  on 


788  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

their  behalf  she  would  make  her  own  profit.  Canning,  also  sympathising 
with  Greece,  had  endeavoured  to  prevent  separate  action  on  the  part  of 
Russia,  and  to  work  by  bringing  to  bear  on  the  Porte  the  combined  pressure 
of  Britain,  Russia,  and  France.  Canning's  efforts  had  culminated  in  his 
last  public  act,  the  signing  of  a  treaty  between  the  three  Powers  in  July 
1827.  The  Porte  remained  obdurate,  refused  a  suspension  of  hostilities 
against  the  Greeks,  and  summoned  to  its  assistance  the  fleet  of  its  great 
nominal  vassal,  Ibrahim  Pasha  of  Egypt.  Ibrahim's  fleet  was  lying  in  the 
bay  of  Navarino.  In  spite  of  warning  from  Admiral  Codrington,  who  was 
in  command  of  the  allied  French  and  British  squadrons,  Ibrahim  continued 

to  take  part  in  the  war  on  the  mainland. 
The  allied  fleets  in  October  entered  the 
bay  of  Navarino.  The  Turco-Egyptian 
fleet  fired  upon  them  and  was  then  an- 
nihilated  in  an  action  which  lasted  for  four 
hours,  although  there  had  been  no  declara- 
tion of  war.  Public  opinion  endorsed  the 
action  of  the  Admirals  ;  but  in  January 
Wellington  had  become  Prime  Minister, 
and  the  King's  speech  at  the  opening  of 
Parliament  referred  to  the  battle  as  an 
"  untoward  event,"  a  phrase  which  excited 
great  indignation  among  the  Whigs  and 
the  disciples  of  Canning. 

In  fact  it  very  soon  became  evident 
that  Wellington's  attempt  to  reconstruct 
the  Liverpool  ministry  of  combined  Tories 
and  Canningites  was  doomed  to  failure  ;  in  a  very  short  time  the 
Canningites,  Huskisson  and  Palmerston,  resigned,  and  Wellington's 
ministry  became  an  exclusively  Tory  one,  with  Robert  Peel  leading 
the   House  of  Commons. 

In  effect  the  result  of  Wellington's  accession  to  power  was  a  reversion 
to  the  extreme  policy  of  non-intervention,  which  left  Russia  very  nearly  a 
free  hand  in  settling  the  Greek  question,  though  the  actual  terms  of  settle- 
ment were  finally  arranged  by  Russia,  France,  and  Britain  in  concert,  and 
imposed  upon  both  the  Greeks  and  the  Turks.  The  Greek  frontier  was 
defined,  and  Greece  was  erected  into  an  independent  monarchy,  with  Prince 
Otho  of  Bavaria  as  its  king,  in  1832. 

The  Government  was  Tory,  but  it  spent  its  time  mainly  in  beating  a 
series  of  reluctant  retreats.  Finding  that  the  sense  of  the  House  of 
Commons  had  at  last  become  strongly  in  favour  of  the  repeal  of  the  Test 
and  Corporation  Acts,  it  accepted  a  bill  abolishing  the  Sacramental  test  and 
substituting  a  very  mild  form  of  declaration  that  officers  would  do  nothing 
to  the  injury  of  the  Church,  although  Wellington  and  Peel,  like  Canning, 
had  hitherto  resolutely  opposed  any  change.     Again,  the  Duke  had  wrecked 


George  IV. 
[From  a  sketch  made  at  Ascot  Races,  1828.] 


FROM    WATERLOO   TO   THE    REFORM    BILL    789 

Huskisson's  previous  proposal  to  substitute  a  sliding  scale  for  the  Corn 
Law  of  1815.  Now  he  accepted  a  sliding  scale  ;  that  is  to  say,  instead  of 
prohibiting  the  importation  of  corn  when  the  price  was  below  eighty 
shillings,  a  duty  of  twenty-three  shillings  was  imposed  when  the  home 
price  was  below  sixty-four  shillings,  diminishing  as  the  price  rose  till  it 
was  reduced  to  one  shilling  when  the  price  was  seventy-three  shillings 
or  more. 

But  the  great  surrender  was  on  the  question  of  Catholic  Emancipation, 
upon  which  George  III.  had  taken  so  obstinate  a  stand  in  1801,  and  in 
regard  to  which  George  IV.  and  his  brothers  had  endorsed  their  father's 
attitude.  The  grievance  in  England  was  a  minor  one,  chiefly  because  the 
Roman  Catholics  in  that  country,  as  in  Scotland,  were  only  a  fraction  of 
the  population,  and  of  these  a  considerable  proportion  enjoyed  a  wealth 
and  a  social  position  which  enabled  them  to  exercise  a  degree  even  of 
political  influence.  But  in  Ireland  more  than  three-fourths  of  the  popula- 
tion were  Catholics,  by  whom  the  Protestant  ascendency  was  felt  as  an 
intolerable  burden  and  a  monstrous  injustice.  The  refusal  of  Catholic 
Emancipation  at  the  time  of  the  Union  perpetuated  the  hostility  between 
Irish  Catholics  and  Protestants,  and  afforded  a  just  ground  for  complaint 
that  Irish  consent  to  the  Union  had  been  obtained  upon  false  pretences. 
In  course  of  time  the  leadership  in  the  Catholic  agitation  had  devolved 
upon  Daniel  O'Connell,  an  orator  of  extraordinary  power,  an  opponent  of 
the  doctrines  of  the  French  Revolution,  who  insisted  upon  the  principles 
of  constitutional  agitation  and  habitually  repudiated  all  appeals  to  violence 
and  force,  though  his  own  fervid  appeals  to  the  emotions  of  an  emotional 
race  were  not  without  an  inflammatory  influence.  O'Connell  had  organised 
the  great  Catholic  Association,  which  in  theory  at  least  restricted  itself  to 
legal  forms  of  agitation  and  owned  no  connection  with  secret  societies. 
Alarmed  by  its  influence.  Parliament  had  in  1825  pronounced  it  illegal  and 
endeavoured  to  suppress  it  ;  but  it  had  only  been  reconstituted  under 
forms  which  brought  it  again  within  the  law,  though  its  activities  were 
restrained.  Now  the  landlords  had  endeavoured  to  extend  their  own 
influence  by  nominally  converting  numbers  of  their  tenants  into  "  forty- 
shilling  freeholders,"  who  were  entitled  to  exercise  the  franchise  and  on 
whose  unfailing  support  they  hastily  counted.  Their  blunder  was  decisively 
demonstrated  when  in  1828  the  Catholic  Daniel  O'Connell  was  returned  at 
the  head  of  the  poll  in  an  election  for  County  Clare,  although  his  religion 
disqualified  him  from  sitting  in  Parliament.  The  triumph  was  the  greater 
because  the  election  had  been  conducted  in  a  perfectly  orderly  manner.  It 
was  easy  to  understand  the  meaning  of  the  election,  the  intensity  of  the 
feeling  to  which  it  pointed,  and  the  grave  dangers  which  threatened  if  that 
feeling  were  persistently  ignored.  The  Duke  and  Peel  were  converted  to 
a  belief  not  that  Catholic  Emancipation  was  in  itself  a  desirable  thing,  but 
that  a  worse  thing,  armed  rebellion,  was  the  probable  alternative.  They 
chose  the  lesser  of  two  evils,  and  in  1829  a  bill  removing  nearly  all  the 


_^^^, 


790  THE   ERA   OF    REVOLUTIONS 

Catholic  disabilities  was  brought  in  by  the  Government  and  carried  ;  and 
O'Connell  took  his  seat  at  Westminster. 

In  1830  George  IV.  died.  His  influence  on  political  life  had  not  been 
prominent  since  the  early  days  when  the  regency  question  nearly  sus- 
pended Pitt's  career.  But  his  personal  character  had  lowered  the 
monarchy  in  public  estimation  to  an  unparalleled  degree.  The  country 
had  not  become  republican  in  sentiment,  but  if  it  had  not  been  able  to 
feel  some  respect  for  George's  successor  the  permanence  of  the  monarchy 

would  at  best  have  become  exceed- 
ingly doubtful.  Happily  the  heir  to 
the  throne  was  William,  Duke  of  Clar- 
ence, since  the  Duke  of  York  had 
preceded  his  brother  to  the  grave ; 
and  William  was  at  least  an  honest 
man,  not  unpopular  in  his  character  of 
the  Sailor  Prince,  who  had  abstained 
from  flagrant  offences  against  the 
sense  of  public  decency.  He  was 
already  sixty-five  years  of  age,  and 
during  his  brief  reign  the  Crown  re- 
covered something  of  its  lost  prestige, 
which  was  to  be  completely  restored 
by  the  young  girl  who  was  his  heir 
presumptive.  It  was  generally  under- 
stood that  the  new  king  was  at  least 
comparatively  in  sympathy  with  Liberal 
ideas. 

The  cause  of  Catholic  Emanci- 
pation had  been  won  by  Ireland,  not 
by  England,  where  it  excited  no  enthusiasm.  Not  so  was  it  with  the 
great  question  which  now  confronted  the  ministry.  Half  a  century  before, 
the  popular  demand  for  Parliamentary  reform  had  been  gradually  forcing 
its  way  to  the  front,  though  still  held  back  by  the  antagonism  of  the 
governing  classes  and  the  private  interests  vested  in  rotten  boroughs. 
Both  Chatham  and  his  son  had  advocated  it ;  but  the  French  Revolution 
came  and  swept  it  out  of  the  sphere  of  practical  politics.  There  was  no 
room  for  questions  of  reform  when  the  guillotine  was  at  work  in  Paris  or 
while  Britain  was  at  grips  with  her  great  antagonist.  But  with  the  peace 
came  a  change.  If  ministers  brought  up  in  the  atmosphere  of  reaction 
against  Jacobinism  remained  persistently  opposed  to  any  extension  of 
political  power  to  the  masses  who  were  still  shut  out  from  it,  or  to  a 
diminution  of  the  control  exercised  by  the  dominant  class,  there  were  still 
Whigs  who  had  gone  out  into  the  wilderness  with  Fox,  and  there  was  a 
new  generation  of  Whigs  who  saw  no  advantages  in  a  system  which  was 
calculated   to   keep   them    permanently   out   of    office.      Moreover,    as   the 


FROM    WATERLOO   TO   THE   REFORM    BILL     791 

memories  of  the  French  Revolution  faded,  the  pre-revolution  doctrines  of 
William  Pitt  began  to  resume  their  sway  over  intelligent  minds,  while  the 
masses  who  were  still  shut  outside  the  gates  had  learnt  to  believe  that  the 
remedy  for  their  grievances  lay  in  the  acquisition  of  political  power,  for 
which  their  demands  grew  daily  more  insistent.  Year  after  year  since 
1820  Lord  John  Russell  had  brought  forward  in  the  House  of  Commons 
resolutions  or  proposals  for  disfranchising  rotten  boroughs  and  increasing 
the  representation  of  the  counties,  and  for  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
towns  which  were  rapidly  expanding  in  consequence  of  the  new  industrial 
system.  Russell  was  regularly  defeated,  and,  while  Canning  lived,  the 
Canningites  held  by  their  leader  in  opposing  reform,  although  that  attitude 
was  not  easy  to  reconcile  with  some  of  their  avowed  principles.  With  his 
death  their  opposition  weakened.  Then  in  1830,  within  a  few  weeks  of  the 
accession  of  William  IV.,  the  cause  of  constitutional  reform  received  a  new 
impulse  from  outside.  In  France  a  practically  bloodless  revolution  was 
accomplished ;  the  absolutist  king,  Charles  X.,  was  forced  to  abdicate,  and 
the  ''citizen  king,"  Louis  Philippe  of  Orleans,  was  raised  to  the  throne.  The 
manner  in  which  the  revolution  was  accomplished  served  in  no  small  degree 
to  allay  the  alarms  of  those  who  anticipated  excesses  of  the  old  type  as  the 
inevitable  concomitants  of  any  departure  from  the  existing  system,  any 
shifting  of  the  centre  of  political  gravity.  Apart  from  what  was  called  the 
"  July  Revolution,"  it  had  already  become  clear  that  the  demand  for  reform 
could  not  long  be  ignored,  and  by  that  revolution  much  latent  antagonism 
to  it  was  removed. 

The  battle  began  at  once.  Before  the  meeting  of  Parliament  in 
November  every  one  believed  that  some  measure  of  reform  was  inevitable. 
The  King's  Speech,  however,  made  no  mention  of  the  subject.  Lord  Grey, 
the  leader  of  the  Whigs  in  the  House  of  Peers,  who  had  been  prominent 
among  the  advanced  Whigs  ever  since  the  days  of  Pitt's  first  administration, 
referred  to  reform  as  a  measure  of  prime  necessity  for  diminishing 
public  discontent.  The  Duke  in  reply  declared  in  effect  that  the 
existing  system  could  not  by  any  possibility  be  improved  upon,  that 
the  country  had  entire  confidence  in  it,  and  that  he  himself  should  at  all 
times  feel  it  his  duty  to  oppose  any  measure  of  reform.  But  even  this 
declaration  did  not  suffice  to  rally  to  the  support  of  the  Government  the 
extreme  Tories,  who  considered  that  they  had  been  betrayed  over 
Catholic  Emancipation.  The  Government  was  defeated  on  a  side  issue, 
whereupon  the  Duke  and  Peel  both  resigned,  and  Grey  was  invited  to  form 
a  ministry. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  that  the  statesman  who  ultimately  carried 
the  Reform  Bill  was  himself  of  an  intensely  aristocratic  temperament. 
Of  the  new  administration  four  members  only  were  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  of  those  four  one,  Lord  Palmerston,  was  an  Irish  peer, 
and  another,  Lord  Althorp,  the  heir  to  an  English  earldom.  The  Lord 
Chancellor,  however,   Henry  Brougham,  was  a  peer  only  because  he  was 


792      '  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

made  Lord  Chancellor.  It  is  to  be  remarked  that  the  Marquess  Wellesley 
was  now  in  political  opposition  to  his  brother,  and  was  associated  with  the 
new  Government,  although  not  in  the  Cabinet.  A  full  half  of  the  new 
ministry  were  Canningites. 

The  change  of  government  appears  to  have  given  to  agitators  the 
impression  that  the  administration  would  be  too  weak  or  too  sympathetic  to 
punish  disturbances,  which  broke  out  in  several  of  the  southern  counties. 
They  were,  however,  promptly  disillusioned  by  its  vigorous  action,  and  by 
the  prosecution  and  punishment  of  the  ringleaders.  It  was  unfortunate 
that  the  Whigs  were  seriously  weakened  by  the  want  of  any  capable 
finance  minister,  since  Huskisson  was  unhappily  killed  in  the  summer  of 
1830  at  the  opening  of  the  pioneer  railway  line  between  Manchester  and 
Liverpool. 

In  the  course  of  centuries  the  system  of  representation  had  become 
very  much  changed.  Originally  the  boroughs  returning  members  had  been 
the  substantial  towns  whose  members  had  been  in  the  main  returned  by 
the  burgesses.  But  whether  they  decayed  or  progressed  these  boroughs 
returned  the  same  number  of  members  as  of  yore.  In  many  of  them  the 
election  had  been  monopolised  by  the  corporations  ;  in  others,  where  the 
population  had  fallen  off,  the  few  electors  had  passed  completely  under  the 
control  of  some  magnate  who  could  secure  the  return  of  his  own  nominee. 
Under  the  Tudors,  and  especially  under  the  Stuarts,  many  additions  had 
been  made  to  the  number  of  the  boroughs,  but  these  were  ''pocket 
boroughs  "  specially  created  by  the  Crown  not  because  they  were  substantial 
towns  but  because  they  were  under  the  Crown's  control.  Many  of  these 
also  had  since  passed  into  the  hands  of  magnates.  New  towns  had  grown 
up  with  large  populations,  especially  since  the  development  of  machinery 
and  the  factory  system  had  compelled  the  congregating  of  workers 
together;  these  towns  remained  unrepresented.  The  general  effect  was 
that  in  1830  there  were  one  hundred  and  fifty-seven  members  of  Parliament 
who  were  the  direct  nominees  of  eighty-four  persons,  and  another  hundred 
and  fifty  whose  election  was  practically  controlled  by  seventy  persons. 
In  Scotland  and  Ireland  the  proportion  of  nominees  was  still  greater.  The 
enormous  power  exercised  by  landed  magnates  in  returning  members  to 
the  House  of  Commons  obviously  went  a  long  way  towards  ensuring  a 
t<jlcrable  harmony  between  the  Representative  Chamber  and  the  House 
of  Lords.  That  power  a  reformed  system  could  not  fail  to  destroy,  and 
with  it  the  effective  supremacy  of  the  oligarchical  families  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  country. 

But  it  was  not  the  intention  of  the  Whig  leader  to  introduce  a  demo- 
cracy, a  government  controlled  by  the  masses  of  the  people.  A  rational 
extension  of  the  franchise  to  substantial  citizens,  a  system  which  gave  a 
real  representation  to  the  electors  bearing  some  proportion  to  their 
numbers  and  their  fitness  for  the  exercise  of  political  power,  was  the 
object   aimed  at   by  the  author   of    the   Reform    Bill   of    1831.     The  ten- 


FROM    WATERLOO   TO   THE    REFORM    BILL     793 

pound  householder  in  the  boroughs,  the  ten-pound  copyholder  and  the 
fifty-pound  leaseholder  in  the  counties,  were  to  have  the  franchise. 
Corresponding  changes  were  to  be  made  in  Scotland  and  Ireland. 
Boroughs  with  less  than  two  thousand  inhabitants  were  to  be  disfranchised 
altogether  ;  those  with  less  than  four  thousand  were  to  return  only  one 
member.  Out  of  some  hundred  and  seventy  seats  thus  abolished  some- 
thing over  a  hundred  were  to  be  re-allotted  to  counties,  to  great  towns, 
or  to  Scotland  or  Ireland,  the  total  number  of  seats  being  thus  considerably 
diminished. 

The  king  before  his  accession  had  kept  himself  politically  in  the  back- 
ground, but  had  been  on  the  whole  associated  with  the  Whigs  rather  than 
the  Tories.  He  was  now  definitely  in  favour  of  a  moderate  reform,  and 
was  well  satisfied  to  find  that  Grey's  bill  made  no  concession  to  the 
extremists,  as  they  were  then  considered,  who  demanded  manhood  suffrage, 
annual  Parliaments,  and  the  ballot.  The  bill  was  passed  in  the  House  of 
Commons  on  the  first  reading  without  a  division  ;  but  on  the  second  reading 
the  Government  were  able  to  secure  a  majority  of  only  one  in  a  very  full 
house.  A  few  days  later  an  amendment  to  which  they  were  opposed  was 
carried,  whereupon  the  king  immediately  dissolved  Parliament,  and  at  the 
general  election,  when  the  whole  country  rang  with  the  cry  of  "  The  bill, 
the  whole  bill,  and  nothing  but  the  bill,"  Government  was  so  strongly 
supported  that  its  majority  on  the  second  reading  was  in  the  proportion 
of  five  to  three.  Though  the  Opposition  fought  stubbornly,  the  only 
material  amendment  was  one  which  extended  the  franchise  in  the  counties 
to  ^50  tenants-at-will,  such  men  having  a  very  strong  tendency  to  vote 
with  their  landlords.  The  majority  on  the  third  reading  was  not  sub- 
stantially reduced. 

The  king,  however,  was  very  much  afraid  of  a  collision  between  the 
two  Houses,  and  though  he  approved  the  bill  himself,  urged  Grey  to  modify 
it  with  a  view  to  ensuring  its  acceptance  by  the  peers.  Grey  stood  firm, 
and  the  king's  anxiety  was  justified.  After  a  brilliant  debate  the  Lords 
rejected  the  bill  in  October  by  a  majority  of  forty-one.  In  the  weeks 
following  the  rejection  of  the  bill,  public  excitement  was  roused  to  a  very 
high  pitch.  In  many  parts  of  the  country  and  especially  at  Bristol  there 
were  serious  riots.  Grey  was  determined  to  bring  the  bill  in  again  with 
little  modification.  Negotiations  with  a  view  to  compromise  came  to 
nothing.  When  the  new  session  was  opened  in  December  there  were 
changes,  but  not  of  principle.  A  slight  variation  in  the  basis  of  dis- 
franchisement, and  the  preservation  of  the  existing  number  of  seats  without 
diminution,  reduced  the  number  of  seats  cancelled  to  about  a  hundred 
and  forty  and  further  increased  the  representation  of  the  counties  and  of 
new  boroughs.  The  bill  was  carried  on  the  second  reading  in  the 
Commons,  this  time  by  a  majority  of  two  to  one,  and  on  the  third  reading 
the  majority  was  again  larger  than  in  the  case  of  the  previous  bill. 

The  king  was  intensely  opposed  to  coercing  the  peers  by  a  creation 


794  THE   ERA   OF   REVOLUTIONS 

which  would  swamp  their  majority.  Grey,  with  his  aristocratic  instincts, 
was  extremely  anxious  to  avoid  such  a  step,  but  still  held  to  it  as  a 
power  to  be  used  in  the  last  resort  ;  and  he  was  authorised  to  say  that  in  the 
last  resort  the  power  might  be  exercised.  The  peers  were  induced  to  pass 
the  second  reading,  though  by  a  majority  of  only  nine.  The  king  was 
taking  alarm  at  the  temper  which  was  being  displayed  in  the  country,  and 
his  own  most  conservative  instincts  were  being  disturbed.  The  Opposition 
felt  emboldened,  aud  three  weeks  later  carried  an  amendment  which  in 
effect  shelved  the  bill.  Grey  thereupon  advised  the  creation  of  a  number 
of  peers  sufficient  to  ensure  the  passing  of  the  bill,  with  the  resignation  of 
the  ministry  as  the  alternative.  The  king  accepted  their  resignation,  and 
called  upon  Wellington  to  form  an  administration  for  the  purpose  of 
carrying  a  modified  Reform  Bill.  The  Duke,  who  considered  it  his  duty 
to  suppress  his  personal  views  and  to  carry  out  the  king's  wishes,  tried  to 
do  so,  but  Peel  refused  to  join  him.  A  week  was  long  enough  to  prove 
that  the  attempt  was  hopeless,  and  the  king  recalled  Grey.  Wellington  was 
informed  that  the  necessities  of  the  case  would  be  met  by  the  abstention  of 
a  sufficient  number  of  peers  to  allow  the  passage  of  the  bill.  Accepting 
this  course  as  preferable  to  the  creation  of  fifty  new  peers,  the  Duke 
persuaded  some  hundred  of  the  lords  to  withdraw,  and  the  bill  was  carried, 
receiving  the  royal  assent  on  June  7th. 

Limited  as  the  franchise  still  was,  so  that  the  manual  labourers, 
conventionally  described  as  the  *'  working  classes,"  continued  to  be  excluded 
from  it,  the  great  Reform  Bill  nevertheless  destroyed  the  old  oligarchy 
and  transferred  the  political  centre  of  gravity  to  the  middle  class.  Corre- 
sponding changes  were  made  in  Scotland  and  Ireland,  where  the  represen- 
tation of  the  former  was  increased  by  eight  members  and  of  the  latter 
by  five. 


IV 

INDIA  AND   THE   COLONIES 

In  India  Lord  Hastings,  like  his  predecessors,  continued  after  the  war 
with  Nepal  to  hnd  it  impossible  to  avoid  native  wars  and  the  expansion  of 
British  dominion.  The  treatment  of  the  Marathas  after  the  removal  of 
Lord  Wellesley  had  in  fact  encouraged  them  to  watch  for  opportunities  of 
further  aggression.  Sheltered  by  the  Maratha  chiefs,  large  bodies  of  law- 
less soldiery  known  as  Pindaris  or  Pathans  established  themselves  within 
Maratha  territory  and  carried  their  devastations  all  over  Central  India. 
British  protests  were  met  by  promises  which  were  left  carefully  unfulfilled, 
and  it  was  impossible  to  doubt  that  it  was  the  intention  of  the  confederacy 
to  foster  and  encourage  the  Pindaris  as  allies,  by  whose  aid  the  British 
authority  could  be  set  at  defiance.      It  became  clear  to  Hastings  that  the 


FROM    WATERLOO   TO   THE    REFORM    BILL     795 

preservation  of  order  and  security  in  India  imperatively  demanded  the 
suppression  of  these  robber  bands  which  held  the  whole  peaceful  population 
in  terror.  In  18 16  George  Canning  had  become  President  of  the  Board  of 
Control,  and,  realising  the  nature  of  the  emergency  and  the  appalling 
character  of  the  Pindari  raids,  he  gave  Hastings  a  free  hand. 

Accordingly  in  1817  Hastings  opened  h'lF  campaign  for  the  suppression 
of  the  Pindaris,  the 
operations  being  on  a 
scale  very  much  larger 
than  had  ever  before 
been  undertaken  in 
India  ;  for  as  matters 
stood,  it  was  practically 
certain  that  unless  an 
overwhelming  force 
were  employed  the  en- 
tire Maratha  confeder- 
acy would  take  part  with 
the  robber  hordes. 
Sindhia,  fortunately  for 
himself,  was  isolated  and 
paralysed  for  action  by 
the  disposition  of  the 
British  troops.  Else- 
where, however,  al- 
though the  Pindari  chiefs 
were  quickly  forced  to  a 
formal  submission,  both 
the  Peishwa  and  the 
Bhonsla  attacked  the 
British,  and  the  Pindari 
campaign  was  converted 
into  a  Maratha  war.  The 
general  results  were    as 


India  in  the  early  nineteenth  century. 


concerned  Sindhia  that  the  British  extended  their  protection  to  the  Rajput 
states,  over  which  he  had  usurped  an  ascendency  which  the  Rajputs 
abominated.  At  Nagpur  a  new  Bhonsla  was  set  up,  who  was  a  minor, 
and  the  administration  was  temporarily  taken  over  by  the  British.  The 
Pathans  and  Pindaris  were  completely  broken  up  and  many  of  them  were 
absorbed  into  the  British  sepoy  army.  The  young  Holkar  accepted  a 
subsidiary  alliance  of  the  normal  type  which  was  already  in  force  with 
the  Gaekwar.  But  the  whole  of  the  territories  of  the  Peishwa,  with  the 
exception  of  the  state  of  Satara,  were  annexed,  and  the  Peishwa  himself 
was  removed  to  an  estate  on  the  Ganges  basin  with  the  enjoyment  of  an 
exceedingly    substantial    pension.       Satara    was    reserved    to    the    puppet 


796  THE   ERA    OF   REVOLUTIONS 

"royal"  family  of  the  Marathas,  the  descendants  of  Sivaji,  the  founder 
of  the  Maratha  power. 

By  way  of  contrast  to  the  penalties  of  increased  formal  dependence 
imposed  upon  the  Maratha  states,  a  more  dignified  status  was  offered  to 
the  two  great  Mohammedan  princes,  the  Nizam  and  the  Wazir  of  Oudh, 
as  the  reward  of  their  loyalty.  Both  were  officially  lieutenants  of  the 
Mogul,  whose  legal  dignity  Wellesley  had  made  a  point  of  upholding. 
Hastings  now  offered  to  both  the  title  of  king  or  "  Padishah,"  implying  an 
independent  monarchy.  Behind  the  offer  lay  the  intention  of  diminishing 
the  prestige  of  the  titular  sovereign  of  India,  a  step  viewed  with  extreme 
suspicion  by  the  Mussulman  population,  though  not  with  any  special  dis- 
favour by  the  Hindus.  The  Nizam  disdained  the  proffered  honour  as 
being  inconsistent  with  his  loyalty  to  the  Mogul ;  the  Wazir  of  Oudh  was 
less  scrupulous,  and  became  henceforth  the  king  of  Oudh.  It  must  be 
remarked  at  the  same  time,  with  regard  to  the  treatment  of  the  Marathas, 
that  the  Peishwa  had  for  the  last  century  been  the  nominal  head  of  the 
Maratha  confederacy  which,  when  united,  had  hitherto  been  the  one  great 
Hindu  power  in  the  Peninsula.  There  was  now  no  Peishwa,  no  one  with 
a  traditional  title  to  be  regarded  as  the  head  of  the  Marathas.  Thus  the 
total  result  in  1819  was  not  merely  the  addition  of  extensive  territory  to 
the  British  dominion,  but  a  marked  step  towards  the  formal  assertion  of 
actual  British  sovereignty. 

Three  years  later  Lord  Hastings  resigned  ;  but  for  the  suicide  of  Castle- 
reagh  George  Canning  would  have  succeeded  him  as  Governor-General. 
But  Canning  was  needed  at  the  Foreign  Office,  and  the  Indian  appointment 
was  given  to  Lord  Amherst.  Once  more  expansion  was  forced  upon  the 
Governor-General,  but  not  in  the  peninsula  itself.  This  time  the  challenge 
came  from  Burmah,  which  lay  beyond  the  sphere  of  operations  of  the 
various  empires  which  had  dominated  India.  The  Burmese  were  racially 
distinct  from  the  peoples  of  India,  being  more  nearly  akin  to  the  Chinese; 
moreover  they  were  Buddhists,  a  religion  which  had  taken  its  rise  in 
Hindustan  but  had  failed  to  retain  its  hold  there,  while  it  established  its 
ascendency  among  the  peoples  beyond  the  mountains  on  the  east  and 
north.  The  Burmese  empire  was  extensive,  but  it  was  in  a  great  degree 
isolated  from  India  by  the  barrier  of  the  mountains  and  the  sea  ;  and  the 
Burmese  emperor  suffered  from  illusions  as  to  his  own  power  and  that  of 
the  British.  Before  Lord  Hastings  left  India  the  Burmese  monarch  de- 
manded from  him  the  "  restoration  "  of  that  part  of  Bengal  which  lay  on 
the  north-east  of  the  Ganges  Delta,  which,  of  course,  had  never  belonged 
to  Burmah  at  all.  Hastings  had  treated  this  communication  as  a  forgery. 
But  when  Amherst  arrived  he  found  that  the  Burmese  were  taking  aggres- 
sive action  on  the  frontier.  His  warnings  were  treated  with  contempt  as 
impertinences,  and  it  at  once  became  obvious  that  an  appeal  must  be  made 
to  force.  In  May  1824  an  expedition  was  despatched  to  Pegu,  which 
occupied    Rangoon  ;    but   the    character   of    the   climate   and   the   country 


FROM    WATERLOO   TO   THE    REFORM    BILL     797 

delayed  further  operations  till  the  winter.  It  was  not  till  the  autumn  of 
the  next  year  that  the  progress  of  the  British  forces  impressed  upon  the 
Burmese  the  fact  that  they  had  aroused  a  dangerous  enemy  ;  and  it  was 
only  after  some  more  severe  defeats  that  the  Burmese  monarch  was  induced 
to  accept  the  British  terms.  Assam,  Arakan,  and  Tenasserim  were  annexed, 
and  a  British  Resident  was  admitted  to  the  Burmese  capital  at  Ava.  The 
nearest  equivalent  in  the  West  of  the  term  Resident  as  employed  in  Indian 
politics  is  Ambassador. 

Unfortunately,  there  had  been  much  mismanagement  in  the  conduct  of 
the  Burmese  war,  so  that  what  ought  to  have  been  a  short  and  sharp 
campaign  was  dragged  out  over  a  couple  of  years.  A  bad  impression  was 
produced  in  India  itself,  and  the  principality  of  Bhartpur  lying  on  the  west 
of   the  river  Jumna  tried  the  experiment  of  defying  British  intervention. 


Bombay  Fort  in  the  early  nineteenth  century. 
[From  a  drawing  by  William  Westall,  A.R.A.] 

The  result  was  that  the  citadel  of  Bhartpur,  which  had  been  regarded  as 
impregnable,  was  captured,  and  British  invincibility  was  decisively  re- 
asserted. The  fall  of  Bhartpur  impressed  the  native  mind  more  strikingly 
than  the  operations  of  the  Pindari  war,  and  sixteen  years  passed  before  any 
other  attempt  was  made  to  challenge  British  authority.  In  the  Punjab, 
beyond  the  Sutlej,  Ranjit  Singh  had  consolidated  an  exceedingly  powerful 
monarchy  since  the  beginning  of  the  century  ;  but  that  very  shrewd  ruler 
consistently  through  all  his  life  realised  that  the  British  were  not  to  be 
challenged  ;  and  in  all  his  relations  with  them  took  very  good  care  not  to 
transgress  those  limits  of  his  activities  imposed  by  the  danger  of  a  direct 
collision  with  the  Lords  Paramount  of  India. 

After  Bhartpur,  then,  the  interests  of  our  Indian  history  for  several 
years  centre  entirely  in  administrative  reforms  associated  mainly  with 
the  Governor-Generalship  of  Lord  William  Bentinck. 

Bentinck,  who  succeeded  Amherst  in  1828,  may  be  taken  as  representing 
the  more  liberal  spirit  which  was   predominant  in  British  politics  after  the 


798  THE   ERA    OF   REVOLUTIONS 

retirement  of  Lord  Liverpool,  a  spirit  in  which  the  principal  danger  for 
India  lay  in  the  disposition  of  the  government  to  assume  the  appropriate- 
ness of  Western  ideas  to  Eastern  conditions.  The  gains  effected  in  actual 
administration,  in  the  increased  security  of  life  and  property,  the  improve- 
ment of  material  conditions,  and  the  spread  of  education,  were  enormous, 
though  in  some  respects  sufficient  account  was  not  taken  of  native 
traditions  and  native  prejudices,  which  were  not  fully  understood.  But 
the  wisdom  of  the  main  lines  followed,  and  the  great  preponderance  of 
beneficial  results,  are  beyond  dispute. 

Four  reforms  in  particular  may  be  emphasised,  the  abolition  of 
practices  of  an  essentially  barbarous  character.  The  first  of  these  was 
satt — the  Hindu  custom  that  when  a  man  died  his  widow  should  sacrifice 
herself  on  his  funeral  pyre.  In  theory  the  action  was  voluntary,  an  act  of 
self-dedication ;  in  practice  it  was  habitually  forced  upon  reluctant  victims. 
Bentinck  ventured  on  the  suppression,  in  spite  of  very  great  fears  that  it 
would  be  followed  by  an  outburst  of  fanaticism ;  but  the  expectation 
happily  proved  to  be  without  foundation.  A  very  much  more  difficult 
affair  was  the  suppression  of  thuggee.  The  thugs  were  a  secret  society 
with  ramifications  all  over  India  devoted  to  robbery  and  murder,  principally 
committed  on  the  persons  of  lonely  travellers  who  vanished  and  left  no 
trace.  The  thugs  were  believed  to  work  under  the  protection  of  a 
particularly  powerful  goddess,  and  so  great  were  the  material  and  super- 
stitious terrors  which  they  inspired  that  there  was  extraordinary  difficulty 
in  procuring  any  sort  of  evidence  against  them  ;  nevertheless  the  work 
was  accomplished,  mainly  by  the  persistent  energy  and  skill  of  Colonel 
Sleeman.  Even  the  existence  of  the  organisation  had  been  previously 
unsuspected  by  the  authorities.  Yet  ten  years  after  Sleeman  commenced 
his  operations,  it  had  practically  ceased  to  exist. 

The  third  was  the  organised  system  of  brigandage  known  as  dacoity, 
in  which  large  numbers  of  apparently  respectable  persons  were  found  to 
be  concerned.  Here,  again,  the  process  of  identification  and  the  collection 
of  evidence  presented  extraordinary  difficulties,  and  several  years  elapsed 
before  fear  of  the  law  overpowered  fear  of  the  dacoits.  The  fourth  evil 
practice  successfully  put  down  was  that  of  infanticide,  the  habitual  murder 
of  girl  babies,  a  practice  which  had  arisen  out  of  the  crushing  cost  of 
marriages,  while  the  marrying  of  daughters  was  looked  upon  as  an 
imperative  religious  duty.  Here  the  suppression  was  effected  by  removing 
the  main  motive  for  the  custom  rather  than  by  punishing  the  offence,  for 
the  difficulty  of  proving  that  an  infant  had  been  murdered  was  enormous. 
The  matter  therefore  was  dealt  with  by  legal  restrictions  on  the  expenditure 
at  marriages  and  the  exclusion  from  the  attendant  ceremonies  of  the  hordes 
of  beggars  on  whom  it  was  considered  a  religious  duty  to  bestow  alms  on  such 
occasions.  Other  reforms  belong  also  to  the  period  of  Bentinck's  adminis- 
tration, which  have  to  be  associated  with  the  more  decisive  ascendency 
of  Whig  doctrine  that  came  into  force  after  the  carrying  of  the  Reform  Bill. 


FROM    WATERLOO   TO   THE    REFORM    BILL     799 

The  history  of  Colonial  Expansion  during  this  period  is  not  marked  by 
striking  events.  In  the  Canadas  certain  family  groups  became  estabhshed 
as  a  dominant  poHtical  aristocracy  which  monopoHsed  administrative 
appointments  and  administrative  control,  somewhat  as  the  Undertakers  had 
done  in  Ireland  before  the  Union.  There  was  therefore  growing  discontent, 
especially  in  Lower  Canada,  where  the  population  was  mainly  French  and 
Catholic,  while  the  group  leagued  in  what  was  called  the  Family  Compact 
was  British  and  Protestant.  Matters  however  did  not  come  to  a  head 
until  about  the  time  when  Queen  Victoria  succeeded  her  uncle  on  the 
British  throne.  Another  point  to  be  observed,  however,  is  that  the  pressure 
of  industrial  troubles  in  the  British  Isles,  with  other  causes,  brought  about 
an  increasing  emigration  especially  from  Scotland,  which  added  a  demo- 
cratic element  in  the  Canadas,  New  Brunswick,  and  Nova  Scotia. 

In  South  Africa  the  British  population  began  to  accumulate  beside  the 
descendants  of  the  Dutch  and  French  Huguenot  families  which  had  been 
in  possession  for  a  couple  of  centuries.  The  new  settlers  were  planted 
largely  between  Capetown  and  the  Kaffir  districts  on  the  east,  and  this 
increased  the  risk  of  collisions  with  the  natives.  For  some  time,  however, 
there  was  as  Httle  interference  with  or  alteration  in  the  Dutch  laws  and 
institutions  as  in  the  case  of  the  French  in  Canada.  But  before  1830  the 
government,  which  was  still  in  the  hands  of  a  Governor  and  a  nominated 
Council,  began  to  introduce  changes  in  accordance  with  British  ideas,  very 
much  to  the  offence  of  the  extremely  conservative  and  suspicious  Dutch 
population.  The  changes  in  themselves  were  undoubtedly  improvements ; 
the  objection  to  them  lay  in  the  fact  that  they  were  resented  and  misunder- 
stood by  the  people  upon  whom  they  were  forced  in  a  manner  which  did 
not  attempt  to  be  tactful.  It  was  particularly  ominous  of  trouble  that  the 
British  authorities  were  moved  by  prevalent  humanitarian  sentiments,  and 
were  inclined  to  go  as  much  too  far  in  crediting  the  native  races  with  a 
capacity  for  the  immediate  development  of  the  virtues  of  civilisation  as  the 
Dutch,  in  accordance  with  their  own  tradition,  went  too  far  in  treating 
them  as  belonging  to  a  lower  and  distinctly  vicious  order  of  creation. 
Again  these  effects  were  to  make  themselves  more  prominently  felt  after 
the  passage  of  the  Reform  Bill  in  London. 

Lastly,  we  have  to  record  the  slow  progress  of  colonisation  in  Australia. 
The  first  colony  of  New  South  Wales  with  its  nucleus  at  Sydney  included 
Tasmania  as  well  as  the  East  Australian  seaboard.  Soldiers  and  convicts, 
when  their  term  of  service  expired,  were  allowed  to  settle  on  the  land  under 
the  control  of  a  military  governor.  In  18 12  Tasmania  was  separated  from 
New  South  Wales.  The  arrival  of  other  settlers  was  slow,  the  convict 
settlements  having  a  repelling  effect.  But  after  the  peace  M'Quarrie,  the 
Governor  of  New  South  Wales,  made  energetic  efforts  to  encourage  immi- 
gration, and  received  assistance  both  in  the  shape  of  expenditure  by  the 
imperial  government  and  from  the  agricultural  and  industrial  depression 
which    was    driving    emigrants    still    more    rapidly    both    to    Canada    and 


8oo  THE    ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

to  South  Africa.  By  1826  there  were  thirty  thousand  inhabitants  in 
New  South  Wales,  and  the  free  settlers  from  home  considerably  out- 
numbered the  convict  group.  Between  181 3  and  1831  a  good  deal  of 
exploration  was  carried  out,  and  vast  areas  were  taken  up  for  sheep  farming. 
The  new  colony  of  Western  Australia  was  started  in  1829,  and  marked  the 
beginning  of  a  new  movement  towards  expansion,  having  its  sources  in 
England. 


CHAPTER   XXXIII 

THE   ERA 

I 

THE   INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION 

At  the  moment  when  the  younger  Pitt  came  into  power  in  1784,  England 
and  Scotland  were  beginning  to  feel  the  first  effects  of  the  impulses  and 
the  inventions  which  in  the  course  of  fifty  years  revolutionised  the  industrial 
system  and  changed  the  bases  of  the  whole  social  structure.  The  tools 
worked  by  hand  were  already  largely  displaced  by  machinery  driven  by 
water-power  ;  already  the  initial  difficulties  which  James  Watt  had  found 
in  making  his  steam-engine  workable  had  been  mastered,  and  steam-power 
was  being  applied  to  mills.  Already  the  development  of  a  canal  system 
had  provided  new  facilities  of  transport  and  immensely  increased  traffic, 
and  already  the  renewed  process  of  enclosure  was  submerging  the  yeoman. 
Before  the  next  fifty  years  were  over,  steam  had  become  the  driving  power  of 
the  machinery  which  made  Great  Britain  the  world's  workshop  ;  steam  had 
been  at  last  applied  to  locomotion,  so  that  as  concerns  traffic  the  changes 
brought  about  by  the  canals  were  on  the  verge  of  becoming  relatively  insignifi- 
cant ;  and  a  few  years  were  to  see  the  steamship  on  its  way  to  supersede  the 
sailing  vessel.  The  yeoman  had  disappeared  altogether,  and  the  main 
population  of  England  was  no  longer  rural  but  had  become  urban.  A  new 
phenomenon  in  the  world's  history,  an  industrial  nation,  had  come  into 
being,  pregnant  with  new  problems.  And  society  was  barely  beginning 
to  think  of  adjusting  itself  to  the  new  conditions,  barely  beginning  to 
realise  that  the  conditions  were  new  and  unprecedented.  It  was  still  unable 
to  distinguish  between  the  social  revolution  born  in  France,  a  revolt 
against  feudalism,  a  revolution  of  ideas,  and  the  economic  revolution  born 
in  England,  a  revolution  in  material  conditions. 

The  application  of  water-power  meant  the  setting  up  of  machinery  and 
the  aggregation  of  workers  where  water-power  was  available.  The  applica- 
tion of  steam-power  meant  the  setting  up  of  machinery  and  the  aggregation 
of  workers  v.'here  coal  was  readily  available.  The  demands  of  the  new 
machinery  for  coal  and  iron  gathered  workers  to  the  coal-fields  and  the 
iron-fields.  These  causes  combined  to  shift  the  weight  of  population  from 
the  south  to  the  north  ;  it  made  the  northern  counties  the  most  populous 
instead  of  the  least  populous  area  of  the  kingdom,  and  turned  places  which 


8o2  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

had  been  unimportant  villages  into  crowded  towns.  But  the  population 
multiplied  more  rapidly  that  the  employment  increased ;  and  so  long  as 
the  increased  output  of  machinery  outstripped  the  increased  demand  for 
goods  which  followed  upon  the  lessened  cost  of  production,  the  setting 
up  of  machinery  diminished  employment.  Machinery  appeared  to  the 
labourer  to  be  a  device  to  enable  rich  men  to  take  the  bread  out  of  the 
mouths  of  the  poor.  They  had  no  chance  of  realising  that  in  the  long  run 
machinery  would  mean  increased  employment  ;  and  even  if  they  had  been 
able  to  realise  it,  the  prospect  of  good  wages  in  the  remote  future  did  not 
compensate  for  low  wages  or  none  in  the  pre- 
sent. Therefore  in  the  eyes  of  the  working  men 
machinery  was  an  evil  thing ;  and  with  low 
wages  and  short  employment  came  outbreaks 
of  machine-smashing  and  general  violence,  which 
kept  alive  the  conviction  that  only  by  stern  re- 
pression could  the  country  be  saved  from  a 
repetition  of  the  horrors  which  had  taken  place 
in  France. 

The  fear  of  Jacobinism,  not  the  desire  to 
control  labour  in  the  interests  of  capital,  was  the 
reason  of  the  laws  which  in  1799  and  1800 
prohibited  combinations  and  unions  whether  of 
masters  or  of  workmen.  The  Government  looked 
upon  associations  as  in  themselves  dangerous, 
as  instruments  which  would  be  unscrupulously 
directed  to  the  subversion  of  the  political  and 
social  order.  But  in  fact  under  the  new  con- 
ditions the  prohibition  of  unions  placed  the 
employed  at  the  mercy  of  the  employers.  Con- 
certed action  on  the  part  of  employers  as  well  as  concerted  action  on  the 
part  of  the  men  was  made  illegal,  but  it  did  not  practically  affect  them. 
Unless  the  men  acted  in  concert,  the  individual  master  could  always  get 
as  many  individual  men  as  he  required  on  his  own  terms.  In  effect,  there- 
fore, the  law  intervened  on  behalf  of  the  masters  against  the  men,  while  in 
theory  it  was  applying  one  rule  to  both.  The  obvious  conclusion  for  the 
labouring  man  was  that  the  law  was  made  in  the  interest  of  the  employer 
by  the  governing  class  to  which  the  employer  belonged,  and  there  would 
be  no  fair  play  for  the  working  man  until  he  got  the  making  of  the  laws 
into  his  own  hands. 

Until  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  our  own  history  presents  us 
with  few  signs  of  class  hostility  either  widely  spread  or  bitter,  after  the 
period  of  the  great  Peasant  Revolt.  Even  Jack  Cade's  rebellion  in  the 
middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  was  not  a  revolt  of  the  lower  against 
the  upper  classes  in  the  social  scale ;  that  character  was  attributed  to  it 
only   by   later    writers  ;    and    for   that   view  there   was    no    better   ground 


The  extended  dress  of  17S9. 
[From  a  print.] 


THE   ERA  803 

than  that  the  leaders  made  use  of  such  discontent  as  survived  among  the 
peasantry  to  increase  their  following.  The  revolts  in  the  Tudor  period 
were  not  risings  of  class  against  class,  of  poor  against  rich,  but  were 
the  outcome  of  quite  specific  grievances.  The  Great  Rebellion  was  in  no 
sense  a  war  of  classes.  There  was  no  widespread  sense  of  antagonism 
between  labour  and  capital.  But  that  was  precisely  the  new  sense  which 
was  brought  into  being  by  the  new  manufacture.  Until  the  new  manu- 
facture came  into  play  the  labourer  himself  possessed  the  tools  of  his  trade. 
For  the  most  part  also  his  trade  was  not  his  sole  means  of  livelihood.  But 
with  the  new  manufacture,  accompanied  by  the  new  period  of  enclosure, 
his  trade  became  his  sole  means  of  livelihood,  and  he  was  entirely 
dependent  on  the  employer,  who  owned  the  whole  machinery  of  pro- 
duction. The  disappearance  of  the  yeoman,  and  of  the  cottar  who  derived 
a  part  of  his  living  from  the  plot  of  ground  which  he  occupied,  drew  a 
sharper  distinction  between  the  capitaHst  class  which  paid  wages  for  labour 
and  the  labouring  class  which  gave  labour  for  wages,  between  the  wage 
payers  and  the  wage  earners.  And  precisely  at  the  moment  when  the 
severance  of  classes  was  becoming  more  definite  and  marked  came  the 
French  Revolution,  the  uprising  of  oppressed  against  oppressing  classes, 
which,  looked  at  from  another  point  of  view,  was  an  anarchical  revolt 
against  all  lawful  authority.  It  was  inevitable  that  the  one  point  of  view 
should  be  adopted  by  the  dependent  classes  who  had  no  share  in  the 
government  and  the  other  by  the  class  on  whom  they  were  dependent,  who 
monopolised  the  government.  It  was  inevitable  also  that  the  two  classes 
should  conceive  of  their  respective  interests  as  mutually  antagonistic.  The 
employer,  conscious  of  his  own  intention  to  be  just,  was  indignant  because 
the  operative  did  not  recognise  his  justice  ;  the  operative  could  see  no 
justice  in  a  system  under  which  his  wages  were  low  and  precarious  while 
the  employer  grew  rich,  as  he  argued,  upon  the  proceeds  of  his  toil. 
The  new  manufacturing  conditions,  therefore,  created  an  antagonism 
between  labour  and  capital  for  which  the  old  conditions  had  provided  no 
basis. 

In  the  agricultural  districts,  however,  the  effect  was  not  quite  the 
same  ;  the  cottar-holding,  the  small  farm,  and  the  open  field,  were  absorbed 
into  large  farms,  and  the  large  fields  partitioned  by  hedgerows  came  into 
existence,  which  we  have  learned  to  look  upon  as  the  characteristic  of 
English  landscape  in  all  agricultural  districts.  The  small  farmer  and  the 
cottar  were  turned  into  wage-earning  agricultural  labourers  ;  but  the  wage- 
payer  was  the  large  farmer,  not  the  landowner.  The  large  farmer  could 
conduct  his  operations  with  a  very  much  more  economical  distribution  of 
labour  than  was  possible  under  the  old  system;  but  the  antagonism  between 
the  rural  wage-payers  and  wage-earners  was  very  much  modified  by  the 
new  application  of  the  Poor  Law.  With  a  large  overplus  of  labour  on 
the  market,  wages  were  low  and  employment  was  insufficient.  The  powers 
bestowed  upon  the  magistrates  by  Gilbert's  Act  were  brought  into  play ; 


8o4  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

the  Speenhamland  Board  led  the  disastrous  way  by  supplementing  wages 
out  of  rates,  and  other  boards  all  over  the  country  followed  suit.  Wherever 
wages  were  below  a  certain  level  an  allowance  was  made  to  the  labourer, 
and  that  allowance  was  increased  according  to  the  size  of  his  family.  Thus 
a  subsistence  was  secured  to  the  labourer,  while  he  was  encouraged  to 
increase  his  family  and  replenish  the  earth,  since  the  enlargement  of  the 
population  was  regarded  as  an  object  of  national  importance,  emphasised 
by  the  war.  But  the  system,  while  it  preserved  the  labourer  from  desti- 
tution, at  the  same  time  deprived  him  of  all  sense  of  responsibility.     It 

destroyed  the  relation  between  work 
and  wages,  because  whether  wages  were 
high  or  low,  subsistence  was  secured  ; 
and  the  farmer  did  not  realise  that  he 
was  making  up  by  the  payment  of  high 
rates  what  he  saved  by  the  payment  of 
low  wages. 

The  war  too  cam.e  to  help  the  agri- 
cultural community  in  another  way. 
While  the  rapid  increase  of  the  popula- 
tion necessitated  an  increased  food 
supply,  the  war  prevented  that  supply 
from  being  supplemented  from  abroad. 
The  price  of  corn  rose,  and  it  became 
possible  to  bring  under  cultivation  great 
areas  of  land  which  it  had  not  before 
paid  to  put  under  the  plough  ;  thus 
employment  was  increased.  The  prices 
which  made  the  cultivation  of  inferior 
land  pay  made  the  better  land  pay 
enormously  ;  the  landlords  were  able 
to  obtain  very  high  rents,  while  the  farmer  still  pocketed  large  profits. 
The  price  of  corn  was  fixed  at  that  which  made  the  poorer  land  pay, 
because  if  it  had  been  lowered  the  poorer  land  would  have  gone  out  of 
cultivation,  the  supply  would  have  run  short,  and  the  price  would  have 
gone  up  again. 

The  war  came  to  an  end,  and  the  agricultural  interest,  landlords, 
farmers,  and  labourers,  were  faced  with  the  prospect  of  lowered  prices. 
Land  would  go  out  of  cultivation  since  the  supply  of  food  would  be  made 
good  from  abroad.  Employment  would  diminish  ;  the  capital  expended 
on  extension  would  be  thrown  away.  The  farmers'  profits  would  fall,  the 
landlords*  rents  would  fall.  Both  landlords  and  farmers  had  acquired  the 
habit  of  living  up  to  the  large  incomes  which  the  war  had  brought  them, 
and  retrenchment  would  be  exceedingly  difficult ;  to  many  of  them  it 
would  in  effect  mean  ruin.  And  beyond  their  personal  interests  there 
were,   it    appeared,    national    interests   at    stake.     The   country   would    no 


"  Royal  Affability." 

[A  caricature  by  Gillray  of  George  UI 
Agriculture.] 


,  interest  in 


should  continue   even 


THE   ERA  805 

longer  grow  a  supply  of  food  sufficient  for  its  own  need  ;  it  had  only  been 
able  to  do  so  during  the  war  by  bringing  the  poorer  land  under  cultivation. 
If  a  new  war  came,  that  land  could  not  be  at  once  brought  under 
cultivation  again,  and  the  country  would  be  starved  out.  Without  any 
consciousness  of  self-interested  motives,  the  agricultural  interest  demanded 
that  the  price  of  corn  must  be  maintained ;  and  it  procured  the  enactment 
of  the  Corn  Law  of  1815,  which  kept  up  the  high  price  of  Hving  for  the 
population  at  large  without  securing  to  the  agricultural  interest  the  war 
rates  of  profit,  while  the  steady  multiplication  of  the  mouths  to  be  fed 
made  it  yearly  more  impossible  that  the  country 
under  the  most  favourable  conditions  to  be 
self-sufficing  in  its  food  supply. 

Here,  then,  we  may  note  an  essential 
difference  in  the  nature  of  the  opposition 
between  classes  in  the  France  of  the  Frencli 
Revolution  and  the  England  of  the  Industrial 
Revolution.  In  France  the  primary  op- 
position was  between  classes  which  stood 
legally  on  a  different  footing  ;  the  privileged 
class  consisted  of  the  hereditary  lords  both 
of  the  soil  and  of  its  occupants,  a  group 
which  was  exempted  from  burdens  while 
enjoying  the  exclusive  possession  of  political 
rights.  In  England  the  technical  distinc- 
tions between  classes  recognised  by  the 
law  were  very  few.  The  political  privilege 
of  sitting  by  hereditary  right  in  one  of  the 
chambers  of  the  legislature  carried  with  it 
no  exemptions  from  public  burdens.  The  lords  of  the  soil  were  in  no 
sense  lords  of  its  occupants,  and  could  not  command  their  services; 
while,  instead  of  being  exempt  from  public  burdens,  they  provided 
through  the  land  tax  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  revenue.  The  self- 
made  burgess  and  merchant  had  the  same  political  rights  as  the  land- 
owner ;  they  and  the  landowners  who  were  commoners  were  not  even 
barred  from  the  prospect  of  acquiring  the  additional  political  rights  of 
Peers  of  the  Realm;  the  law  recognised  no  aristocratic  caste.  Politically 
it  drew  the  line  between  persons  possessed  of  a  certain  amount  of  property 
and  the  rest,  but  in  theory  there  was  nothing  to  prevent  any  number  of 
the  rest  from  crossing  the  line  by  becoming  possessed  of  the  necessary 
amount  of  property.  The  antagonism  was  between  wealth  and  poverty, 
and  it  only  became  acute  when  translated  into  terms  of  Capital  and  Labour. 
As  often  as  not,  the  capitalist  himself  or  his  father  had  risen  from  the 
ranks  by  a  combination  of  intelligence,  energy,  and  good  fortune,  in  which 
he  probably  allowed  much  less  credit  to  the  last  element  than  his 
neighbours  were  inchned  to  do.     If  the  law  intervened  between  him  and 


"Farmer"  George. 

[From  Gillray's  caricature.] 


8o6  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

his  workmen  it  was  only  to  insist  that  neither  should  coerce  the  other  by 
combination.  It  did  not  strike  the  employer  that  whereas  the  individual 
workman  could  by  no  possibility  coerce  him,  there  was  no  difficulty  what- 
ever in  his  coercing  the  individual  workman.  Nor  did  it  strike  him  that 
while  he  could  set  the  law  in  motion  against  the  workman  who  broke 
it,  the  individual  workman  was  quite  incapable  of  reversing  the  process  ; 
whereby  the  law,  nominally  even-handed,  could  be  called  in  to  his  support 
if  he  wanted  it  but  not  to  that  of  the  workman.  Yet  it  was  this  fact 
which  convinced  the  workman  that  the  law  was  on  the  side  of  the  capitalist, 
and  would  only  cease  to  be  so  when  the  workman  himself  had  the  making 
of  it.  In  short,  the  antagonism  in  France  was  between  the  peasant  and 
the  bourgeois  on  the  one  side  and  the  aristocrat  on  the  other ;  in  England 
it  was  between  the  workman  and  the  capitalist  employer. 

The  interests  of  the  employer  and  the  interests  of  the  workman  were 
opposed  on  the  broad  principle  that  it  was  to  the  advantage  of  the  former 
to  procure  labour  at  the  lowest  possible  wage.  If  there  were  employers 
who  realised  that  they  could  get  better  value  by  paying  higher  wages,  they 
were  rare.  Nearly  all  of  those  who  paid  more  than  the  lowest  available 
rates  did  so  from  motives  of  humanity,  believing  that  they  were  acting  to 
the  detriment  of  their  own  material  interests.  While  the  supply  of  labour 
exceeded  the  demand,  and  employers  remained  convinced  that  cheap 
labour  served  their  interest,  labour  could  hope  for  improved  conditions 
only  through  legislation  or  combination.  But  it  was  vain  to  look  to 
legislation  unless  it  obtained  control  of  the  legislature.  It  was  useless  to 
look  to  combination  ;  for  even  before  the  eighteenth  century  the  judges 
were  treating  organisation  as  conspiracy  under  the  common  law,  and  in 
the  last  two  years  of  the  century  the  combination  laws  made  concerted 
action  on  the  part  of  men  or  masters  a  specific  offence.  The  workmen 
were  debarred  even  from  combining  to  set  the  law  in  motion ;  and  being 
able  to  act  only  as  individuals,  for  practical  purposes  they  could  not  act 
at  all,  even  when  masters  acted  illegally.  Magistrates  had  power  to  impose 
a  scale  of  wages  on  the  masters,  but  if  the  men  combined  to  compel 
the  masters  to  pay  according  to  the  scale  they  were  sent  to  prison  ; 
while  obviously  it  would  have  been  perfectly  futile  for  individual  workmen 
acting  separately  to  claim  at  law  the  wage  to  which  they  were  legally 
entitled. 

The  law,  however,  did  not  operate  effectively  against  all  combinations, 
but  chiefly  against  those  of  unskilled  workmen,  who  were  suspected  of  being 
as  a  matter  of  course  revolutionaries.  It  was  recognised  that  the  skilled 
workman  had  a  stake  in  society  and  a  consequent  preference  for  the  pre- 
servation of  law  and  order.  Action  was  taken  against  combinations  only 
at  the  instance  of  masters,  and  in  the  skilled  trades  masters  were  rather 
favourably  inclined  to  combinations  among  the  men.  Hence  it  came 
about  that  in  the  reign  of  George  IV.  a  successful  movement  for  the  repeal 
of  the  Combination  Laws  was  carried  through,  which  took  its  rise  in  the 


THE   ERA  807 

skilled,  not  in  the  unskilled  trades.  It  was  the  belief  of  the  prime  mover, 
Francis  Place,  that  freedom  of  combination  would  at  once  procure  an 
adjustment  of  outstanding  questions  reasonably  satisfactory  both  to  masters 
and  men,  which  would  make  the  continued  existence  of  combinations 
superfluous.  Place  procured  the  passage  of  the  bills  of  1824  and  1825  by 
exceedingly  clever  management,  and  there  is  not  much  doubt  that  he  would 
have  failed  if  Parliament  had  realised  what  it  was  doing.  But  the  actual 
effect  was  to  secure  the  legality  of  collective  bargaining  and  of  collective 
withdrawal  from  work — in  other  words,  striking — though  there  still  re- 
mained to  the  judges  a  large  latitude  for  discovering  conspiracy  under  the 
common  law.  The  repeal  of  the  Combination  Acts,  however,  only  for  a 
moment  diverted  the  workmen  from  their  conviction  that  the  remedy  for 
their  grievances  lay  in  the  acquisition  of  political  power.     The  immediate 


The  first  steamboat,  the  Cornel,  on  the  Clyde. 

[From  a  print  of  1812.  ] 

effect  was  the  birth  of  a  large  number  of  trade  unions ;  but  the  moment 
was  unfortunate.  A  period  of  trade  depression  set  in,  unemployment  in- 
creased, and  the  new  unions  were  unable  to  prevent  the  lowering  of  wages. 
Therefore  the  impression  rapidly  prevailed  that  combination  was  unable 
to  procure  the  anticipated  benefits.  So  when  the  Reform  Bill  came,  the 
working  classes  were  angry  and  disappointed,  because  they  still  remained 
shut  out  from  political  power  ;  while  the  governing  classes  rejoiced  that 
reform  had  been  carried  far  enough  to  secure  stability,  but  had  stopped 
short  of  admitting  the  dangerous  elements  of  the  population  to  the 
franchise. 

Long  before  the  accession  of  King  George  IV.  steam  had  taken  com- 
plete possession  of  manufacture.  Water-power  had  had  its  brief  day  as 
the  predominant  agent,  and  the  old  domestic  industries  had  vanished  com- 
pletely. But  there  was  still  one  more  change  to  be  effected  by  steam 
through  its  application  to  locomotion.  Steam  traction  by  land  first  began 
to  appear  practicable  when  iron  rails  were  used  to  make  an  easy  road  for 


8o8  THE   ERA    OF    REVOLUTIONS 

trucks.  The  first  railroad  was  not  intended  for  steam  traction  ;  it  was  in 
fact  a  horse  tramway  between  Wandsworth  and  Reigate.  But  the  inven- 
tion of  a  locomotive  steam-engine  was  engaging  the  attention  of  engineers. 
In  1 812  a  boat  propelled  by  steam  was  launched  on  the  Clyde,  and  two 
years  later  George  Stephenson  had  built  his  first  locomotive  engine.  The 
first  railway  authorised  by  Act  of  Parliament  to  carry  passengers  was  that 
between  Darlington"  and  Stockton,  sanctioned  in  1823.  It  was  due  to  the 
persuasions  of  George  Stephenson  that  the  steam  locomotive  instead  of 
horse  haulage  was  permitted.  The  difficulties  which  faced  these  early 
attempts  are  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  the  first  endeavours  to  get  this  line 

authorised  were  blocked  by 
WW  the  Duke  of  Cleveland,  be- 

cause a  portion  of  the  line 
was  required  to  pass  through 
his  estate.  Without  compul- 
sory powers  of  purchase  it 
was  impossible  to  lay  down 
a  line  of  any  length  if  any 
landowner  chose  toblock  the 
way.  Moreover,  superior 
persons  scoffed  at  the  en- 
gineers, and  pointed  out  that 
the  sane  British  publicwould 
most  certainly  refuse  toallow 
itself  to  be  carried  over  the 
ground  at  the  terrific  speed 
of    sixteen    miles    an   hour. 

Stephenson's  locomotive,  the  "Rocket."  t.,  xi     1  .1         oi      1  i. 

^  Nevertheless,  the    Stockton 

and  Darlington  railway  soon  had  a  successor  in  the  line  between  Manchester 
and  Liverpool,  whose  opening  in  1830  was  the  decisive  moment  in  the  history 
of  traffic  during  the  nineteenth  century.  The  complete  success  of  that  epoch- 
marking  function  was  marred  by  the  unfortunate  accident  which  killed 
Huskisson.  But  it  was  no  longer  possible  to  doubt  that  steam  traction 
would  supersede  all  other  forms  of  transport  whether  of  passengers  or  of 
goods  by  land.  In  this,  as  in  the  creation  of  manufacturing  machinery, 
Great  Britain  took  the  lead,  which  materially  assisted  in  giving  her  an  over- 
whelming advantage  in  commercial  competition. 


II 


LITERATURE 


The    era    of   political    and    social    revolution   was    the    era    also    of   a 
revolution  in  literature,  or  at  least  in  poetical  literature.      The  spirit  which 


THE   ERA  809 

gave  birth  to  the  French  Revokition  was  one  of  revolt  against  conven- 
tions which  society  had  come  to  regard  as  conditions  of  orderly  existence. 
The  same  spirit  revolted  ^.gainst  the  conventions  which  had  made  poetry  as 
artificial  as  society.  Poetry  in  England  had  been  intellectualised,  cut  off 
from  its  emotional  basis,  severed  from  passion  and  from  nature,  cribbed, 
cabined,  and  confined  by  canons  Vv'hich  restricted  the  subjects  with  which 
it  was  permitted  to  deal  and  the  language  in  which  it  was  permitted  to 
express  itself.  Polite  culture,  however,  had  allowed  a  certain  interest  in  a 
barbaric  and  uncultivated  past.  It  had  suffered  itself  to  pay  a  tribute  of 
admiration  to  the  ballad  literature  col- 
lected by  Allan  Ramsay  in  Scotland 
and  Bishop  Percy  in  England.  It 
had  even  indulged  in  a  somewhat  un- 
critical enthusiasm  over  James  Mac- 
pherson's  Ossian,  which  claimed  to  be 
an  ancient  Celtic  Epic,  though  sceptical 
readers  such  as  Dr.  Johnson  entirely 
declined  to  endorse  its  genuineness. 

From  these  explorations  into  the 
past  came  one  of  the  impulses  which 
helped  to  bring  a  new  poetical  literature 
to  birth.  A  second  impulse  came  from 
the  fact  that  outside  the  recognised 
literary  world  the  lyric  in  its  simplest 
form,  song,  had  survived  as  a  natural 
product  among  the  Scottish  people  ever 
since  the  days  of  William  Dunbar  and 
the  reign  of  James  IV.  ;  and  Scottish 
song  suddenly  culminated  in  the  genius 
of  Robert  Burns  at  the  moment  when  England's  last  literary  dictator  was 
removed  by  the  death  of  Samuel  Johnson.  In  Scotland  Burns  was  the  last 
and  the  greatest  of  a  long  line  of  singers  ;  to  England  he  appeared  as  the 
originator  of  a  new  movement.  All  that  was  greatest  in  him  completely 
traversed  the  recognised  literary  canons.  In  the  language  of  his  own 
countryside,  not  in  the  language  of  culture,  he  expressed  the  emotions, 
the  passions  of  his  own  countryfolk,  in  verse  of  that  magical  rhythm  which 
no  art  can  acquire. 

Burns  himself  was  not  in  conscious  rebellion  against  literary  conventions, 
because  those  conventions  had  never  been  imposed  upon  him.  Neverthe- 
less the  new  spirit  was  incarnate  in  him,  hating  bondage  of  any  sort  for 
himself  or  others,  often  reckless  and  uncontrolled,  but  ardent,  sincere, 
and  full  of  a  broad  and  deep  human  sympathy.  Convention  stifled  him, 
and  when,  on  occasion,  he  deliberately  fettered  the  form  of  his  writing, 
his  individual  characteristics  disappeared  and  he  became  common' 
place. 


Robert  Burns. 
[From  the  painting  by  Nasmyth.] 


8io  THE   ERA   OF    REVOLUTIONS 

For  the  true  note  of  the  Revolution  was  Individuality,  and  its  strength 
lay  in  the  free  development  of  individual  characteristics.  The  revolutionists 
were  of  no  school ;  they  pursued  the  most  diverse  methods  and  the  most 
diverse  aims.  They  acted  upon  irreconcilable  theories ;  they  were  at  one 
only  in  their  rejection  of  the  methods  and  theories  and  aims  of  the  school 
which  had  dominated  the  eighteenth  century.  They  were  for  the  most 
part  men  to  whom  at  the  outset  the  French  Revolution  seemed  to  open 
out  vistas  of  unlimited  promise,  in  whom  it  aroused  the  passion  of  humanity 
and  the  passion  for  liberty ;  both  passions  are  perfectly  consistent  with 
the  instinct  of  conservatism,  the  love  of  order,  an  even  exaggerated  ad- 
miration of  the  past.  Many  of  them  became  the  more  conservative 
when  the  events  in  France  disappointed  their  first  enthusiastic  hopes. 
Typical  conservatives  as  well  as  typical  revolutionaries  were  numbered 
amongst  them.  But  they  all  agreed  in  breaking  away  from  the  current 
literary  ideals  and  in  asserting  their  own  individuality.  Burns  was  the 
harbinger  of  the  new  day  whose  dawn  was  signalised  by  the  publication 
in  1798  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads  by  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge,  which  in- 
cluded Coleridge's  Ancietit  Mariner  and  Wordsworth's  Tinterti  Abbey,  as 
well  as  many  other  pieces  which  exemplified  a  new  theory  of  the  poetic 
art. 

Thus  was  founded  the  "  Lake  School,"  which  was  not  a  school  at  all.  It 
was  called  a  school  and  looked  upon  as  a  school  because  its  members  were 
associated  together  as  friends  ;  and  it  was  called  the  Lake  School  because 
they  settled  for  a  time  in  proximity  to  each  other  in  the  Lake  district,  which 
Wordsworth  made  his  permanent  home.  To  realise  that  in  doctrine  and 
practice  they  were  poles  asunder,  it  is  sufficient  to  compare  the  two  master- 
pieces in  the  Lyrical  Ballads.  An  imagination  at  once  vivid  and  mystical 
and  a  haunting  melody  of  expression  were  the  primary  characteristics  of 
Coleridge.  Wordsworth  was  above  all  else  the  prophet  of  Nature,  as  the 
expression 

"  Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky  and  in  the  mind  of  man," 

the  poet  of 

"  That  blessed  mood, 
In  which  the  burthen  of  the  mystery, 
In  which  the  heavy  and  the  weary  weight 
Of  all  this  unintelligible  world 
Is  lightened." 

As  unlike  to  both  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  as  to  Pope  and  Johnson 
was  the  next  star  that  appeared  on  the  poetical  firmament,  Walter  Scott. 
Scott  was  no  prophet  ;  he  had  no  gift  of  spiritual  insight ;  but  with  him 


1 1 


THE   ERA 

poetry  resumed  its  function  as  the  medium  of  the  story-teller.  Before  long 
he  was  to  desert  poetry  for  prose  and  to  raise  the  novel  to  a  new  place  in 
literature.  Scott,  in  his  own  eyes,  was  not  at  all  a  rebel  against  the  existing 
order  ;  he  was  merely  reviving  the  conventions  of  the  past,  appropriating 
the  ballad  idea  to  new  conditions.  But  for  all  that  he  in  fact  preached  by 
his  example  a  return  to  naturalism,  to  spontaneity,  instead  of  submission  to 
the  canons  of  orthodoxy. 

Upon  Scott  followed  Byron,  superficially  the  most  rebellious  and 
fundamentally  the  most  conventional  of  the  whole  group  ;  the  most  con- 
ventional, because  he  did  not  distinguish 
between  poetry  and  rhetoric,  and  the 
great  bulk  of  his  verse  is  rhymed 
rhetoric,  according  therein  with  the 
eighteenth-century  convention.  But  he 
too  was  insistent  upon  individuality. 
Two  other  great  poets  belong  to  this 
galaxy  whose  main  poetical  work  was 
accomplished  between  1785  and  1825, 
though  three  of  them  survived  that 
date  and  Wordsworth's  life  was  pro- 
longed until  1850.  These  two,  Shelley 
and  Keats,  again  emphasise  the  wide 
diversity,  the  individualism  which  char- 
acterised the  new  era.  Keats  may  be 
called  the  high  priest  of  the  religion 
of  Beauty,  but  if  any  actual  historical 
personage  can  be  named  as  the  arche- 
type, the  supreme  expression,  of  all  that  is  meant  by  the  term  '<  Poet," 
Shelley  was  that  man. 

Poetry  was  re-born  in  the  revolutionary  era,  and  the  nineteenth  century 
learnt  to  regard  it  as  a  matter  of  course  that  there  should  be  great  poets 
living  in  England,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  great  poets  are  not  a  normal 
and  constant  product  of  any  country  in  the  world.  But  apart  from  the 
poetic  revival,  the  most  striking  literary  features  of  the  period  were  the 
creation  of  the  Review  and  the  establishment  of  the  Novel  as  the  most 
influential  form  of  creative  literature.  The  Edinburgh  and  Quarterly  and 
Blackwood  provided  new  media  for  criticism,  and  for  the  literary  treatment 
of  politics.  When  Sir  Walter  Scott  turned  from  writing  stories  in  verse  to 
writing  novels  in  prose  it  might  almost  be  said  that  the  novel  stepped  into 
the  place  which  had  once  been  occupied  in  literature  by  the  drama. 
The  literary  aspirant  came  up  to  London  with  a  novel  in  his  bag  in- 
stead of  a  tragedy  in  his  pocket.  For  a  full  half  century  Scott  continued 
to  be  acknowledged  as  the  supreme  master  ;  others  took  their  places  beside 
him  perhaps,  but   superiority  was  claimed   for  none.     Later   generations 


Sir  Walter  Scott. 

[After  the  painting  by  Raeburn.  ] 


8i2  THE   ERA    OF   REVOLUTIONS 

have  disputed  his  claims,  but  the  fact  remains  that  Scott  was  the  master 
who  taught  th2  rest  of  the  world  the  novelist's  craft.  George  Stephenson's 
"Rocket"  would  not  have  travelled  from  London  to  Edinburgh  at  a 
speed  of  seventy  miles  in  an  hour,  but  as  George  Stephenson  was  the  father 
of  the  modern  locomotive,  Walter  Scott  was  the  father  of  the  modern 
novel. 


BOOK    VII 

THE    MODERx\   BRITISH    EMPIRE 

CHAPTER   XXXIV 

THE  REFORMED  PARLIAMENT 
I 

AFTER   REFORM 

The  more  flagrant  anomalies  of  the  old  Parliamentary  system  were 
destroyed  by  the  great  Reform  Bill  in  response  to  a  strong  national 
demand.  The  effect  was  to  put  an  end  to  the  immense  preponderance 
of  political  influence  hitherto  possessed  by  the  landowners  and  to  transfer 
the  balance  of  power  to  the  manufacturing  and  trading  classes.  The 
working  man  was  still  excluded  from  the  franchise,  and  property,  after 
its  first  extreme  alarm,  again  began  to  breathe  freely.  The  concession  to 
the  middle  classes  had  in  fact  set  up  a  new  barrier  against  a  wider  demo- 
cratic movement,  and  although  the  working  classes  were  angry  and  dis- 
satisfied, the  middle  classes  in  the  main  held  the  government  of  the  country 
in  their  own  hands  for  six-and-thirty  years,  during  which  the  old  party 
titles  of  Whig  and  Tory  were  generally  displaced  by  the  new  labels  of 
Liberal  and  Conservative. 

During  most  of  those  years  Liberals  were  in  office,  and  the  foreign 
policy  of  the  Government  was  controlled  by  Lord  Palmerston,  an  Irish  peer 
who  sat  in  the  House  of  Commons  as  the  representative  of  an  English 
constituency.  Palmerston  stood  for  the  Canning  tradition  and  the  Canning 
interpretation  of  non-intervention  in  the  affairs  of  the  European  States  ; 
an  interpretation  which  claimed  for  Britain  the  right  of  intervening  to 
prevent  intervention  by  others,  and  by  no  means  permitted  the  voice  of 
Britain  to  be  ignored  in  the  councils  of  Europe,  though  she  was  only  once 
involved  in  a  European  war  as  a  consequence.  Palmerston  also  established 
the  second  tradition  of  Victorian  foreign  policy — of  regarding  Russian 
aggression  as  the  great  danger  to  be  guarded  against,  with  its  corollary  of 
preserving  the  integrity  of  the  Turkish  dominion. 

One  problem  eternally  vexed  the  souls  of  British  statesmen,  the 
problem  of  persistent  discontent  and  disorder  in   Ireland,  which  broke  up 

813 


8i4  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

more  than  one  ministry  and  seemed  no  nearer  settlement  at  the  end  of 
the  period  than  at  its  beginning.  A  second  problem,  however,  was  to  be  so 
thoroughly  settled  that  for  half  a  century  it  practically  disappeared  from 
the  field  of  political  discussion.  This  was  the  question  of  Free  Trade, 
which  may  be  called  the  principle  of  laisscz  faire  as  applied  to  commerce. 
But  in  those  questions  which  presented  themselves  as  social  there  was  no 
essential  dividing  line  between  parties  ;  although  the  stronger  hold  which 
the  hisses  faire  doctrine  had  taken  upon  Liberals  than  upon  Conservatives, 
upon  the  manufacturing  than  upon  the  landed  interests,  made  the  latter 
rather  than  the  former  advocates  of  state  intervention. 

The  general  election  which  followed  the  Reform  Bill  brought  back  to 
Westminster  a  Parliament  with  a  considerable  Liberal  majority.  Lord 
Grey  remained  at  the  head  of  the  ministry  until  the  midsummer  of  1834, 
when  he  and  some  of  his  colleagues  resigned  in  connection  with  the  Irish 
question,  and  a  reconstructed  Liberal  ministry  was  led  for  some  months 
by  Lord  Melbourne.  That  ministry  was  terminated  by  the  last  exercise 
of  the  king's  right  to  dismiss  ministers  on  his  own  responsibility.  Peel  took 
office,  but  a  general  election  still  gave  the  Opposition  a  Parliamentary 
majority ;  Peel  resigned  in  April.  Melbourne  returned  to  office,  and 
remained  at  the  head  of  the  Government,  except  for  a  brief  interregnum 
during  1839,  until  1841.  In  that  year  he  was  displaced  by  a  Conservative 
administration  under  Sir  Robert  Peel,  who  at  the  end  of  1845  broke  up 
his  party  by  proposing  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Law,  which  was  carried  in 
the  following  year.  Peel  resigned,  his  Government  having  been  defeated 
on  an  Irish  question,  and  the  Liberals,  by  whose  aid  the  Corn  Bill  had  been 
carried,  returned  to  power  under  the  leadership  of  Lord  John  Russell. 
Practically,  therefore,  during  the  twenty  years  which  followed  the  Reform 
Bill  Liberals  were  in  office  except  during  the  five  years  of  Peel's  adminis- 
tration, and  the  most  prominent  feature  of  that  administration  was  the 
gradual  adoption  by  the  Premier  of  a  policy  to  which  the  bulk  of  his 
own  party  was  opposed  while  its  principles  were  in  favour  with  the 
Liberals. 

In  the  fifth  year  of  the  reformed  Parliament  there  occurred  an  event 
of  primary  importance  in  the  development  of  the  British  constitutional 
system.  William  IV.  died,  and  was  succeeded  on  the  throne  by  a  girl  of 
eighteen.  William  had  played  his  own  part,  it  may  be  said,  successfully, 
without  attempting  to  exercise  questionable  constitutional  influence,  however 
strong  his  personal  feelings  might  be.  He  was  indubitably  within  his  con- 
stitutional rights  in  his  effort  to  avoid  a  creation  of  peers  and  in  his 
dismissal  of  Melbourne's  ministry  ;  but  it  was  a  very  grave  question  whether 
his  successor  would  follow  his  example.  Failing  the  young  princess,  the 
next  heir  to  the  throne  was  the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  notoriously  a  re- 
actionary of  a  dangerous  type,  whose  accession  might  have  led  to  a 
repetition  of  1688.  But  the  young  princess  who  succeeded  to  the  throne 
had  been  trained  to  a  very  high  sense  of  duty  ;  she  became  at  once  the 


THE    REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  815 

political  pupil  of  Lord  Melbourne,  who  taught  her  the  ideals  of  a 
constitutional  monarch,  and  she  was  happy  in  marrying  a  German  prince 
whose  sense  of  duty  was  as  high  as  her  own,  and  who  proved  himself 
capable  of  learning  to  grasp  constitutional  conceptions  remote  enough 
from  those  known  to  any  German  court.  A  sentiment  of  chivalrous 
kindliness  toward  a  young  girl  placed  in  a  very  difficult  position  revived 
the  latent  loyalty  of  her  people,  which  was  fostered  and  developed  by  her 
own  admirable  character  and  conduct.  And  this  girl  was  destined  to 
reign  for  sixty-four  years,  during  which  the  principles  of  British  con- 
stitutionalism became  too  firmly  established  to  be  easily  shaken  whether  by 
revolutionists  or  by  reactionaries. 

Another  point,  however,  must  be  noted  in  connection  with  the  accession 
of  the  queen  to  the  throne.  In  Hanover,  which,  after  18 15,  had  been 
erected  into  a  kingdom  instead  of  an  electorate,  there  was  a  male 
succession,  and  the  crown  of  Hanover  on  William's  death  passed  not  to 
the  new  queen  but  to  the  dead  king's  brother,  the  Duke  of  Cumberland. 
So  ended  the  political  link  between  Britain  and  Hanover,  and  British 
interests  were  no  longer  involved  in  essentially  German  problems  as  they 
had  inevitably  been  during  the  period  of  the  Union. 


II 

GREY  AND   MELBOURNE 

Apart  from  Ireland  Lord  Grey's  ministry  found  itself  faced  with  the 
need  for  a  considerable  amount  of  legislation.  The  charter  of  the  East 
India  Company  required  renewal  and  modification;  in  1833  the  company 
was  allowed  to  retain  its  political  position,  but  was  at  last  deprived  of  the 
old  trading  monopoly  which  it  had  hitherto  retained  as  concerned  China. 
But  the  great  questions  of  which  Parliame  it  undertook  the  handling  were 
of  the  social  and  humanitarian  type.  Grey's  Government  carried  the  Act 
for  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  and  what  is  commonly  called  the  First  Factory 
Act ;  and  it  introduced  the  Poor  Law  Amendment  Act,  which  was  carried 
by  Melbourne's  ministry  after  Grey's  own  retirement. 

Of  the  first  two  measures  it  may  be  said  that  the  public  conscience 
recognised  their  necessity,  though  it  made  no  very  clamorous  demand  for 
them.  As  to  the  third,  Poor  Law  Reform,  every  one  knew  that  it  was 
needed,  but  it  was  one  of  those  subjects  which  no  Government  could  take 
up  without  the  certainty  of  diminishing  its  own  popularity.  The  Reformed 
Parliament  did  not  always  take  the  course  which  appeared  best  after  the 
event,  but  it  was  eminently  conscientious  and  faced  its  problems  with  a 
sincere  desire  to  achieve  what  was  best  for  the  public  good. 

The  question  of  slavery  was  one  which  had  long  agitated  the  minds  of 
Englishmen.      In  the  last  century  it  had  been  laid  down  by  Lord  Mansfield 


8i6  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

that  no  one  on  the  soil  of  these  islands  was  a  slave.  By  long  and  deter- 
mined battling  Wilberforce  and  his  associates  had  at  last  driven  home  to 
the  public  conscience  the  iniquities  of  the  slave  trade  and  procured  its  pro- 
hibition. Great  Britain  had  honourably  distinguished  itself  by  the  zeal 
with  which  in  1815  it  had  urged  the  rest  of  the  European  Powers  to  follow 
its  example.  But  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade  did  not  carry  with  it  the 
abolition  of  slavery  ;  in  the  West  Indies  and  in  South  Africa  black  slaves 
were  extensively  employed  in  the  plantations  and  farms.  Nearly  all  the 
hard  labour  was  slave  labour,  and  the  slaves  were  valuable  property.  It 
was  impossible  to  abolish  slavery,  an  institution  sanctioned  by  the  state  for 
two  hundred  years,  without  compensating  the  slave-owners.  Nor  could  so 
vast  a  disorganisation  of  the  existing  system  of  labour  be  carried  through 
at  a  blow  without  disastrous  results.  There  were  absolutely  no  interests 
served  besides  those  of  the  slaves  themselves  by  abolition,  except  on  the 
theory  that  free  labour  for  wages  would  in  the  long  run  turn  out  more 
economical  than  forced,  a  doctrine  which  did  not  readily  appeal  to  those 
who  owned  the  slaves  and  would  have  to  pay  the  wages.  Nevertheless, 
British  public  opinion  completely  endorsed  the  Act,  which  set  a  term  to  the 
time  during  which  service  was  to  remain  compulsory,  declared  that  there 
was  thenceforth  no  property  in  the  persons  of  slaves,  and  provided  out 
of  British  pockets  twenty  millions  sterling  to  compensate  the  owners,  the 
largest  sum  that  has  ever  been  raised  for  a  purely  humanitarian  object 
without  any  possibility  of  a  financial  return.  Huge  as  the  sum  was,  it  by 
no  means  satisfied  the  slave-owners,  especially  among  the  Dutch  in  South 
Africa,  who  set  an  immensely  higher  value  upon  their  slaves  as  property 
than  the  sum  allotted  to  them  by  the  British  Government. 

The  demand  for  a  Factory  Act  was  also  purely  humanitarian  in  origin, 
and  was  viewed  with  extreme  disfavour  by  many  manufacturers  and  many 
also  of  the  workmen.  The  development  of  factories  during  the  last  fifty 
years,  accompanied  by  the  Poor  Law  System,  had  brought  about  an 
immense  amount  of  employment  of  children  almost  from  the  moment  when 
they  could  walk  and  talk.  In  the  depressed  condition  of  labour  the 
working-class  parents  saw  only  that  the  children  brought  grist  to  the  family 
mill  ;  they  did  not  see  that  the  cheap  child  labour  diminished  the  employ- 
ment and  the  wages  of  adults,  besides  utterly  ruining  the  health,  mental 
and  moral  as  well  as  physical,  of  the  children.  And  if  the  parents  of 
working-class  children  were  callous,  so  also  were  the  administrators  of  the 
Poor  Law  who  were  responsible  for  the  workhouse  waifs.  As  a  rule  the 
main  desire  of  the  parish  was  to  get  the  children  off  its  haiKls,  and  to  be 
free  of  the  expense  of  maintaining  them  at  the  earliest  possible  moment. 

Almost  fifty  years  before,  the  Manchester  magistrates  and  the  Manchester 
doctors  were  already  awake  to  the  evils  for  which  the  factory  system  was 
even  at  that  early  stage  beginning  to  be  responsible.  But  their  powers  en- 
abled them  to  do  nothing  more  than  to  interfere  with  apprenticeship  in  the 
old  standing  trades  scheduled  in  the  old  Statute  of  Apprentices,  which  in 


THE    REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  817 

effect  hardly  touched  the  factories.  At  the  same  time  the  Manchester 
Committees  gave  full  credit  to  the  many  cotton  mills  whose  proprietors 
were  careful  to  observe  regulations  of  their  own  for  preserving  the  health 
of  the  children  in  their  employment.  It  may  here  be  remarked  that 
Robert  Owen  in  his  mills  at  New  Lanark  worked  on  the  most  enlightened 
principles,  paying  good  wages  and  providing  for  the  education  of  the 
workmen's  children  without  putting  them  to  any  employment. 

As  early  as  1802  Sir  Robert  Peel  the  elder,  the  father  of  the  famous 
statesman,  had  procured  an  Act  which  to  a  very  slight  extent  improved 
the  working  conditions  for  apprentices  in 
cotton  and  woollen  factories.  Some  further 
infinitesimal  restrictions  were  imposed  in 
1 8 19  and  1825,  but  the  manufacturers  in 
general  were  already  up  in  arms  against 
breaches  of  the  doctrine  of  laissez  /aire,  and 
interference  with  them  in  the  management 
of  their  own  business.  Still  there  were 
other  manufacturers  who  were  philan- 
thropically  anxious  to  procure  better  con- 
ditions for  the  children,  but  could  not 
venture  to  go  far  on  their  own  account, 
fearing  that  they  would  be  too  seriously 
handicapped  in  the  competition  with  their 
less  scrupulous  neighbours.  State  regula- 
tion which  imposed  the  same  conditions 
on  all  would  secure  them  against  that 
handicap,  and  would  insist  upon  no  restrictions  which  they  themselves 
would  regard  as  objectionable. 

The  more  vigorous  movement  was  started  in  1832  by  Michael  Sadler, 
with  the  proposal  that  the  labour  of  children  should  be  restricted  to  ten 
hours  per  diem.  His  place  as  the  champion  of  philanthropic  legislation 
was  taken  in  the  Reformed  Parliament  by  Lord  Ashley,  better  known  to 
posterity  by  his  later  title  as  Lord  Shaftesbury.  Grey's  Government,  how- 
ever, chose  to  make  itself  responsible  for  an  official  measure — taking  the 
place  of  Ashley's  bill — which  not  only  created  regulations  and  imposed 
pains  and  penalties,  but  appointed  government  inspectors  to  see  that  the 
law  was  carried  out.  The  bill,  which  bears  the  name  of  Lord  Althorp, 
forbade  in  textile  factories  the  employment  of  children  under  nine,  of 
children  under  thirteen  for  more  than  nine  hours,  and  of  young  persons 
under  eighteen  for  more  than  twelve  hours.  It  is  to  be  remarked  that  the 
employers  as  a  whole  did  not  oppose  the  Factory  Act.  There  were  among 
them  the  bad  employers,  who  deliberately  desired  to  exploit  the  labour  of 
children  for  their  own  profit,  regardless  of  the  cost  to  the  children. 
There  were  those  who  were  possessed  with  a  doctrinaire  view  that  all  state 
interference  is  a  check  on  the  natural  course  of  trade,  and  therefore  in 

3  F 


Lord  Shaftesbury. 
[From  the  portrait  by  Millais.] 


8i8  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

the  end  does  more  harm  than  good.  But  in  England  the  passionate 
devotees  of  abstract  doctrines  are  rare.  The  employers  themselves  origi- 
nated the  proposal  for  state  inspection,  because  they  wanted  to  be  secure 
that,  if  regulations  were  made,  they  would  be  enforced  upon  every  one 
instead  of  being  left  to  be  carried  out  by  the  conscientious  and  ignored  by 
the  unscrupulous.  There  were,  indeed,  not  a  few  of  them  who  already 
went  as  far  as  the  new  law  demanded,  and  to  them  it  was  entirely  satis- 
factory that  their  neighbours  should  be  compelled  to  follow  suit. 

The  third  great  measure  dealt  with  the  amendment  of  the  Poor  Law. 
The  Elizabethan  Poor  Law  in  effect  served  its  purpose  in  a  fairly  satis- 
factory manner  for  a  century  and  three-quarters  with  very  little  modifica- 
tion ;  but  unemployment  and  the  relief  of  destitution  entered  upon  a  new 
phase  about  the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Gilbert's  Act  was 
introduced  to  meet  the  new  conditions,  but  in  its  practical  application  by 
magistrates  it  met  them  by  virtually  upsetting  the  principles  on  which  the 
Poor  Law  was  based.  The  old  law  gave  relief  only  to  those  who  were 
incapable  of  work,  or  who,  being  without  employment,  entered  the  work- 
house and  did  the  work  which  was  provided  for  them.  But  the  benevolent 
magistrates  under  Gilbert's  Act  provided  relief  as  well  for  every  able-bodied 
labourer  who  was  earning  an  insufficient  wage,  and  thereby  unintentionally 
encouraged  the  payment  of  insufficient  wages  by  the  agricultural  employer, 
while  they  destroyed  the  labourer's  incentive  to  earn  higher  wages  by  better 
work,  and  encouraged  him  to  enlarge  his  family  without  any  regard  to  his 
own  capacity  for  supporting  his  children  by  his  own  efforts. 

The  Poor  Law  Amendment  Act,  which  was  passed  in  1834  after  Lord 
Grey's  resignation,  abolished  the  relief  which  supplemented  wages,  and 
reinstated  the  workhouse  test  ;  that  is,  it  gave  relief  only  to  those  who 
entered  the  workhouse.  At  the  same  time  it  organised  the  combination  of 
parishes  into  Unions,  which  at  once  made  their  management  more  efficient 
and  more  economical.  It  compelled  the  able-bodied  labourer  to  earn  by 
his  own  work  the  maintenance  of  himself  and  his  family  instead  of  depend- 
ing upon  extraneous  relief,  and  as  a  consequence  it  forced  the  agricultural 
employer  to  pay  the  living  wage  which  the  labourer  was  forced  to  demand. 
But  at  the  outset  the  only  apparent  benefit  was  the  substantial  one  of  greatly 
diminished  rates.  Wages  did  not  immediately  adjust  themselves  to  the 
new  conditions,  and  the  labourer  starved.  The  farmer,  paying  increased 
though  still  insufficient  wages,  did  not  feel  the  reduction  in  the  rates  as 
adequate  compensation.  To  the  needy  the  workhouse  conditions  were 
deliberately  made  as  unattractive  as  possible,  lest  they  should  offer  an 
inducement  to  "  come  on  the  parish  "  ;  and  since  no  one  sought  relief  who 
could  possibly  help  it,  to  do  so  carried  with  it  a  stigma  which  often  acted 
as  a  preventive  precisely  in  the  cases  where  relief  was  most  needed  and 
most  deserved.  In  the  long  run  the  new  Poor  Law  materially  unproved 
the  position  and  conditions  of  the  agricultural  labourer  ;  but  in  the  begin- 
ning,  during   the   process   of   readjustment,  his    lot  was   worsened.     The 


THE    REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  819 

authors  of  the  Act  cast  their  bread  upon  the  waters,  and  their  immediate 
reward  was  of  the  usual  kind  in  such  circumstances. 

The  Poor  Law  Amendment  Bill  had  already  passed  through  several 
stages  in  Parliament  when  Lord  Grey's  ministry  was  broken  up  by  differ- 
ences upon  Irish  questions.  The  reconstruction  was  entrusted  to  Lord 
Melbourne,  with  a  vain  hope  on  the  king's  part  that  he  would  combine  with 
Peel  and  Wellington.  This  project  however  was  impracticable,  and  the 
new  administration  was  as  definitely  Whig  or  Liberal  as  the  last.  King 
WiUiam,  on  the  other  hand,  was  waiting  anxiously  for  an  opportunity  to 
bring  in  the  Conservatives.  Lord  Althorp,  who  commanded  an  extra- 
ordinary degree  of  confidence  in  the  House  of  Commons  among  all  sections 
of  Liberals,  was  transferred  to  the  House  of  Lords,  when  he  became  Earl 
Spencer  in  succession  to  his  father  in  November. 

This  event  appeared  so  to  weaken  the  party,  or  at  least  the  Cabinet, 
that  William  felt  justified  in  dismissing  the  ministry  and  calling  upon 
Wellington  and  Peel  to  form  a  government.  He  undoubtedly  thought 
that  the  country,  like  himself,  wished  to  be  rid  of  the  Liberals,  especially  in 
view  of  the  great  outcry  against  the  Poor  Law  Amendment  Act  and  the 
present  sufferings  which  that  Act  entailed.  The  dismissal  of  the  Liberals 
made  an  appeal  to  the  constituencies  an  obvious  necessity,  since  in  the 
ParHament  which  had  begun  its  sessions  in  1833  the  Conservatives  could 
not  hope  to  command  a  majority.  Peel  announced  his  principles,  of  what 
was  called  Liberal  Conservatism,  in  the  "Tamworth  Manifesto,"  At  the 
general  election  the  Conservatives  were  returned  in  considerably  larger 
numbers  than  before  ;  the  curious  may  observe  with  some  interest  that 
there  were  two  hundred  and  seventy  of  them,  forming  a  minority  larger 
perhaps  than  any  other  single  group,  but  unable  to  resist  a  combination  of 
orthodox  Liberals,  advanced  Radicals,  and  Irish  Repealers — a  position 
singularly  like  that  of  the  Unionists  in  19 10.  They  hoped,  however,  for 
support  from  a  considerable  number  of  the  Conservative  wing  of  the 
Liberals,  so  that  for  a  while  they  attempted  to  carry  on  the  government. 
But  when  the  Liberals  struck  an  unofficial  compact  with  O'Connell, 
Peel's  administration  was  doomed  ;  and  in  April  1835  Melbourne  returned 
to  power  with  most  of  his  old  colleagues  in  the  Cabinet. 

The  principal  measure  for  which  the  new  Government  was  responsible 
before  the  death  of  the  old  king  was  the  Municipal  Reform  Act,  a  natural 
corollary  of  the  Parliamentary  Reform  Bill.  The  old  municipal  govern- 
ment was  in  a  state  of  chaos,  and  the  new  Act  established  a  uniform  system 
under  which  the  governing  body,  the  Council  of  the  borough,  was  elected 
triennially  by  the  rate-payers,  and  the  mayor  and  aldermen  were  elected  by 
the  Council. 

Of  the  permanent  influences  brought  to  bear  upon  the  British  constitu- 
tion with  the  accession  of  Queen  Victoria  in  1837  we  have  already  spoken  ; 
in  the  immediate  problems  of  government  it  made  no  difference.  The 
general    election    which  followed    very  shortly   kept   the   ministry    with   a 


820  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

substantial  if  somewhat  uncertain  majority;  and  in  the  next  four  years 
Melbourne  did  good  service  to  the  country  by  the  admirable  manner  in 
which  he  educated  the  young  queen  in  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of 
her  position.  But  a  period  of  legislative  stagnation  followed  upon  the 
activity  of  the  last  four  years.  Distress  and  its  usual  accompaniment, 
discontent,  were  painfully  prevalent,  but  no  remedies  were  forthcoming 
from  Parliament,  which  was  satisfied  that  political  reform  had  gone  far 
enough.     Two    outside   agitations  however    were  now  set   on   foot.     The 

Anti-Corn-Law  League  fixed  upon  the  high 
price  of  corn  as  the  fundamental  cause  of 
the  general  distress,  and  in  1838  began  its 
active  propaganda  for  the  abolition  of  the 
corn  duties — a  propaganda  as  little  agreeable 
to  Melbourne  as  to  Peel  and  Wellington. 
But  the  originators  of  the  League  and  its 
most  vigorous  advocates  were  of  the  manu- 
facturer class  ;  and  while  most  of  them  were 
actuated  by  the  sincere  belief  that  the  working 
classes  would  derive  immense  advantage  from 
the  reduction  in  the  price  of  food,  it  was  easy 
also  to  point  out  that  the  manufacturers  an- 
ticipated benefits  for  themselves,  since  they 
would  be  able  to  pay  a  lower  money  wage 
when  less  money  would  buy  more  food. 
Among  the  working  men  themselves  there 
were  not  a  few  who  viewed  the  agitation 
with  suspicion,  believing  that  its  real  object 
i^-^"^^^"^ \  was  the  curtailment  of  wages.  They  mis- 
trusted gifts  from  the  class  whom  they  re- 
Queen  \.aonam  1837.  garded  as  their  natural  enemies;  moreover, 
[From  a  painting  by  \v.  c.  Kos..)  they  saw  iu  the  movcmcut  an  insidious  at- 
tempt to  distract  their  energies  from  the  per- 
sistent pursuit  of  political  power  which  was  their  own  panacea  for  the 
depression  of  tlie  working  classes. 

Therefore  from  them  arose  the  second  agitation  whose  objects  were 
formulated  in  the  series  of  six  demands  known  as  the  People's  Charter,  the 
advocates  of  which  became  known  in  1839  as  Chartists.  The  demands 
which  appeared  so  revolutionary  in  those  days  scarcely  seem  alarming  now. 
Abolition  of  the  property  qualification  for  members  of  Parliament,  payment 
of  members,  and  the  ballot  were  three  of  the  points,  all  of  which  have 
since  been  conceded.  Manhood  suffrage  is  not  far  removed  from  the 
official  proposals  of  the  Government  in  191  2  ;  and  the  objection  to  equal 
electoral  districts  rests  more  upon  their  impracticability  than  upon  abstract 
conservatism.  The  sixth  demand,  for  annual  Parliaments,  is  the  only  one 
which  finds  no  advocates  among  responsible  politicians  who  are  not  looked 


THE    REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  821 

upon  as  extremists.  But  seventy  years  ago  every  one  of  the  six  points 
was  regarded  as  revolutionary — by  enthusiastic  advocates  as  a  straight 
road  to  the  millennium,  and  by  respectable  but  timorous  persons  at  large 
as  a  straight  road  to  anarchy.  So  the  Government  would  have  nothing  to 
say  either  to  Chartists  or  to  Anti-Corn-Law  Leaguers.  The  refusal  of 
Parliament  in  1839  to  receive  a  huge  Chartist  petition  was  followed  by 
several  violent  outbreaks  which  were  sharply  repressed,  and  the  vigour  of 
the  agitation  died  down  for  the  moment. 

The  Anti-Corn-Law  League  had  little  more  success  than  the  Chartist 
movement  with  the  Government,  whose  financial  difficulties  nevertheless 
induced  them  in  1841  to  make  another  movement  in  the  direction  of  Free 
Trade.  Disciples  of  Adam  Smith  could  cite  plenty  of  instances  in  the 
past  of  an  increased  revenue  following  upon  a  diminution  of  duties  upon 
imported  goods,  due  to  the  increased  demand.  The  Government  now 
proposed  to  lower  the  very  heavy  tax  upon  foreign  imported  sugar,  and  to 
establish  a  fixed  duty  of  eight  shillings  on  foreign  corn  in  place  of  the  existing 
sliding  scale.  But  the  budget  was  defeated  by  a  substantial  majority,  and 
the  defeat  was  followed  by  a  resolution  of  "  no  confidence,"  which  was 
carried  by  one  vote.  Parliament  was  dissolved,  and  the  general  election 
gave  a  strong  majority  to  the  party  led  in  the  House  of  Commons  by  Sir 
Robert  Peel.     Melbourne  resigned  and  Peel  became  Prime  Minister. 

In  1839  there  had  arisen  a  curious  domestic  crisis  which  caused  intense 
excitement  at  the  time.  The  Government  through  these  years  was  in  a 
constant  minority  in  the  Lords,  while  its  majority  in  the  Commons  was 
sufficiently  insecure  to  warrant  the  Upper  Chamber  in  an  active  opposition. 
After  narrowly  escaping  defeat  in  the  Commons  on  a  colonial  question, 
Lord  Melbourne  resigned  and  advised  the  queen  to  send  for  Sir  Robert 
Peel.  Peel  undertook  to  construct  a  ministry  ;  but  he  pointed  out  to  the 
young  queen  that  the  ladies  of  the  bedchamber  who  had  been  selected  by 
Lord  Melbourne  belonged  to  the  Whig  families,  and  surrounded  their 
mistress  with  an  atmosphere  which  would  prevent  her  working  cordially 
with  a  ministry  formed  from  the  Conservative  party  ;  he  therefore  made 
the  dismissal  of  certain  of  these  ladies  a  condition  of  his  taking  office. 
The  queen  claimed  that  the  appointment  of  the  ladies  was  a  personal  not 
a  political  matter,  and  entirely  declined  to  dismiss  them.  The  question  was 
one  which  could  only  arise  when  a  queen  occupied  the  throne.  Both  the 
monarch  and  the  statesman  stood  firm,  and  consequently  Lord  Melbourne 
returned  to  office,  considering  that  the  queen's  position  was  constitutionally 
sound,  and  that  in  the  circumstances  it  would  be  an  act  of  desertion  to 
refuse  her  his  services.  It  was  very  shortly  after  this  event  that  the  queen 
married  her  cousin,  Prince  Albert  of  Saxe-Coburg-Gotha — one  of  those 
unions  rare  enough  in  royal  families  in  which  both  parties  were  lovers  from 
the  beginning  and  remained  lovers  to  the  end  of  their  lives. 

Probably  the  most  popular  feature  of  the  Melbourne  administration 
was  its  foreign  policy  as  conducted  by  Lord  Palmerston.     That  minister 


822  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

acted  very  much  as  if  he  were  an  autocrat  in  whose  doings  his  colleagues 
had  no  voice.  His  audacity  might  cause  nervousness,  but  at  least  there 
was  no  fear  that  Britain  would  be  ignored  in  the  councils  of  Europe.  It 
was  from  this  time  that  suspicion  of  Russia  and  antagonism  to  her  became 
prominent  features  of  British  policy.  Like  Canning  before  him,  Palmerston 
was  bent  on  preventing  Russia  from  either  acquiring  Turkish  territory  or 
exercising  a  predominant  influence  at  Constantinople.  More  than  this,  he 
succeeded  in  pushing  his  own  country  to  the  front  as  the  champion  of  the 
integrity  of  the  Turkish  Empire,  drawing  France  and  Austria  in  his  train, 
but  keeping  the  leading  position  for  himself.  The  notable  stroke  was 
effected  in  1840.  Mehemet  Ali,  the  Pasha  of  Egypt,  was  evidently  seeking 
to  establish  an  independent  sovereignty  over  Syria  as  well  as  Egypt,  and 
his  ambitions  probably  went  considerably  further.  It  was  Palmerston's 
object  to  make  the  repression  of  Mehemet  AH  an  act  of  the  European 
Powers  in  general,  not  merely  of  Russia.  He  succeeded  in  bringing  about 
a  concert  of  the  Powers  sufficient  for  his  own  purposes,  while  in  effect  it 
enabled  him  to  accomplish  the  defeat  of  the  Pasha  by  means  mainly  of 
British  ships  and  men  without  effective  participation  either  by  Russia  or  by 
France ;  and  Turkey  began  to  learn  to  look  upon  Britain  as  her  protector. 
The  anti-Russian  policy  had  also  at  this  time  begun  to  play  a  serious  part 
in  India  ;  but  with  this  as  also  with  important  events  in  the  colonies  we  shall 
deal  separately. 


Ill 
PEEL 

The  ministry  formed  by  Sir  Robert  Peel  in  September  1841  was  more 
Liberal  in  its  elements  than  the  Conservative  party  in  Parliament ;  for  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,  who  joined  the  Cabinet  without  taking  office,  was  fully 
alive  to  the  necessity  for  making  concessions  which  he  regarded  as  being  in 
themselves  undesirable.  Lord  Stanley  and  Sir  James  Graham  had  both 
been  in  the  past  associated  with  Melbourne.  A  minor  office  was  found  for 
Gladstone,  a  young  man  for  whom  a  brilliant  future  was  anticipated  ;  but 
Benjamin  Disraeli,  in  spite  of  the  remarkable  talents  which  he  had  already 
displayed,  was  too  little  trusted,  consequently  he  nursed  a  grudge  against 
Peel  for  refusing  him  the  advancement  to  which  he  considered  himself 
entitled.  The  bedchamber  question,  it  should  be  remarked,  was  not  revived. 
By  the  advice  of  Lord  Melbourne  the  queen  had  already  deprived  her  house- 
hold of  its  partisan  aspect  by  admitting  some  Opposition  ladies,  and  it  was 
not  possible  to  assert  the  claim  that  ladies  should  be  changed  with  changing 
ministries. 

Peel  had  obtained  a  majority  in  the  country  not  so  much  on  the 
ground  of  positive  objections  to  the  Government  policy  as  because  ministers 


THE    REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  823 

had  recently  given  a  general  impression  of  feebleness  and  incompetence,  of 
endeavouring  to  face  their  difficuUies  by  mere  makeshifts.  When  Parliament 
met  at  the  beginning  of  1842  the  new  ministers  had  plenty  of  problems  to 
solve.  Chartism  was  again  becoming  active,  trade  was  depressed,  want 
was  widespread,  Ireland  was  disturbed,  rumours  of  disaster  had  come  from 
India.  The  country  at  least  hoped  that  the  financial  ability  with  which 
Peel  was  credited  would  find  some  solution  for  the  existing  problems,  so 
far,  at  least,  as  they  sprang  from  economic  causes.  He  was  hardly 
committed  to  anything  more  than  the  maintenance  of  the  principle  of  the 
sliding  scale,  as  against  the  fixed  duty  on  corn  proposed  by  the  Liberals. 
His  first  budget  was,  therefore,  awaited  with  no  little  anxiety. 

A  very  large  amount  of  Peel's  support  inside  and  outside  the  House 
came  from  the  landed  interest,  which  was  extremely  averse  from  any 
tampering  with  the  Corn  Laws,  which  in  their  eyes  gave  too  little  rather 
than  too  much  protection  to  the  agricultural  body  on  whose  prosperity  that 
of  the  nation  depended.  On  the  other  hand,  among  the  manufacturing 
class  especially,  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League  had  been  developing  the  con- 
viction that  the  high  price  of  corn  was  the  root  cause  of  the  general 
distress.  Peel  dealt  with  the  Corn  Law  by  providing  a  new  sliding  scale, 
of  which  the  primary  object  was  to  prevent  violent  fluctuations  of  price 
while  ensuring  a  tolerably  remunerative  minimum.  With  corn  at  fifty 
shillings  a  quarter  or  less  there  was  to  be  a  twenty  shilling  duty  on  the 
foreign  import.  With  corn  at  seventy-five  shillings  or  more  there  was  to 
be  no  duty.  Between  these  two  points  there  was  to  be  a  graduated 
reduction  of  duty  as  the  price  rose.  A  preference  w^as  also  given,  in  the 
form  of  lower  duties,  to  colonial  as  against  foreign  corn.  Amendments  on 
the  one  side  in  favour  of  abolishing  the  duty,  and  of  making  it  more 
stringent  on  the  other,  were  defeated  by  overwhelming  majorities,  and 
the  official  Liberal  amendment  in  favour  of  a  fixed  duty  fared  not  very 
much  better.  But  there  were  some  who  believed  that  Peel  already  in  the 
bottom  of  his  heart  was  a  convert  to  the  views  of  the  League,  though 
he  was  still  trying  to  persuade  himself  that  his  convictions  were  un- 
changed. 

The  new  sliding  scale  at  any  rate  shelved  the  Corn  Law  question  for  a 
time.  But  the  problem  of  providing  public  revenue  was  serious.  Year 
after  year  the  Liberal  budgets  had  ended  in  deficits,  which  had  not  been 
removed  by  attempts  to  enlarge  the  revenue  either  by  the  increase  or  by 
the  diminution  of  duties.  Some  fresh  source  of  taxation  must  be  found  or 
some  old  source  again  called  into  play.  In  this  fateful  year  Peel  revived 
the  Income  Tax,  which  Pitt  had  introduced  for  the  purpose  of  the  great 
war,  but  which  had  been  swept  aside,  as  justified  only  by  war,  soon  after  the 
peace.  Peel  himself  regarded  it  now  only  as  an  emergency  tax  which 
would  cease  to  be  necessary  when  trade  revived.  He  anticipated  its 
disappearance  in  five  years'  time.  Many  Chancellors  of  the  Exchequer  have 
indulged  in  similar  anticipations  and  all  have  been  doomed  to  a  similar 


824  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

disappointment.  Not  till  the  twentieth  century  did  it  come  to  be  recog- 
nised in  form  as  well  as  in  fact  as  a  permanent  source  of  revenue,  though 
it  has  never  been  remitted  since  1842. 

One  purpose  of  the  income  tax  was  to  tide  over  a  period  during 
which  the  revenue  was  to  suffer  immediate  loss  for  the  sake  of  future  gain 
by  the  reduction  of  duties  on  imports.  Out  of  twelve  hundred  articles  on 
which  a  duty  was  at  this  time  levied  nearly  two-thirds  were  to  have  the 
existing  duty  reduced ;  it  was  expected  that  after  three  years  the  return  to 
the  revenue  would  become  greater  instead  of  smaller,  but  that  in  the 
meanwhile  the  loss  would  amount  to  not  much  less  than  the  receipts  from 
the  income  tax,  which  was  fixed  at  yd.  in  the  pound.  The  sugar  duty  was 
retained  unaltered.  The  Opposition  were  able  to  point  to  the  inconsistency 
of  reducing  a  very  large  number  of  taxes  for  the  benefit  of  the  consumer 
with  very  little  regard  to  the  producer's  interest,  coupled  with  the  retention 
of  the  heavy  taxes  on  corn  and  sugar,  which  put  money  into  the  pockets  of 
the  landed  interest,  on  whose  political  support  the  Government  depended, 
and  of  the  wealthy  planters  whose  influence  was  of  great  value  to  them. 
There  was  also  not  a  little  grumbling  on  the  part  of  the  home  producer  of 
goods  on  which  the  duties  were  reduced.  Peel,  however,  was  strong  enough 
to  override  the  opposition  both  of  opponents  of  the  Corn  Law  and  of  the 
advocates  of  higher  protective  tariffs. 

The  next  budget  of  importance  came  three  years  later  in  1845.  Mean- 
while, apart  from  Ireland,  which  was  a  constant  thorn  in  the  side  of  every 
government,  Chartism  and  legislation  with  regard  to  labour  had  again 
compelled  attention.  In  1842  the  second  great  Chartist  petition  was  pre- 
sented demanding  the  "  six  points  "  and  protesting  against  what  it  described 
as  "  class  legislation."  It  was  evident  enough  that  the  petitioners  expected 
by  the  acquisition  of  political  power,  through  the  six  points  of  the  Charter, 
to  be  able  to  subvert  the  existing  order  of  society  in  the  supposed 
interests  of  the  working  class  ;  and  it  was  this  expectation  on  their  part 
which  more  than  anything  else  inspired  in  the  dominant  classes  a  dread  of 
any  extension  of  popular  pov^^er.  As  before,  the  House  refused  to  give  the 
petitioners  a  hearing.  The  result  was  that  later  in  the  same  year  there 
were  serious  Chartist  riots  which  necessitated  the  intervention  of  the 
military  ;  but  the  Government  measures  were  effective,  and  the  Chartists 
themselves  became  more  and  more  definitely  divided  into  Physical  P'orce 
men  and  Moral  Force  men  who  relied  upon  constitutional  agitation  in 
preference  to  the  methods  of  violence. 

Althorp's  Factory  Act  had  been  directed  exclusively  to  the  protection 
of  children  in  textile  factories.  Now  public  sentiment  was  horrified  by 
the  report  of  a  commission  on  the  conditions  of  labour  in  the  coalfields. 
An  appalling  state  of  things  was  revealed,  in  which  large  numbers  of  women 
were  engaged  in  hard  underground  labour  for  which  they  were  totally 
unfitted,  and  which  could  not  but  be  ruinous  not  only  to  their  own  health, 
but  to  the  physique  of  the   next  generation.      No  less  intolerable  was  the 


THE    REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  825 

very  extensive  employment  of  quite  young  children  in  similar  occupations, 
which  to  the  present  generation  would  be  simply  inconceivable.  So  intense 
was  the  public  feeling  aroused  that,  when  Lord  Ashley  introduced  his 
Collieries  Bill  to  exclude  all  females  and  all  boys  under  thirteen  from 
underground  work,  it  was  carried  in  the  House  of  Commons  without  a 
division. 

The  Act  for  the  first  time  brought  women  as  well  as  children  within  the 
scope  of  legislation.  Arguments  for  the  protection  of  children,  it  was  seen, 
applied  in  principle  to  the  protection  of 
women.  They  were  not  free  agents, 
and  could  make  no  terms  for  them- 
selves. The  question  of  their  treatment 
affected  not  only  themselves  but  that 
of  the  physical  and  mental  degeneration 
of  the  race.  Accordingly,  after  two 
abortive  attempts  a  new  amending 
Factory  Act  was  passed  in  1844,  which 
reduced  the  working  hours  of  children 
to  half-time  in  a  day  of  fifteen  hours  in 
factories,  and  restricted  to  twelve  the 
working  hours  of  women  as  well  as  of 
young  persons. 

The  budget  of  1845  showed  a 
marked  advance  in  the  direction  of 
Free  Trade,  of  which  there  had  been 
some  warning  in  the  previous  year. 
Export  duties  were  to  be  abolished,  as 
well  as  duties  on  the  import  of  four 
hundred  and  thirty  articles  of  raw 
material.  The  very  considerable  gain  to 
the  manufacturing  interest  did  not  make 
the  budget  satisfactory  to  the  high  Protectionists,  and  Disraeli  denounced 
the  Government  as  an  "organised  hypocrisy";  but  the  support  which 
Peel  lost  from  his  own  party  he  recovered  from  members  of  the  Opposi- 
tion, and  the  budget  was  carried  by  large  majorities.  At  the  same 
time  a  breach  between  the  minister  and  many  of  his  Conservative 
followers  was  widened  by  his  Irish  policy  ;  and  Ireland  was  now  to  be 
the  decisive  factor  first  in  determining  his  complete  conversion  to  the 
doctrines  of  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League  and  then  in  putting  an  end  to 
his  administration. 

A  tremendous  visitation  of  the  potato  blight  entirely  ruined  the  potato 
crop  in  Ireland,  and  brought  not  merely  destitution  but  starvation  in  its 
train.  In  November  Peel  proposed  to  his  Cabinet  the  suspension,  which 
every  one  knew  must  mean  the  abolition,  of  the  duties  on  imported  corn, 
since  the  provision  of  cheap  food  had  become  an  absolute  necessity.     At 


Sir  Robert  Peel  movi 
Laws,  ]c 

[From  a  sketch'niade  i 


ig  the  repeal  of  the  Corn 

nuary  1S46. 

ithe  House  of  Commons.] 


826  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

first  only  three  of  his  colleagues  supported  his  views  ;  by  the  end  of  the 
month  Wellington  and  some  other  members  of  the  Cabinet  were  prepared 
to  side  with  Peel ;  and  in  the  meanwhile  Lord  John  Russell,  who  was  now 
the  recognised  leader  of  the  Opposition,  publicly  announced  his  own  con- 
version, and  his  advocacy  of  the  total  abolition  of  the  Corn  Laws  in  prefer- 
ence to  the  fixed  duty  to  which  his  party  had  hitherto  clung. 

But  a  section  of  the  Cabinet  was  obdurate.  Peel  in  the  circumstances 
hesitated  to  introduce  a  measure  which  involved  an  entire  reversal  of  the 
principles  he  had  maintained  when  he  took  office.  The  thing  should  be 
done  by  the  Opposition,  though  with  the  support  of  himself  and  his  followers. 
He  resigned,  but  Russell  failed  to  form  a  ministry.  Peel  resumed  office 
with  a  Free  Trade  programme  and  with  an  opposition  to  that  programme 
which  was  now  confined  to  the  extreme  Protectionists,  led  nominally  by 
Lord  George  Bentinck  but  in  fact  by  Benjamin  Disraeli.  The  duties  on 
very  nearly  all  raw  materials  were  to  be  abolished,  as  well  as  on  sundry 
articles  of  manufacture.  On  many  others  they  were  to  be  largely  reduced. 
The  corn  duties  were  to  disappear  in  three  years'  time  except  for  a  fixed 
registration  charge  of  one  shilling.  In  the  interval,  to  soften  the  blow  to 
the  agricultural  interest,  there  was  to  be  a  low  sliding  scale  ranging  from 
ten  shillings  when  wheat  was  at  forty-eight  shillings  a  quarter  or  less  to 
four  shillings  when  it  was  at  fifty-four  shillings  or  more.  In  May  the 
Corn  Bill  passed  its  third  reading  in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  the  Lords 
followed  the  lead  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  passed  the  third  reading 
on  June  25th. 

But  on  the  same  day  a  Coercion  Bill  for  Ireland  was  defeated  in  the 
House  of  Commons  by  a  combination  of  Liberals  who  were  opposed  to 
the  bill  in  principle  and  Protectionists  who  had  clamoured  for  it  but  were 
determined  to  wreck  the  administration.  They  succeeded.  But  tne  Corn 
Bill  received  the  royal  assent ;  Peel's  task  was  done ;  he  resigned,  and  Lord 
John  Russell  accepted  the  task  of  forming  a  ministry. 


IV 

AFTER  PEEL 

Lord  John  Russell's  ministry  was  not  fruitful  of  legislation.  The 
Liberals  were  in  a  minority  in  the  House  of  Commons  and  were  in  effect 
dependent  upon  the  support  of  the  Peelites,  the  members  of  the  Conserva- 
tive party  who  had  followed  their  chief  in  becoming  Free  Traders.  A 
general  election  during  1847  strengthened  the  party,  but  still  left  it  without 
an  actual  majority.  At  the  outset  the  domestic  interests  were  absorbed  by 
Ireland,  where  the  potato  blight  reappeared  with  even  increased  virulence  ; 
and  the  Government  was  very  much  hampered  first  by  its  efforts  to  provide 


THE   REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  827 

relief   and   then    by   the    disturbances   which   followed    upon   the    extreme 
distress. 

The  most  notable  legislative  measure  for  England  was  the  Factory  Act 
which  bears  the  nime  of  Fielden,  the  outcome  of  the  dissatisfaction  left 
behind  by  the  Factory  Act  of  the  last  ministry.  Its  leading  feature  was 
the  introduction  of  what  was  called  the  ten  hours'  day.  The  meaning  of 
this  was  that  the  legal  day  as  opposed  to  the  night  became  the  period  of 
twelve  hours  from  6  A.M.  to  6  P.M.  Only  between  those  hours  therefore 
was  the  employment  of  women  and  young  persons  permitted,  night  work 
being  prohibited.  As  it  was  required  that  two  hours  should  be  allowed 
for  meal  times,  their  actual  working  day  became  one  of  ten  hours.  In 
form,  it  was  no  part  of  the 
purpose  of  legislation  to  con- 
trol the  hours  of  adult  male 
labour;  but  the  practical  effect 
was  that  the  men's  hours  had 
to  be  adapted  to  the  altered 
arrangements  for  women,  and 
in  effect  the  Act  secured  a  ten 
hours'  day  for  men.  There 
was  much  vehement  opposi- 
tion at  the  time,  accompanied 
by  elaborate  demonstrations 
that  if  the  hours  of  work  were 
reduced  profits  would  vanish. 
The  event  proved  that  the  demonstrations  were  fallacious,  because  it  was 
very  soon  found  that  with  the  shorter  hours  the  work  was  more  efficient 
and  the  output  of  the  ten  hours  was  worth  at  least  as  much  as  the  output 
of  the  longer  period. 

In  1848  the  unrest  of  peoples  and  nationalities  on  the  European 
Continent  broke  out  in  a  series  of  revolutions  or  insurrections,  initiated  by 
the  deposition  of  Louis  Philippe  in  France  and  the  proclamation  of  a 
republic  in  that  country.  In  Germany  the  risings  were  popular,  in  Italy 
and  throughout  the  heterogeneous  Austrian  Empire  they  were  nationalist. 
But  in  these  islands  there  was  only  a  very  mild  reflex  of  the  disturbances 
which  agitated  Europe — a  singularly  futile  insurrection  in  Ireland  and  in 
England  an  equally  futile  demonstration  on  the  part  of  the  Chartists,  which 
proved  to  be  the  death-blow  of  the  movement. 

Inspired  by  the  bloodless  but  effective  revolution  in  France,  the  more 
extreme  among  the  Chartist  leaders  started  a  clamorous  agitation  throughout 
the  country.  Violent  speeches  were  made,  with  some  talk  of  the  establish- 
ment of  a  republic.  A  monster  meeting  was  to  be  held  at  Kennington 
Common  on  April  loth,  when  a  monster  procession  was  to  carry  a  monster 
petition  to  the  House  of  Commons.  The  alarm  in  London  was  extreme, 
but  prompt  measures  were  taken  to  establish  security.    A  huge  number  of 


Lord  John  Russell. 
[From  the  drawing  by  Maclise.] 


828  THE    MODEP.N    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

special  constables  were  enrolled,  among  whom  was  included  the  French 
exile  Louis  Napoleon,  the  nephew  of  the  great  Emperor.  Under  the 
direction  of  the  Duke  of  WeUington  London  was  thoroughly  but  not  too 
ostentatiously  prepared  to  deal  with  a  desperate  insurrection.  The  Chartist 
leaders  were  warned  that  their  procession  would  not  be  permitted  to  pass 
the  Thames.  The  monster  meeting  mustered  only  some  thirty  thousand, 
the  leaders  took  to  heart  the  polite  but  emphatic  warnings  they  received, 
the  procession  did  not  march  into  London,  and  the  petition  was  conveyed 


Tlie  Monster  Charlist  Meeting  on  Kennington  Common,  April  lo,  iS^S. 
[I-rom  a  print  in  the  "  IlUistrateJ  London  News"  of  1848  made  after  a  daguerrotype.] 


to  the  House  in  a  cab.  Inspection  proved  that  an  enormous  proportion 
of  the  two  million  signatures  were  fictitious,  and  the  terrifying  spectre  of 
Chartism  as  a  revolutionary  movement  collapsed  amid  derision  into  utter 
insignificance. 

The  only  other  domestic  event  of  political  importance  which  needs  to 
be  recorded  here  was  the  death  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  in  1850.  His  career 
had  been  unique,  though  that  of  his  disciple  Gladstone  offers  some 
resemblances.  Born  a  Tory,  a  ministerialist  in  the  days  when  the  reaction 
was  predominant,  he  passed  his  whole  political  life  in  gradually  shedding 
his  original  political  assumptions  and  adopting  views  to  which  he  had  once 
been  antagonistic.      Every  delinite  measure  with  which  his  name  is  associ- 


THE    REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  829 

ated  was  one  which  had  been  advocated  by  his  opponents  ;  to  nearly  every 
one  he  had  himself  long  offered  convinced  opposition,  from  Catholic 
Emancipation  to  the  abolition  of  the  Corn  Law.  Each  of  those  measures 
he  carried  when  at  the  head  or  almost  at  the  head  of  a  Government 
representing  a  party  which  only  accepted  them  with  extreme  reluctance  ; 
but  in  every  case  he  acted  upon  the  clear  conviction  that  the  measure, 
whether  popular  or  not,  had  become  a  necessity  of  state.  Few  men  have 
the  courage  openly  to  declare  themselves  converts  to  views  of  which  they 
have  been  open  and  prominent  opponents.  That  rare  courage  Peel  pos- 
sessed ;  and  though  in  his  own  day  it  subjected  him  to  sneers  and  jibes, 
to  bitter  criticism,  and  to  the  vitriolic  denunciations  of  Disraeli,  the  master 
of  bitter  speech,  in  the  hour  of  his  death  there  was  none  who  doubted  that 
he  had  acted  throughout  with  absolute  sincerity  of  conviction,  with  a  majestic 
disregard  of  his  own  interest  and  his  own  popularity,  and  with  a  single  eye 
to  the  public  good. 

The  Russell  Government  survived  for  eighteen  months  after  Peel's 
death.  Its  end  was  hastened  by  the  compulsory  retirement  of  Lord 
Palmerston  from  the  Foreign  Office,  where  his  autocratic  disregard  of  the 
right  of  his  sovereign  and  his  colleagues  to  information  and  consultation  on 
high  matters  of  policy  at  last  became  intolerable  both  to  the  colleagues  and 
to  the  sovereign.  He  got  his  revenge — "Tit  for  tat  with  Johnny  Russell," 
as  he  said — a  couple  of  months  later  by  helping  the  Opposition  to  defeat  the 
Government  on  a  bill  for  constituting  a  militia.  Lord  Derby,  formerly 
known  in  the  House  of  Commons  as  Lord  Stanley,  accepted  office  as 
leader  of  the  Conservative  party,  with  Disraeli  as  his  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  and  leader  in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  though  the  old  Con- 
servatives were  still  very  far  from  trusting  the  man  whom  most  of  them 
regarded  as  an  adventurer,  though  one  who  had  rendered  great  services 
to  the  party  and  was  conspicuously,  beyond  all  comparison,  its  cleverest 
member. 

The  independence  of  Lord  Palmerston  at  the  Foreign  Office,  even  in 
the  last  Liberal  administration,  had  been  a  constant  source  of  friction  in 
the  Cabinets.  While  always  maintaining  the  Canningite  position  that  each 
European  state  should  be  left  to  settle  its  own  domestic  affairs  without  the 
application  of  compulsion  by  other  states,  he  had  no  compunction  about 
tendering  unasked  advice  which  often  aroused  irritation  in  foreign  chancel- 
leries. But  if  his  activities  seemed  meddlesome  and,  on  some  occasions, 
dangerous,  his  buoyant  assumption  that  Great  Britain  was  entitled  to 
express  her  own  opinions  with  entire  freedom  and  was  quite  capable  of 
backing  them  by  force  of  arms  if  she  thought  fit  to  do  so  was  not  un- 
popular. His  self-assertiveness  was  the  cause  of  Russell's  failure  to  form  a 
Liberal  government  at  the  end  of  1845,  since  Lord  Grey  refused  to  join  the 
Cabinet  if  Palmerston  went  to  the  Foreign  Office.  In  1846,  however,  Lord 
Grey  withdrew  his  objection.  The  European  convulsion  of  1848  again 
gave  Palmerston   scope  for  his  activities  ;  the  sympathies  of   Britain  with 


830  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

the  popular  and  nationalist  movements  were  vigorously  expressed,  though 
without  much  actual  influence  on  the  course  of  events ;  and  England 
became  an  asylum  for  many  refugees  from  despotic  governments  and  for 
revolutionary  propagandists,  while  the  monarchical  governments  were  ex- 
tremely indignant,  because  in  their  eyes  Palmerston  was  fostering  anarchy 
and  revolution  in  their  dominions. 

In  1849  he  was  hotly  attacked  in  Parliament  both  by  the  non-interven- 
tionists, who  protested  against  his  meddlesome  policy,  and  by  the  Radical 
sympathisers  with  the  revolutionary  movements,  who  were  of  opinion  that 
British  intervention  ought  to  have  been  carried  much  further.  Palmerston, 
however,  successfully  vindicated  his  position  on  the  ground  that  on  the  one 
hand  it  was  the  imperative  duty  of  Britain  to  express  her  opinions  emphati- 
cally and  forcibly,  but  that  on  the  other  hand  it  was  not  her  business  to 
embark  on  hostilities  in  order  to  give  those  opinions  effect.  The  attack, 
however,  was  renewed  when  Palmerston  sent  a  British  fleet  to  the  Pir^eus 
to  coerce  the  Greek  government  in  connection  with  what  was  known  as 
the  Don  Pacifico  incident.  The  house  of  Don  Pacifico,  a  British  subject 
resident  in  Greece,  had  been  sacked  by  a  mob  ;  there  were  other  claims  of 
British  subjects  against  the  Greek  government  which  it  persistently  ignored. 
There  was  an  unfortunate  misunderstanding  with  France,  which  had  en- 
deavoured to  mediate.  Again  Palmerston  was  attacked  for  the  high- 
handed methods  which  he  had  adopted.  Nevertheless,  he  again  vindicated 
himself  in  a  speech  which  won  the  warm  admiration  even  of  those 
who,  like  Sir  Robert  Peel,  disapproved  of  his  action.  It  was  not  his  policy 
but  his  personal  independence  which  caused  his  dismissal. 

Shortly  after  the  great  debate  just  referred  to.  Lord  Palmerston's  inter- 
ference on  his  own  responsibility  in  the  extremely  complicated  German 
question  of  Schleswig-Holstein,  on  lines  which  were  by  no  means  pleasing 
either  to  her  Majesty  or  to  the  Prince  Consort,  caused  the  queen  to  send 
a  memorandum  to  the  Prime  Minister  protesting  against  the  Foreign 
Secretary's  arbitrary  methods,  and  requiring  that  he  should  give  distinct 
information  to  her  as  to  his  proposed  action  in  any  given  case,  and  that 
when  that  action  had  been  sanctioned  it  should  not  be  modified  without 
her  knowledge.  Palmerston  formally  accepted  the  rebuke,  but  made  little 
alteration  in  his  practice;  and  before  the  end  of  1851  he  sent  despatches 
and  instructions  in  connection  with  the  coup  d'etat  by  which  Louis 
Napoleon  had  just  seized  the  supreme  power  in  France,  without  informing 
either  the  queen  or  his  colleagues.  It  was  this  which  caused  the  queen 
and  Lord  John  Russell  to  insist  upon  his  resignation. 

The  newly  formed  ministry  of  Lord  Derby  held  office  only  on 
sufferance  ;  the  Peelites  refused  to  join  them  as  they  had  refused  to  join 
the  Liberals  ;  and  it  was  only  by  conciliating  Peelites  and  moderate 
Liberals  that  the  Government  could  remain  in  being.  There  was  therefore 
no  possibility  of  a  return  to  Protection.  The  situation  was  not  effectively 
changed  by  a   slight   increase  in   the   numbers  of  the  party  at  a  general 


THE    REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  831 

election  ;  and  although  Disraeli  pledged  himself  to  the  maintenance  of 
Free  Trade,  the  Government  was  defeated  on  its  financial  proposals.  Lord 
Derby  resigned,  and  a  coalition  was  formed  between  the  Liberals  and 
the  Peelites,  with  the  Peelite  Lord  Aberdeen  as  the  head  of  the  ministry,  in 
the  last  week  of  1851. 

A  few  weeks  before,  the  old  Duke  of  Wellington  had  passed  away.  A 
strong  man  whom  his  soldiers  had  trusted  utterly  but  never  loved,  a  states- 
man who  might  have  been  a  great  emperor  but  was  wholly  unfitted  for 
party  politics,  a  public  servant  who  set  his  duty  to  the  Crown  and  to  the 
state  above  all  other  considerations,  the  Duke  was  in  the  ordinary  sense 
of  the  term  a  political  failure  ;  but  his  failure  was  more  honourable  than 
most  other  men's  success.  In  his  later  years  he  won  a  popular  esteem 
and  even  affection  which  had  been  denied  him  in  his  day  of  triumph.  In 
the  hour  of  his  death  all  men  of  all  parties  united  to  honour  and  to  mourn 
for  the  Great  Duke  as  they  had  honoured  and  mourned  for  no  other  since 
the  death  of  Chatham. 


IRELAND 

The  long-deferred  measure  of  Catholic  Emancipation,  while  it  remedied 
a  very  serious  grievance,  failed  to  bring  peace  to  Ireland  or  adequately  to 
solve  the  religious  problem  in  that  country.  The  preservation  of  the 
established  Anglican  Church  had  been  an  express  part  of  the  Treaty  of 
Union,  but  the  maintenance  of  the  Church  depended  upon  tithes  which 
were  paid  by  the  occupants  of  the  soil  of  whom  the  vast  majority  were 
Roman  Catholics.  To  them,  therefore,  at  least,  it  appeared  a  monstrous  in- 
justice that  they  should  be  compelled  to  contribute  to  the  support  of  a 
Church  to  which  they  did  not  belong,  while  the  Church  to  which  they  did 
belong  was  unsupported.  Daniel  O'Connell,  the  "  Liberator,"  had  as  a 
very  young  man  begun  his  public  career  as  an  opponent  of  the  Union  ; 
and  when  Catholic  Emancipation  had  been  won,  mainly  it  might  be  said 
by  the  skill  with  which  he  had  conducted  the  agitation  in  its  favour,  it  was 
not  long  before  he  placed  the  Repeal  of  the  Union  in  the  forefront  of  his 
demands  for  Ireland. 

But  Repeal  was  forced  into  the  background  again  by  the  much  more 
acute  agitation  which  developed  into  what  was  called  the  tithe  war,  the 
resistance  of  the  peasantry  to  the  payment  of  the  obnoxious  burden.  That 
resistance,  which  in  itself  was  obviously  and  manifestly  justified  in  the 
eyes  of  one  political  school,  had  in  the  eyes  of  another  "no  semblance  of 
justification  in  law  or  reason,"  and  it  was  accompanied  by  all  the  familiar 
forms  of  outrage  and  violence,  the  persistent  refusal  of  witnesses  to  give 
evidence,  and  the  persistent  refu.sal  of  juries  to  convict  upon  any  evidence. 


832  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

Lord  Grey's  Government,  fronted  by  the  usual  dilemma,  introduced  one  of 
those  vigorous  repressive  measures  which  came  to  be  known  as  Coercion 
Bills,  which  was  successful  enough  in  its  immediate  effect;  but  it  was 
followed  by  the  remedial  proposals  for  the  commutation  of  tithe  into  a 
charge  not  upon  the  occupants  of  the  soil  but  upon  the  landowners,  a 
redistribution  of  the  funds  appropriated  to  the  Irish  Church,  and  the 
appropriation  of  the  surplus  to  educational  purposes  irrespective  of  creed. 
This  proposal,  in  conjunction  with  that  for  the  renewal  of  the  Coercion  Act, 
broke  up  the  Grey  Cabinet,  and  led  to  the  formation  of  the  first  Melbourne 
ministry,  which  was  in  its  turn  displaced  after  a  brief  interval  by  that  of 
Peel  and  Wellington. 

Peel  introduced  a  bill  for  the  commutation  of  tithes,  but  the  bill  was 
defeated  because  it  rejected  the  principle  of  appropriation.  The  Melbourne 
ministry  returned  to  power,  but  its  appropriation  clause  was  rejected  by 
the  House  of  Lords  ;  so  in  1838  the  Liberals  accepted  the  situation  and 
passed  the  bill  for  simple  commutation.  When  the  tax  was  no  longer 
exacted  from  the  tenants  themselves  but  from  the  landlords  it  ceased  to  be 
felt  as  a  pressing  grievance. 

The  return  of  Melbourne  was  accompanied  by  that  compact  or  under- 
standing with  O'Connell  which  was  fiercely  denounced  by  the  Opposition, 
but  had  at  least  for  the  time  being  an  undeniably  pacificatory  effect.  The 
Liberator  suspended  his  demand  for  repeal.  Nevertheless  the  third  or 
agrarian  grievance,  the  antagonism  between  landlords  and  tenants,  again 
rose  into  painful  prominence.  On  the  one  side  many  landlords,  often  with 
excellent  excuse  from  the  economic  point  of  vrew,  evicted  large  numbers  of 
tenants  in  order  to  put  in  their  places  more  efficient  and  more  satisfactory 
cultivators  ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  tenants  resisted  the  payment  of  rent  and 
subjected  both  the  landlords  and  the  new  tenants  to  all  manner  of  out- 
rages. The  indignation  of  the  landlords  was  increased  by  the  Under- 
Secretary,  Thomas  Drummond.  Drummond,  a  vigorous  administrator, 
was  convinced  of  the  necessity  for  a  strong  central  control,  and  reorganised 
the  magistracy  and  the  police  on  lines  which  greatly  strengthened  the 
Castle  government  and  did  much  for  the  preservation  of  law  and  order  ; 
but  he  was  antagonistic  to  the  landlords  as  a  class,  and  his  pronouncement 
that  property  had  "rights  as  well  as  duties"  at  a  moment  when  the 
popular  turbulence  had  reached  a  very  high  pitch  was  regarded  by  them  at 
least  as  an  incentive  to  violence  and  disorder. 

The  Melbourne  ministry  sought  to  apply  in  Ireland  principles  analogous 
to  those  of  the  amended  Poor  Law  in  England  and  the  English  Municipal 
Government  Act.  But  with  its  fall  and  the  return  to  power  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel  at  the  end  of  1841  the  truce  between  the  Irish  leader  and  the  imperial 
government  came  to  an  end.  The  demand  for  Repeal  was  immediately 
revived  ;  and  from  this  time  forward  it  never  ceased  in  one  form  or  another 
to  be  pressed  by  popular  leaders  in  Ireland  as  a  necessary  condition 
without  which  it  was  vain  to  hope  that  any  policy  of  alternate  or  combined 


THE    REFORMED    PARLIAMENT 


«33 


coercion  and  conciliation  could  produce  peace  in  that  island.  Unlike 
the  demands  arising  directly  from  the  religious  and  the  agrarian  questions, 
it  found  no  sympathy  either  in  England  or  Scotland  ;  and  the  fact  that 
all  other  Irish  demands  were  associated  with  it  unfortunately  tended  to 
counteract  much  of  the  sympathy  which  they  might  otherwise  have 
attracted. 

At  the  outset  the  Repeal  movement  seemed  languid  ;  but  O'Connell 
brought  into  play  all  his  influence  and  all  his  great  powers  of  organisation. 
The  Irish  priesthood  rallied  to  him,  a  fervid  group  of  younger  men  who 


became  known  as  '<  Young  Ireland 
developed  on  lines  which  appeared  to 
be  exceedingly  threatening,  though 
O'Connell  himself  was,  as  always, 
persistent  in  the  repudiation  of  any 
appeal  to  violence.  Threats  of  co- 
ercive measures  were  met  by  the 
repeated  assembly  of  huge  meetings, 
and  the  agitation  was  accompanied 
by  an  increase  of  crimes  and  outrages. 
At  last  O'Connell  and  others  were 
arrested,  tried,  and  condemned  to 
long  terms  of  imprisonment  on  a 
charge  of  conspiracy.  But  the  ver- 
dict was  quashed  by  the  House  of 
Peers  on  the  ground  that  Catholics 
had  been  improperly  excluded  from 
the  jury  panel. 

O'Connell    was    set    at    liberty, 
but    for    whatever    reason    assumed    a 
that    control    which    he    had    so    long 


joined    him,   and  the    agitation  was 


Daniel  O'Connell. 
[From  the  painting  by  T.  Garrick.] 

less    aggressive    attitude    and    lost 
exercised    in    Ireland,    and    which 


now^  passed  to  the  members  of  the  Young  Ireland  group,  who  were  very 
much  more  inclined  to  extreme  and  unconstitutional  methods  than  their 
former  leader.  Peel,  on  the  other  hand,  always  ready  to  be  impressed 
by  demonstrations  of  popular  feeling,  evidently  began  to  doubt  the 
soundness  of  the  position  to  which  he  had  hitherto  clung — to  believe 
that  there  was  more  justification  than  he  had  supposed  for  the  demand  for 
remedial  measures.  The  Devon  Commission  was  appointed  to  investigate 
the  land  question.  Just  before  the  first  potato  famine  in  1845  its  report 
was  issued,  and  revealed  the  extraordinarily  unsatisfactory  relations  between 
landlords  and  tenants  involved  by  the  existing  system.  The  peasant  clung 
to  the  soil  partly  from  sentimental  reasons  and  partly  because  if  he  left  his 
holding  he  had  nowhere  else  to  go.  In  order  to  stay  he  would  agree  to  any 
terms,  though  he  was  by  no  means  equally  willing  to  keep  to  them.  Conse- 
quently an  immense  proportion  of  the  land  was  rack-rented  far  above  its 
proper  value.     A  vast  quantity  of  the  land  was  owned  by  absentee  landlords 

3  G 


834  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

whose  agents  were  concerned  simply  to  get  the  best  return  they  could  for 
the  landlord.  In  other  and  worse  cases  the  effective  proprietor  was  a 
mortgagee,  more  determined  even  than  the  landlord's  agent  to  extort  the 
uttermost  farthing  from  the  tenant.  If  the  tenant  improved  his  holding  at 
his  own  expense  he  got  no  compensation,  but  was  called  upon  to  pay  a 
higher  rent,  because  a  higher  rent  would  be  obtainable  from  another  tenant 
on  account  of  the  improvements  which  he  had  made.  Tenants  were  fast  in 
the  toils  of  money-lenders,  and  many  of  the  landlords  were  hopelessly  sunk 
in  debt.  There  were  many  landlords  who  dealt  justly  enough  with  their 
tenants,  many  more  w^ho  would  have  been  willing  to  do  so  but  for  their 
own  debts  ;  but  the  law  gave  no  protection  to  the  tenants.  Consequently 
the  tenants  took  the  law  into  their  own  hands  and  enrolled  themselves  in 
the  secret  societies,  which  enforced  their  own  code  with  a  severity  more 
relentless  than  that  of  the  law  itself. 

The  report  of  the  Devon  Commission  bore  no  fruit ;  for  although  a 
tentative  measure  was  introduced  in  the  House  of  Lords  to  deal  with  the 
problems  which  it  had  exposed,  the  bill  was  shelved.  Legislative  interfer- 
ence with  the  relations  between  landlord  and  tenant  was  objectionable 
in  England  to  the  landed  interest,  and  was  opposed  to  the  laissez  faire 
doctrines  of  commerce  which  were  on  the  verge  of  achieving  their  triumph. 
Nothing  therefore  was  done.  At  the  same  time  Peel  introduced  measures 
which  were  intended  to  pacify  religious  hostilities,  but  actually  had  the 
opposite  effect.  A  large  grant  was  made  to  the  College  of  the  Maynooth, 
where  candidates  for  the  Catholic  priesthood  were  trained  ;  Protestants  in 
England  and  Ireland  denounced  the  endowment  of  Roman  Catholicism. 
A  number  of  colleges  were  set  up  on  non-sectarian  principles  ;  Catholics 
joined  Protestants  in  denouncing  the  ''  Godless  colleges." 

Then  came  the  potato  famine,  with  the  misery,  destitution,  and  starva- 
tion which  followed  in  its  train.  Starving  men  do  not  stop  to  reason,  and 
crime  as  well  as  famine  stalked  through  the  country.  Peel  strove  to  relieve 
the  destitution,  even  while  the  extreme  advocates  of  laissez  faire  proclaimed 
the  vanity  and  the  folly  of  interfering  with  the  law  of  demand  and  supply  ; 
but  at  the  same  time  he  proceeded  to  introduce  another  Coercion  Bill  for 
the  preservation  of  order,  to  the  indignation  of  the  advanced  Liberals. 
With  them  the  Protectionists  united,  bent  on  vengeance  for  the  Corn  Bill, 
and  on  the  day  when  the  Lords  passed  the  Repeal  of  the  Corn  Law  the 
Commons  threw  out  the  Government  Coercion  Bill.  Peel  resigned  and 
Russell  took  office. 

But  for  the  second  time  the  potato  plague  smote  the  land  even  more 
cruelly  than  before.  The  Government  made  immense  efforts  to  meet  the 
calamity.  It  started  relief  works,  in  themselves  for  the  most  part  of  no 
permanent  utility.  Private  sympathy  and  charity  came  to  its  aid,  and 
much  was  undeniably  done  to  reduce  the  appalling  effects  of  the  catas- 
trophe. But  the  rigid  free-trailers  of  those  days  recognised  no  difference 
between  a  working  policy  and  an  emergency  policy ;  there  was  no  relax?.- 


THE   REFORMED    PARLIAxMENT  835 

tion  of  the  principle  that  the  supply  of  food  must  be  left  to  the  ordinary 
operations  of  trade,  and  the  ordinary  operations  of  trade  did  not  reach 
the  remotest  and  poorest  districts.  Relief,  too,  was  granted  only  under 
extremely  stringent  conditions,  and  numbers  of  tenants  were  practically 
obliged  to  surrender  their  holdings  in  order  to  qualify  for  obtaining  it. 
Crowds  of  emigrants  flocked  out  of  the  country,  and  the  census  of  1851 
showed  that  the  population  of  Ireland  had  been  reduced  by  not  less  than 
two  millions.  And  if  many  of  the  Irish  landlords  behaved,  as  undoubtedly 
they  did,  with  a  splendid  generosity,  there  were  others  who  used  the  law 
mercilessly  to  effect  on  their  estates  clearances  which  they  hoped  would 
enable  them  to  plant  the  soil  with  a  more  efficient  tenantry  and  to  turn 
their  land  to  a  more  profitable  account.  The  actual  effect  was  that  both 
agrarian  antagonisms  between  tenants  and  landlords  and  national  anta- 
gonisms between  Irish  and  English  were  embittered  and  intensified.  Out- 
rages multiplied  again,  and  in  1848  desperation  produced  a  futile  insurrection 
headed  by  Smith  O'Brien,  It  was  suppressed  without  difficulty,  but  in- 
creased the  general  soreness,  which  also  inevitably  resulted  from  the  inevit- 
able Coercion  Bill.  Nor  did  the  Government  attempt  to  meet  the  problem 
by  treating  the  system  of  land  tenure  as  the  root  of  the  evil  ;  it  contented 
itself  instead  with  passing  the  Encumbered  Estates  Act,  which  removed 
indeed  a  large  number  of  the  poverty-stricken  landlords  whose  existence 
as  landlords  made  improvement  impossible,  but  at  the  same  time  left  their 
places  to  be  taken  by  a  new  class  of  landlords  generally  disposed  to  treat 
their  estates  on  strict  commercial  principles,  with  no  inclination  to  sym- 
pathise with  the  tenantry  or  to  recognise  any  rights  not  secured  to  them 
by  the  law, 

VI 

THE   COLONIES   AND   AMERICA 

The  early  years  of  Queen  Victoria's  reign  form  a  very  definite  epoch  in 
the  history  of  British  colonial  development.  In  effect  during  those  years 
the  more  important  colonies  all  acquired  an  advanced  degree  of  autonomy. 
Some  of  them  in  1833  were  possessed  of  legislative  assemblies,  but  even  in 
the  most  advanced  of  them  those  assemblies  were  in  part  nominated,  and 
in  every  case  the  executive  government  was  responsible  to  the  governor 
and  to  the  Crown,  not  to  the  legislature.  That  is  to  say,  the  administrative 
offices  were  all  held  at  the  Crown's  nomination  and  did  not  change  hands 
with  the  changes  of  party  predominance  in  the  Chambers.  The  situation, 
in  fact,  was  very  much  hke  that  in  England  before  the  system  of  party 
government  came  into  full  play.  In  the  course  of  the  next  twenty  years 
all  the  leading  colonies  had  acquired  elective  legislative  assemblies,  and  in 
nearly  all  of  them  ministries  were  practically  constructed  in  accordance 
with  the  party  majority  in  the  legislature. 


836  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

The  change  began  with  Canada,  where  discontent  was  already  becoming 
rife  before  the  Reform  Bill  was  passed  in  England.  Both  in  Upper  and 
in  Lower  Canada  the  cause  of  discontent  lay  largely  in  the  fact  that  the 
administrative  offices  had  become  the  virtual  monopoly  of  a  few  families. 
In  Lower  Canada  the  trouble  was  intensified  because  these  predominant 
families  were  British,  whereas  the  mass  of  the  population  was  of  French 
blood,  French  in  its  ideas,  traditions,  and  language.  The  development  of 
the  great  republic  on  the  south  fostered  advanced  political  ideas.  Both  in 
Upper  and  Lower  Canada  the  elected  legislative  assembly  raised  an  insistent 
demand  for  increased  control   over  administration,  and  claimed  that  the 


Map  of  the  Dominion  of  Canada 

Second  Chamber  also  should  be  an  elected  instead  of  a  nominated  body, 
a  change  which  in  Lower  Canada  would  have  ensured  an  overwhelming 
French  preponderance.  In  1837  the  troubles  culminated  in  an  armed 
revolt  in  Lower  Canada  known  as  Papineau's  Rebellion,  from  the  politician 
who  was  its  recognised  leader.  Even  advanced  Canadian  opinion  did  not 
in  fact  approve  of  such  extreme  action;  the  revolt  was  suppressed  with- 
out difficulty,  and  a  corresponding  attempt  at  insurrection  in  the  Upper 
Province  scarcely  made  head  at  all.  The  home  government  adopted  an 
unprecedented  course.  It  suspended  the  constitution  of  the  Canadas,  and 
despatched  a  commission,  invested  with  the  supreme  control,  to  investigate 
the  whole  question  of  Canadian  discontent,  and  to  conduct  the  government 
pending  the  results  of  the  enquiry. 


THE    REFORMED    PARLL\MENT  H37 

The  Governor-in-Chief  and  High  Commissioner  was  Lord  Durham ; 
but  at  the  instance  of  the  Opposition  restrictions  were  placed  upon  the 
absoiute  powers  with  which  it  was  originally  intended  to  invest  him.  He 
was  a  man  of  strong  and  independent  personality,  very  self-confident  and 
somewhat  arrogant,  a  difficult  colleague  who  made  many  enemies,  hold- 
ing views  which  in  England  were  regarded  as  dangerously  advanced,  but 
endowed  with  keen  penetration.  On  his  arrival  in  Canada  he  was  faced 
with  the  difficulty  of  dealing  with  the  political  prisoners.  In  existing  cir- 
cumstances it  would  have  been  impossible  that  their  trial  in  the  ordinary 
course  should  have  satisfactory  results.  Therefore,  on  his  own  responsibility 
he  issued  an  ordinance  banishing  those  of  the  rebels  who  had  fled  over  the 
frontier,  while  those  who  were  in  his  hands  were  deported  to  the  Bermudas. 
Members  of  both  groups  were  forbidden  to  return  to  Canada  upon  pain  of 
death  until  permission  should  be  granted.  With  the  way  thus  cleared  he 
proceeded,  with  the  aid  of  his  council,  to  investigate  the  whole  situation 
and  to  prepare  a  report  upon  it  for  the  home  government.  In  his  banish- 
ment ordinance  however  he  had  exceeded  his  powers;  a  hot  attack  was 
opened  upon  him  in  England ;  and  the  Melbourne  Government,  with  a 
small  and  precarious  majority  in  the  Commons  and  a  hostile  majority  in 
the  Lords,  gave  way.  Lord  Durham  was  recalled,  and  the  governorship 
was  placed  in  the  hands  of  Sir  John  Colborne.  Durham,  on  his  departure, 
issued  a  very  injudicious  proclamation,  which  was  virtually  an  attack  upon 
the  Government  which  had  deserted  him.  Canadian  opinion  was  strongly 
on  the  ^ide  of  the  man  whose  sympathetic  grasp  of  the  situation  in  Canada 
had  been  made  evident;  nevertheless  Durham  had  ruined  his  own  career, 
and  died  shortly  afterwards. 

Colborne  conducted  the  administration  with  ability  and  firmness.  A 
fresh  attempt  at  insurrection  was  promptly  suppressed,  and  raids  from  the 
United  States  were  sharply  dealt  with.  Durham  had  sealed  his  own 
political  fate,  but  he  had  done  his  work  for  Canada.  A  bill  providing  a 
new  constitution  for  the  colony  was  introduced  and  passed  in  1840,  and 
this  Canadian  Act  of  Reunion  adopted  his  report  almost  in  its  entirety. 
He  had  seen  that  the  prime  necessity  was  the  establishment  of  a  national 
Canadian  sentiment  in  the  place  of  the  existing  local  and  racial  sentiment. 
The  two  Canadas  were  united  under  a  single  legislature,  and  endowed  with 
practically  complete  powers  of  self-government,  while  local  government 
was  put  in  the  hands  of  local  elective  bodies.  The  Second  Chamber,  though 
enlarged,  still  consisted  of  nominees,  and  the  executive  government  was  still 
in  form  responsible  to  the  Crown  and  not  to  the  legislature.  Nevertheless, 
before  long  the  powers  of  the  legislature  predominated,  and  except  in 
matters  of  imperial  concern  Canada  had  in  a  few  years  become  a  com- 
pletely self-governing  state  with  "  responsible "  government.  The  same 
course  was  followed  in  the  maritime  provinces  of  New  Brunswick  and 
Nova  Scotia. 

In  Jamaica  also  at  the  beginning  of  the  queen's  reign  serious  difficulties 


THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

arose  mainly  as  a  consequence  of  the  Act  for  the  Emancipation  of  Slaves. 
The  arrangement  establishing  the  system  of  what  was  called  apprenticeship 
for  a  term  of  years,  in  order  to  allow  a  gradual  adjustment  to  the  con- 
ditions of  complete  emancipation,  carried  with  it  serious  temporary  evils  ; 
for  the  slave-owner,  whose  slaves  were  valuable  property,  had  a  direct 
inducement  to  take  some  care  of  the  lives  and  health  of  his  chattels,  but 
there  was  no  such  inducement  in  the  case  of  "apprentices"  w^ho  were  not 
marketable  property.  The  planter  class  who  monopolised  political  power 
were    induced    by    pressure    from     England    reluctantly    to    proceed    to 


Australia  and  Tasmania. 

immediate  emancipation  ;  but  the  consequence  was  immediate  and  violent 
friction  between  them  and  the  newly  emancipated  blacks.  The  result  again 
was  that  the  Melbourne  ministry  proposed  to  suspend  the  Jamaica  constitution 
for  five  years.  The  opposition  encountered  led  to  Melbourne's  resignation 
and  the  temporary  interregnum  marked  by  the  bedchamber  incident. 
When  Melbourne  returned  to  ofBce,  a  new  Jamaica  Bill  left  the  assembly 
the  opportunity  of  avoiding  a  suspension  of  the  constitution,  and  by  the 
judicious  management  of  Lord  Metcalfe,  who  was  sent  out  as  governor,  the 
crisis  was  tided  over. 

Turning  now  to    the  most  remote  quarter  of  the  globe,  we  find  the 
Australasian  colonies  steadily  expanding.     The  year  1834  saw  the  begin- 


^ 


M§:'..  lift;  ,-:J-'*    .'"'''H/l    !!f   '^" 


IM^ 


:^-     W  Iff  It  §^,^     '  ■* 


GREAT    COLLIXS    STKKET,     MELBOURXE,     IN    I857 
From  a  view  published  in  1857. 


GREAT    COLLINS    STREICT,     MELBOURNE,     IN     I912 
From  a  photograph. 


THE   REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  839 

nings  of  the  colony  which  afterwards  was  named  Victoria,  and  its  capital, 
Melbourne,  was  founded  in  1837.  As  yet  it  was  an  offshoot  of  New 
South  Wales  and  was  administered  by  officials  under  the  New  South  Wales 
government.  South  Australia  was  colonised  from  England  in  1834;  its 
capital,  Adelaide,  took  its  name  from  William's  queen.  In  1839  New 
Zealand  was  annexed,  completing  the  Hst  of  the  Australasian  colonies,  since 
the  settlement  of  Queensland  and  of  Western  Australia  had  been  com- 
menced in  the  previous  decade. 

The  convict  settlements  with  which  the  colonisation  had  originated  had 
now  become  a  serious  drawback.  In  the  settlements  begun  later  than 
1829  there  were  no  convicts;  and  transportation  to  New  South  Wales 
ceased  in  1840,  to  Queensland  in  1849,  and  to  Tasmania  in  1853.     The 


Gold-seekers  at  Bathurst,  Western  Australia,  on  their  way  to  the  fields  at  Ophir,  1851. 
[From  a  print  published  at  Sj'dney,  N.S.W.,  in  1851.] 

Canadian  troubles  in  fact  awakened  the  British  Government  to  the  wisdom 
of  giving  the  great  Australasian  settlements  the  status  of  free  self-governing 
colonies.  It  was  not  that  the  modern  imperial  conception  had  taken  hold 
of  men's  minds;  the  idea  was  rather  that  the  principle  of  self-government 
ought  to  be  applied  to  all  British  communities  which  were  sufficiently 
advanced  to  admit  of  it.  Free  self-government  was  incompatible  with 
the  use  of  the  colonies  as  convict  settlements  ;  hence  the  gradual  abolition 
of  the  system. 

Hitherto  every  colony  in  Australia  had  been  controlled  by  a  governor 
with  a  small  nominated  council,  the  council  being  primarily  merely  con- 
sultative, though  by  degrees  the  arbitrary  powers  of  the  governor  became 
limited.  In  the  year  1842  came  the  beginnings  of  representation  in  New 
South  Wales.  The  legislative  council  was  enlarged,  and  two-thirds  of  the 
members  were  elected.     The  movement  towards  self-government  was  not 


840 


THE   MODERN    BRITISH    ExVIPIRE 


at  first  rapid,  but  a  great  change  came  over  the  character  of  the  Australian 
population  with  the  discovery  of  gold-fields,  which  brought  in  a  rush  of 
immigrants.  In  1854  the  four  most  highly  organised  of  the  colonies  were 
given  responsible  government  in  full  measure,  their  several  constitutions 
varying  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  they  had  severally  expressed.  In 
every  case  one  chamber  was  wholly  elective,  though  the  composition  of  the 

second  chambers  differed. 
Each  colony  had  its  governor, 
but  in  each  the  executive  was 
responsible  to  the  legislature. 
Thenceforth  they,  like  Canada, 
were  virtually  independent  states 
except  as  concerned  relations 
with  foreign  Powers. 

The  story  of  New  Zealand 
requires  separate  attention.  The 
Maoris,  the  native  population  of 
those  islands,  were  an  advanced 
race  infinitely  superior  to  the 
"black-fellows"  of  Australia  and 
Tasmania  both  physically  and 
intellectually.  The  annexation 
of  New  Zealand  was  carried  out 
after  the  Treaty  of  Waitangi,  an 
agreement  made  with  the  native 
chiefs.  The  relations  between 
the  Maoris  and  the  British 
settlers  occupy  a  much  more 
prominent  position  than  corre- 
sponding questions  in  Australia. 
There  the  natives  were  primitive 
nomads,  without  anything  which 
could  be  called  organisation. 
The  Maori,  on  the  other  hand,  lived  in  a  community  which  had  quite  de- 
finite conceptions  with  regard  to  law  and  to  property  ;  he  was  no  doubt  a 
barbarian,  but  he  had  a  definite  civilisation  of  his  own.  When  the  Maori 
chiefs  made  their  bargain  they  knew  what  the  bargain  meant,  and  they  ex- 
pected the  white  man  to  keep  it.  They  were  to  be  under  the  protection  of 
the  Queen  of  England.  The  land  was  to  remain,  as  it  was  at  the  time, 
specifically  the  property  of  the  tribes.  Only  the  tribe  could  alienate  it  ;  no 
individual  chief  or  other  person  had  power  to  do  so.  And  if  a  tribe  was 
willing  to  part  with  or  sell  any  of  its  land,  the  only  recognised  legal  pur- 
chaser, the  only  person  who  could  acquire  possession  from  the  tribe,  was 
to  be  the  governor  representing  the  queen.  Only  from  the  governor 
could  the  individual  white  man  obtain  land  in  New  Zealand.      In  Australia, 


Tilap  of  New  Zealand. 


THE    REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  841 

on  the  contrary,  no  one  had  ever  dreamed  of  regarding  an  inch  of  the  soil 
as  the  property  of  any  individual  native  or  group  of  natives. 

Unfortunately,  would-be  settlers  ignored  the  treaty,  under  the  mistaken 
impression  that  they  had  to  deal  with  merely  ignorant  savages.  They  bought 
land  for  themselves  which  they  had  no  right  to  do,  from  chiefs  who  had  no 
power  to  sell  it  The  Maoris  protested  and  backed  their  protests  by  force. 
Only  the  interference  of  the  then  acting  governor,  who  recognised  the 
essential  justice  of  the  Maori  position,  prevented  the  white  men  from  being 
driven  into  the  sea.  The  situation,  however,  remained  extremely  dangerous 
until  the  arrival,  in  1845,  of  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  British  colonial  ad- 
ministrators, George  Grey,  who  had  already  proved  his  capacity  as  governor 
of  South  Australia.  Grey  resolutely  insisted  on  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  of 
Waitangi,  suppressed  the  acquisition  of  land  by  irregular  means,  won  the 
confidence  of  the  Maori  chiefs,  and  brought  them  to  aid  him  in  suppressing 
those  who  continued  recalcitrant,  when  they  sav/  that  he  had  established 
control  over  his  own  countrymen.  The  completeness  of  his  self-reliance 
was  again  demonstrated  and  justified  when  the  home  authorities  supplied 
New  Zealand  with  an  unsatisfactory  constitution.  Grey  refused  to  put  it 
in  force  until  his  own  views  had  been  taken  into  consideration.  So  effec- 
tive was  his  protest  that  the  constitution  was  withdrawn  ;  and  ultimately  in 
1852  his  own  scheme  was  practically  accepted  establishing  responsible 
government  analogous  to  that  which  was  already  in  force  in  Canada,  and 
was  set  up  two  years  later  in  the  four  leading  colonies  of  Australia. 

Eventful  also  were  these  years  in  the  third  great  field  of  British  colonial 
enterprise,  South  Africa.  The  history  of  South  African  problems  cannot 
be  fairly  grasped  without  a  preliminary  sketch  of  some  of  the  elements 
which  generated  them.  In  the  first  place  it  must  be  understood  that  the 
original  native  inhabitants  of  the  Cape  where  the  Dutch  colonists  had 
planted  themselves  were  not  negroes  but  mainly  Hottentots,  a  yellow- 
skinned  race  entirely  distinct  from  the  negroes,  though  possibly  having  a 
mixture  of  negro  blood.  Beyond  the  borders  of  the  colony,  inland  and  on 
the  east  coast  from  Natal  up  to  the  Portuguese  territory,  were  the  tribes  of 
Bantus,  otherwise  called  Kaffirs — negro  people  of  a  very  fine  physique, 
savages  certainly,  but  often  with  a  social  and  especially  a  military 
development  which  had  passed  far  beyond  a  rudimentary  stage.  Com- 
paratively but  only  comparatively  speaking  the  southern  tribes  were  peace- 
ful agriculturists  upon  whom  the  ultra-military  tribes  of  the  Zulus  and  the 
Matabele  were  pressing  from  the  north.  Apart  from  the  subject  Hottentots, 
however,  there  was  in  the  Cape  Colony  a  considerable  black  slave  popula- 
tion not  drawn  from  the  Kaffirs  but  imported. 

Now  in  1834  the  Dutch  at  the  Cape  were  already  irritated  by  the  com- 
parative anglicising  of  the  institutions  of  the  colony.  In  1834  came  the 
Act  for  the  Emancipation  of  the  Slaves,  for  which  the  farmers  were  shortly 
to  hnd  that  they  were  to  receive  compensation  extremely  inadequate  from 
their  point  of  view.     Also  for  the  past  fifty  years  there  had  been  periodical 


842  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

collisions  with  the  Kaffirs,  who  were  with  difficulty  held  within  their  own 
borders,  and  collisions  became  more  frequent  in  consequence  of  the  planting 
of  many  British  settlers  in  the  eastern  regions  on  the  Kaffir  border.     With 

the  exception  of  the  mis- 
ty^  j  ~i  sionaries,  every  one, 
"^  '  I  British  and  Dutch  alike, 
regarded  the  Kaffirs  as 
dangerous  savages  who 
could  only  be  kept  in  re- 
straint by  fear  ;  but  the 
humanitarian  spirit  was  at 
this  time  extremely  active 
in  England,  where  the 
missionaries  had  the  ear 
of  the  public.  Hence  just 
at  this  time  the  governor. 
Sir  Benjamin  Durban,  re- 
ceived positive  instruc- 
tions which,  in  effect, 
precluded  him  from  such 
a  demonstration  of  force 
as  was  needed  to  preserve 
peace  on  the  Border.  The 
result  was  that  at  Christ- 
mas time  a  horde  of 
Kaffirs  poured  across  the 
Fish  River,  robbing,  raid- 
ing, and  murdering.  Of 
course  there  was  a  war, 
and  of  course  the  Kaffirs 
were  beaten ;  but  even 
then  the  instructions  from 
home  were  on  the  same 
lines  as  before.  None 
of  the  precautions  con- 
sidered necessary  on  the 
not   to    be   irritated   by   the 


Map  of  South  Africa. 


The    Kaffirs   were 


spot    were    to   be  taken, 
overbearing  white  man. 

The  cup  of  the  Boers  or  up-country  Dutch  farmers  was  full.  The 
English  had  disturbed  their  time-honoured  institutions,  adopting  an  air  of 
superiority.  They  had  robbed  them  of  their  slaves.  Now  they  would 
neither  allow  them  to  protect  themselves  against  the  bloodthirsty  Bantu 
nor  provide  them  with  protection.  Therefore  they  would  go  forth  into  the 
wilderness,  shaking  off  the  dust  of  their  feet  against  the  Britisli  as  the 
children  of  Israel  departed  from  Egypt  to  find  the  Land  of  Promise.     So 


THE    REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  843 

the  Great  Trek  began.  Hundreds  of  Boer  families — men,  women,  and 
children,  with  their  cattle  and  their  baggage  waggons — crossed  the  Orange 
River,  which  was  virtually  the  boundary  of  the  colony,  and  marched  away 
into  the  interior  to  seek  independence.  It  did  not  strike  them  that  they 
were  British  subjects,  and  would  not  cease  to  be  British  subjects  merely 
because  they  had  removed  themselves  into  barbarian  territory. 

In  those  parts  the  native  tribes  lived  in  deadly  fear  of  the  Matabele 
army,  which  had  recently  taken  possession  of  the  country  beyond  the  Vaal. 
The  enterprising  Boers  crossed  the  Vaal,  were  duly  attacked  by  vast 
hordes  of  Matabele,  and,  fighting  with  dogged  obstinacy  within  their 
"  laager,"  routed  them  with  terrific  slaughter.  The  Matabele  retired 
beyond  the   next  great  river,  the   Limpopo. 


Port  Natal  in  1852,  and  the  arrival  of  the  first  mail  steamer. 
[From  a  drawing  made  in  1852.] 

Another  set  of  the  emigrants  crossed  the  eastern  mountain  range  called 
the  Drakensberg,  and  descended  into  what  is  now  the  colony  of  Natal. 
They  negotiated  with  Dingan,  the  king  of  the  mighty  warrior  tribes  of  the 
Zulus,  to  procure  land  from  him.  He  received  their  envoys  with  fair 
words  and  promises,  then  suddenly  fell  upon  them  and  slaughtered  them. 
Then  he  launched  his  legions  against  the  nearest  Boer  camp.  Only  one  of 
the  four  hundred  souls  there  escaped  to  give  warning  to  the  rest  of  the 
emigrants,  who  were  thus  able  to  beat  off  the  next  attack.  But  it  was  not 
till  many  months  had  passed  and  many  lives  had  been  lost  that  an  over- 
whelming defeat  was  inflicted  upon  Dingan  upon  "  Dingan's  Day,"  beside 
the  stream  thenceforth  known  as  the  Blood  River. 

But  the  Boers  had  hardly  proclaimed  a  republic  in  what  was  now 
in  effect  conquered  territory,  when    the   British  government  at  the  Cape 


844  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

decided  that  the  conquered  territory  belonged  to  Great  Britain.  The  Boers 
in  sullen  resentment  again  retired  across  the  Drakensberg,  and  the  British 
established  the  colony  of  Natal.  The  Boers  between  the  Orange  River  and 
the  Vaal  accepted  the  position  of  a  dependency  of  the  British  Crown  under 
the  name  of  the  Orange  River  Sovereignty  in  1848;  but  in  1852  the 
home  government,  by  no  means  anxious  to  shoulder  more  extensive 
responsibilities  in  South  Africa,  in  effect  recognised  the  independence  of 
the  Boers  beyond  the  Vaal  by  the  Sand  River  Convention.  T^  complete 
this  portion  of  the  story,  it  may  be  added  that  after  two  years  more  the 
Orange  River  Sovereignty  was  deliberately  cut  adrift  by  the  home  govern- 
ment against  the  will  both  of  Cape  Colony  and  of  the  Boers  themselves. 
The  Orange  Free  State,  as  it  was  now  called,  was  left  to  work  out  its  own 
salvation,  which  it  did  for  many  years  with  remarkable  success. 

In  the  course  of  the  colonial  policy  by  this  time  universally  prevalent, 
representative  government  was  thrust  upon  the  Cape  Colony  in  1853,  a 
boon  not  greatly  desired  by  the  colonists  themselves.  But  the  executive 
was  not  yet  made  responsible  to  the  legislature. 


VII 
INDIA 

When  the  first  Reformed  Parliament  was  opened  at  Westminster 
Lord  William  Bentinck  was  still  Governor-General  in  India,  Besides  the 
administrative  progress  recorded  in  the  previous  chapter,  two  other  im- 
portant measures  are  connected  with  his  term  of  ofhce.  All  previous 
Governors-General  had  accepted  as  axiomatic  the  principle  of  Cornwallis 
that  only  Europeans  should  be  allowed  to  hold  posts  of  responsibility  within 
the  British  dominion.  Under  Bentinck's  rule  the  theory  was  discarded 
while  the  practice  was  retained.  Race,  colour,  and  religion  were  no  longer 
recognised  officially  as  barriers  tj  office;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact,  neither 
while  appointment  continued  to  be  made  by  selection,  nor  at  a  later  period 
when  admission  to  the  public  services  was  obtained  by  competitive  examina- 
tions, did  the  natives  of  India  obtain  anything  more  than  a  very  small  share 
in  the  higher  business  of  government,  outside  the  native  states.  Neverthe- 
less the  official  acceptance  of  the  theory  was  a  condition  whicli  made  the 
official  adoption  of  the  practice  possible  whenever  it  should  seem  com- 
patible with  the  public  security. 

The  second  measure  in  fact  had  the  same  object  in  view.  This  was 
the  establishment  and  endowment  of  an  educational  system  which  was  to 
imbue  the  intelligent  Eastern  mind  with  the  practical  wisdom  of  the  West. 
From  the  study  of  English  science  and  English  literature  the  natives 
would  learn  to  recognise  the  superiority  of  Western  civilisation,  would  imbibe 
Western  ideas,  and  would  become  fitter  for  association  with  the  British  in 


THE    REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  845 

the  task  of  government,  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay,  a  brilhant  young 
Whig,  who  was  sent  out  as  legal  adviser  of  the  Indian  Council  in  1834, 
was  the  most  energetic  and  persuasive  promoter  of  the  scheme ;  but  it 
scarcely  answered  the  precise  purposes  with  which  it  was  initiated.  The 
natives  who  profited  by  the  new  education  belonged  almost  entirely  to 
a  class  extremely  intelligent  but  apt  to  be  deficient  in  the  moral  qualities 
which  the  natives  of  India  require  in  their  rulers.  Moreover,  while  they 
duly  acquired  a  literary  acquaintance  with  Western  ideas,  these  did 
not  displace  the  oriental  conceptions  which  were  rooted  in  their  minds 
from  birth,  but  were  only  grafted  on  to  them,  bearing  a  fruit  very  different 
from  that  which  had  been  intended. 

Bentinck  was  succeeded  after  a  brief  interval  by  Lord  Auckland,  and  a 
period  unprecedentedly  peaceful  was  followed  by  one  of  renewed  warfare, 
though  the  wars  were  nearly  all  beyond  the  borders  of  the  British 
dominion. 

In  the  north-west  corner  of  what  is  now  British  India  lay  the  powerful 
and  independent  Sikh  state  of  the  Punjab,  which  had  been  consolidated 
and  still  was  ruled  by  Ranjit  Singh.  Beyond  the  mountains  was  the 
turbulent  Afghan  nation,  beyond  Afghanistan  lay  Persia,  and  behind 
Persia  was  Russia,  creeping  always  steadily  forward,  absorbing  new 
territories  decade  by  decade,  and,  as  Palmerston  and  all  Indian  statesmen 
believed,  aiming  at  the  ultimate  appropriation  of  India  itself.  Persia  was 
still  accounted  a  great  power,  and  half  the  Mohammedan  world  regarded 
the  Shah  of  Persia  as  the  lineal  head  of  Islam.  The  idea  then  was  that 
Russia  intended  to  make  a  catspaw  of  Persia.  Persia  was  to  be  encouraged 
to  re-absorb  Mohammedan  Afghanistan,  once  a  province  of  its  own  ;  and 
was  then  to  call  upon  the  Mussulmans  of  India  to  rise  against  the  British 
ascendency  and  restore  the  Moslem  supremacy  under  the  cegis  of  Persia. 
Upon  the  chaos  that  would  supervene  Russia  would  descend  and  set  up  her 
own  dominion. 

British  attention  to  Asiatic  problems  is  always  fitful  ;  successive  British 
Governments  had  omitted  to  pay  due  regard  to  the  relations  between  Russia 
and  Persia  ;  Britain  had  failed  in  her  treaty  obligations  to  support  Persia 
against  Russian  aggression;  and  before  1830  the  Persian  government  had 
made  up  its  mind  that  its  true  interests  lay  not  in  a  British  but  in 
a  Russian  alliance.  In  1837  ^  Persian  army  marched  upon  Herat,  the 
great  city  of  Western  Afghanistan.  Unhappily  Lord  Auckland  and  his 
advisers  misread  the  situation  in  Afghanistan,  where  Dost  Mohammed, 
the  ruler  of  Kabul,  was  not  at  all  inclined  to  submit  either  to  Persian  or  to 
Russian  domination.  The  true  British  policy  would  have  been  to  give  the 
Dost  vigorous  support  in  resisting  Persian  aggression  ;  but  his  attitude  was 
misunderstood,  and  it  was  believed  that  he  meant  to  play  into  the  hands  of 
Russia.  Many  years  before.  Shah  Shuja,  then  reigning  over  Afghanistan, 
had  been  driven  from  the  country  into  British  territory,  and  the  power  of 
Dost  Mohammed's  family  had  then  been  established.     The  plan  to  which 


846  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

the  Indian  government  now  committed  itself  was  the  restoration  of  Shah 
Shuja  to  the  throne  at  Kabul  as  the  ally  or  puppet  of  the  British. 

By  September  1838  the  stubborn  defence  of  Herat,  briUiantly  conducted 
under  the  guidance  of  a  young  British  ofticer,  Eldred  Pottinger,  had  proved 
too  much  for  the  Shah  ;  the  siege  was  raised  and  the  Persian  army  retired. 
But  although  the  imminent  danger  was  removed,  the  British  Government 
persisted  in  its  design  in  defiance  of  all  the  most  experienced  authorities  ; 
and  in  1839  the  British  expedition  advanced  into  Afghanistan.  Kandahar 
was  captured,  then  Ghazni.  Dost  Mohammed  retreated,  Shah  Shuja  was 
enthroned  at  Kabul,  and  then  it  became  evident  that  his  position  could 
only  be  secured  by  the  retention  of  a  great  British  force  and  a  British 
Resident  at  the  capital.  In  the  next  year,  1840,  Dost  Mohammed  surrendered 
to  the  British  and  was  removed  to  British  territory.  Peace  apparently 
reigned  ;  but  there  was  a  rude  awakening.  The  chiefs  of  the  Afghan 
tribes  had  at  first  been  pacified  by  subsidies,  and  they  were  the  more 
enraged  when  the  subsidies  were  withdrawn.  The  country  was  soon  in  a 
state  of  ferment  unperceived  by  the  Resident  MacNaghten.  In  November 
1841  a  great  riot  broke  out  in  Kabul.  Allowed  to  go  unchecked,  it 
developed  into  a  general  insurrection.  The  commander  of  the  great 
British  force  at  Kabul  was  hopelessly  incompetent,  and  the  Resident  was 
compelled  to  accept  an  ignominious  treaty  under  which  the  country  was  to 
be  entirely  evacuated  by  the  British,  who  were  to  leave  hostages  behind 
them  in  the  hands  of  the  Afghans.  The  garrisons  at  Kandahar,  Ghazni, 
and  Jellalabad  repudiated  their  orders  and  refused  to  budge.  MacNaghten 
was  murdered,  and  in  midwinter  the  British — men,  women  and  children, 
civilians  and  soldiers,  numbering  some  fifteen  thousand  souls — started  on 
their  defenceless  march  from  Kabul  only  to  be  massacred  in  the  mountain 
passes.     Of  all  that  host  only  one  escaped,  and  reached  Jellalabad. 

Such  was  the  great  disaster  which  for  the  moment  seemed  to  threaten 
the  very  existence  of  the  British  power  in  India.  It  took  place  just  at  the 
moment  when  Peel's  great  administration  began  in  England.  Lord  Ellen- 
borough  arrived  in  India  to  take  Auckland's  place,  and  active  steps  were 
taken  to  retrieve  the  position.  The  force  at  Kandahar  held  its  own  without 
difficulty  ;  that  at  Jellalabad  only  with  extreme  difficulty  and  by  distin- 
guished gallantry  ;  Ghazni  surrendered.  The  first  order  issued  for  general 
evacuation  v/as  practically  cancelled  by  a  second,  which  instructed  General 
Pollock  with  a  relieving  force  which  was  entering  Afghanistan  Tv'a  Jellalabad 
to  effect  the  evacuation  via  Kabul.  Between  April  and  September  Pollock's 
force  and  Nott's  from  Kandahar  completely  demonstrated  to  the  Afghans 
the  futility  of  resistance,  and  the  British  flag  was  again  hoisted  at  Kabul. 
In  the  meanwhile  the  luckless  Shah  Shuja  had  been  assassinated,  and  now 
the  British  Government  did  what  it  ought  to  have  done  in  the  first  instance. 
It  restored  Dost  Mohammed  to  the  throne  of  Kabul,  since  he  was  obviously 
the  chief  incomparably  the  best  fitted  to  hold  the  reins  of  power  ;  and  it 
made  with  him  the  firm  alliance  which  he  would  gladly  have  accepted  at 


THE   REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  847 

the  outseto  To  that  alhance  he  remained  admirably  faithful,  and  his  loyalty 
proved  of  immense  service  in  the  troublous  years  that  followed.  The 
situation  was  saved,  but  British  prestige  had  received  a  terrible  blow  in 
spite  of  the  triumphal  processions  and  grandiloquent  proclamations  by 
which  Ellenborough  endeavoured  to  persuade  himself  and  the  natives  of 
India  that  the  overwhelming  power  of  the  British  had  been  magnificently 
vindicated. 

Another  demonstration  was  given  in  the  next  year,  1843,  the  one 
example  of  a  deliberate  act  of  wanton  aggression  in  our  Indian  annals. 
The  annexation  of  Sindh  was  not  inaccurately  described  by  its  perpetrator, 
Sir  Charles  Napier,  as  a  piece  of  beneficent  ras- 
cality. Sindh  lies  on  the  Lower  Indus,  beyond 
what  v,'as  then  the  sphere  of  British  dominion. 
Napier,  sent  to  this  region  as  Resident  or  Agent, 
picked  a  quarrel  with  the  Amirs,  routed  their 
forces  in  a  brilliant  campaign  at  Miani,  and  the 
annexation  of  the  whole  territory  followed.  Only 
a  few  months  later  came  another  campaign,  this 
time  against  Gwalior.  Gwalior  was  the  capital  of 
the  Maratha  Maharaja  Sindhia,  who  at  this  time 
was  a  child.  The  Gwalior  government  controlled 
what  was  now  the  one  powerful  native  army  in 
India  outside  the  Punjab.  The  effective  ruler  at 
Gwalior  was  the  Rani,   the  young  widow  of  the 

1      ,   r>-      11  •  «TM  i       1  o-      11  ■  1  Dost  Mohammed. 

last  Smdhia.    The  actual  Smdhia  was  a  young  bov,  „  .  ., 

-^  >=>  -^  '  [From  a  native  pamtiiis-] 

whom  she  had  adopted  ;  for,  by  a  very  singular 

fatality,  no  Sindhia  had  ever  left  an  heir  of  his  body ;  in  every  case  the 
successor  had  been  a  child  adopted  in  accordance  with  the  Hindu  law  of 
succession.  The  Rani's  power  depended  upon  her  popularity  with  the 
army,  so  that  in  effect  the  army  was  the  government  ;  and  the  army  was 
arrogant  and  aggressive.  In  the  existing  circumstances,  since  the  Rani 
seemed  determined  to  pay  no  heed  to  the  advice  or  instructions  of  the 
paramount  power,  a  demand  was  made  that  the  Gwalior  army  should  be 
reduced  and  the  British  subsidiary  contingent  enlarged.  The  demand  was 
backed  by  the  presence  of  a  considerable  British  force  on  the  Gwalior 
frontier.  The  British  ultimatum  was  ignored,  the  British  army  crossed 
the  border,  and  in  two  fiercely  fought  engagements  at  Maharajpur  and 
Puniar  the  Rani's  forces  were  shattered.  The  government  was  placed  in 
the  hands  of  a  Council  of  Regency  appointed  by  the  British  and  practically 
directed  by  the  British  Resident,  until  the  young  Sindhia  should  come  of 
age.  The  native  army  was  reduced  from  forty  thousand  to  nine  thousand 
men,  and  the  British  contingent,  that  is  to  say  the  sepoy  force  under 
British  officers,  was  increased  to  ten  thousand. 

The  result   of  a   single-combat  between  Gwalior  and  the   British  was 
never  doubtful.     The  real  danger  lay  in  the  north-west ;  the  real  value  of 


THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

the  Maharajpur  campaign  lay  in  the  removal  of  a  great  hostile  force  posted 
upon  our  flank  and  capable  of  co-operating  very  effectively  with  the  Sikhs 
of  the  Punjab.  Had  the  Sikhs  attacked  first  while  the  Gwahor  army  was 
in  full  strength  the  latter  would  have  been  able  to  fall  upon  the  British 
communications,  enclose  the  British  army,  and  threaten  the  rear  of  the 
British  advance  ;  and  in  that  case  complete  disaster  might  have  been  the 
result.  Speculations  on  such  points,  however,  are  somewhat  vain.  Lord 
Ellenborough's  methods  created  so  much  uneasiness  that  he  was  recalled 
to  make  way  for  Sir  Henry  Hardinge,  who  had  won  his  spurs  in  the 
Peninsula  War  and  was  not  without  administrative  experience  ;  and  had 
the  Gwahor  army  still  been  dangerous  he  would  undoubtedly  have  taken 
adequate  military  precautions. 

Hardinge  was  never  in  doubt  about  the  menace  from  the  Punjab. 
Ranjit  Singh  died  in  1839,  and  the  Lahore  state,  as  the  Punjab  was  also 
called,  was  now  without  any  strong  central  government.  The  old  Maha- 
rajah's chieftainship  had  been  a  kind  of  military  despotism  based  upon  an 
army  and  upon  institutions  of  a  very  exceptional  type.  The  Sikhs  had  been 
primarily  a  religious  brotherhood,  a  sort  of  reformed  sect  of  Hindus  who 
had  abjured  many  of  the  peculiar  institutions  of  Hinduism,  notably  that  of 
caste.  Of  diverse  races  at  first,  they  had  become  by  exclusive  association 
for  some  three  centuries  a  special  breed  with  marked  characteristics  of 
their  own.  The  brotherhood,  subjected  to  a  fierce  persecution,  had  organ- 
ised itself  into  an  army  under  the  name  of  the  Khalsa,  and,  though  forming 
only  a  small  percentage  of  the  population,  it  had  in  the  latter  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century  dominated  the  Punjab.  The  Sikh  army  w^as  the  one 
great  organisation  in  India  which  could  be  called  democratic  in  its  structure  ; 
but,  besides  the  Khalsa  proper,  the  great  chiefs  or  sirdars  could,  like 
medieval  barons,  bring  large  numbers  of  their  own  retainers  into  the  field. 
Working  upon  this  basis  and  helped  by  European  officers,  Ranjit  Singh 
had  moulded  the  Khalsa  into  an  army  probably  the  best  disciplined  and 
the  most  powerful,  at  least  in  comparison  with  its  numbers,  ever  controlled 
by  an  Indian  monarch.  Ranjit's  death  left  the  Khalsa  completely  master 
of  the  country  ;  or  would  have  done  so  if  the  army  had  realised  its  own 
strength  and  had  possessed  a  directing  head.  It  was  not  long  in  realising 
its  strength,  but  it  still  lacked  a  head.  The  new  Maharajah  was  a  boy,  and 
the  reins  of  power  were  grasped  by  his  mother,  the  Rani  Jindan,  whom  Henry 
Lawrence  described  as  the  Messalina  of  the  Punjab.  After  a  series  of 
intrigues  and  assassinations  the  Rani  seemed  to  have  established  herself  and 
her  paramour  Lai  Singh  at  the  head  of  the  government  (it  may  be  remarked 
that  every  Sikh  bore  the  name  of  Singh),  but  not  without  extreme  jealousy 
on  the  part  of  many  of  the  sirdars;  while  the  sirdars  and  the  Rani  alike 
felt  that  the  really  dominant  power  was  the  Khalsa. 

The  Khalsa  knew  its  own  military  strength  long  before  it  awoke  to 
its  political  power.  It  h:id  proved  itself  decisively  the  master  of  every 
foe  with  whom  it  had  fought.      Even  in  Ranjit's  day  it  would  have  hailed 


THE    REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  849 

with  joy  a  proposal  to  challenge  the  power  of  the  British,  but  that  astute 
monarch  was  alive  to  the  vast  reserves  of  force  which  lay  behind  the 
British  Government  in  India.  But  there  was  no  one  now  who  could  domi- 
nate the  Khalsa,  and  both  the  Rani  and  the  sirdars  perceived  possibilities 
of  great  gain  to  themselves  if  it  should  hurl  itself  against  the  white  men. 
If  it  were  beaten  its  power  would  be  broken,  and  every  man  dreamed  that 
then  his  own  private  ambitions  might  find  an  opportunity  of  realisation.  If 
it  were  victorious  the  Sikhs  would  become  the  masters  of  India,  and  every 
Sikh  would  have  his  chance.  So  the  army  was  egged  on  to  challenge  fate. 
Early  in  December  1845  ^^^^  news  reached  Sir  Henry  Hardinge  that  the 
Sikhs  had  crossed  the  river  Sutlej,  the  border-line  of  the  Punjab  state. 

Ever  since  his  arrival  in  India  the  Governor-General  had  been  preparing 
for  this  emergency  as  rapidly  as  was  possible  without  dangerous  ostenta- 
tion. Troops  had  been  concentrated  in  the  north-west  provinces  and 
in  the  outposts  which  guarded  the  Sikh  frontier.  Two  converging  columns 
were  promptly  on  the  march  to  effect  a  junction  with  the  garrison  of 
the  advanced  post  at  Firozpur.  They  met  the  advancing  Sikhs  at  Mudki, 
and  after  hot  fighting  drove  them  off  the  field.  Two  days  later  the  advance 
towards  Firozpur  w^as  renewed,  but  the  way  was  blocked  by  a  great 
Sikh  army  which  had  entrenched  itself  at  Firozshah.  The  attack  was 
delayed  till  the  afternoon  in  order  that  the  British  might  be  reinforced 
by  a  column  which  was  on  its  way  from  Firozpur.  The  Commander-in- 
Chief,  Sir  Hugh  Gough,  would  have  attacked  at  once,  but  Hardinge  con- 
sidered the  risk  too  great,  and  used  the  power  which  he  possessed  to  assume 
the  supreme  command  himself.  A  furious  contest  raged  long  after  darkness 
had  fallen,  but  the  Sikhs  held  their  entrenchments  and  the  British  passed 
a  night  of  intense  anxiety,  resolved  to  renew  the  attack  on  the  morrow, 
but  in  actual  doubt  whether  they  might  not  be  themselves  overwhelmed 
and  annihilated.  The  morning  brought  relief,  when  the  British  troops 
rushed  the  entrenchments  to  find  that  the  Sikhs  had  already  withdrawn 
under  cover  of  darkness. 

The  Sikh  invasion  was  broken  ;  it  was  now  the  turn  of  the  British 
to  invade  the  Punjab.  Two  months  were  passed  in  preparations  for 
forcing  the  passage  of  the  Sutlej,  during  which  there  were  two  sharp 
engagements  at  Bulowal  and  Aliwal.  Then  came  the  decisive  battle  at 
Sobraon,  where  the  Sikhs  held  the  passage  of  the  Sutlej.  Only  after 
desperate  fighting  their  entrenchments  were  carried,  and  the  Sikh  army 
was  driven  over  or  into  the  river,  after  which  there  was  no  further 
possibility  of  resistance. 

The  British  marched  to  Lahore,  bent  not  on  annexation  but  on 
establishing  an  efficient  government.  A  Council  of  Regency  was  appointed  ; 
Henry  Lawrence  was  left  as  Resident  with  very  large  powers  of  control 
over  the  administration,  which  in  various  frontier  districts  was  delegated 
to  subordinate  British  officers  ;  a  large  part  of  the  Sikh  army  was 
disbanded  ;  and  at  the  earnest  request  of  the  sirdars  a  considerable  British 

3  H 


850  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

force  remained  in  the  country.  This  was  to  be  withdrawn  at  the  end 
of  the  year ;  wlicn  once  more,  at  the  request  of  the  sirdars,  the  troops 
were  allowed  to  remain  and  the  administration  was  virtually  placed  in 
the  hands  of  Lawrence,  under  whose  powerful  and  sympathetic  rule  it 
seemed  probable  that  the  country  would  soon  settle  down  in  peaceable 
and  orderly  fashion. 

Very  different  was  the  actual  event.  At  the  end  of  1847  all  seemed 
to  promise  well.  Hardinge,  now  a  Viscount,  left  India  in  January,  believ- 
ing that  there  were  no  serious  troubles  in  store.  With  him  went  the 
great  administrator  of  the  Punjab.  Within  four  months  a  flame  had 
been  kindled  which  soon  blazed  into  a  general  insurrection,  necessitating 
another  sanguinary  campaign  which  ended  with  the  annexation  of  the 
Punjab  and  its  final  absorption  into  the  direct  British  dominion. 

Lawrence's  successor  at  Lahore  was  an  experienced  and  capable 
official  but  of  no  exceptional  power.  Hardinge's  successor  in  the 
Governor-Generalship,  Lord  Dalhousie,  was  a  man  of  very  exceptional 
abilities,  but  his  capacities  were  still  unknown.  The  veterans  of  the 
Khalsa  were  sore  at  their  overthrow,  which  they  still  attributed  not 
to  British  superiority  but  to  the  treachery  of  their  own  leaders.  The 
minds  of  the  sirdars  were  divided  ;  they  resented  any  other  ascendency 
than  their  own,  but  they  distrusted  each  other ;  they  were  not  sure  of 
themselves  ;  but  even  though  the  British  had  remained  in  the  Punjab 
at  their  own  request  they  suspected  them  of  intending  to  establish  them- 
selves permanently.  Thus  when  insurrection  broke  out  it  w'as  not  a 
national  movement,  but  it  was  in  danger  of  at  once  becoming  so  unless 
the  British  ascendency  were  forthwith  asserted  vigorously  and  decisively. 
It  began  as  a  local  revolt  at  Multan.  The  governor,  Mulraj,  resigned. 
His  resignation  was  accepted  by  the  official  Sikh  government  at  Lahore, 
and  two  British  officers  were  sent  to  Multan  to  take  over  the  administration 
until  the  new  governor  should  be  appointed.  The  troops  in  Multan  rose, 
murdered  the  officers,  and  proclaimed  a  revolt  against  the  British 
dominion. 

Technically  there  was  no  British  dominion.  The  government  was  the 
Sikh  government,  acting  temporarily  under  the  advice  and  with  the  support 
of  the  British  Resident  and  some  British,  that  is  to  say  Sepoy,  regiments. 
The  British  Government  therefore  called  upon  the  Sikh  government  to 
suppress  the  revolt.  A  young  frontier  officer,  Herbert  Edwardes,  hearing 
that  British  officers  at  Multan  were  in  danger,  but  not  that  they  had  been 
murdered,  at  once  marched  to  their  rescue  from  the  Derajat,  the  hill- 
frontier,  with  a  force  mainly  of  the  hillmen,  who,  throughout,  showed 
an  admirable  devotion  to  their  British  officers,  the  more  so  as  they  had 
no  love  for  their  Sikh  masters.  He  acted  on  his  own  responsibility.  He 
had  already  routed  the  insurgents  and  driven  them  into  Multan,  when  he 
was  joined  by  the  troops  of  the  Lahore  government  under  the  command 
of   Shcr   Singh.     It   was,  however,  obvious  that   those   troops   could   not 


THE    PREFORMED    PARLIAMENT  851 

be  trusted,  and  a  British  column  was  presently  despatched  from  Lahore 
to  take  part  in  the  siege.  Dalhousie  accepted  the  view  of  his  com- 
mander-in-chief, Lord  Gough,  that  it  would  be  worse  than  useless  to 
send  a  small  expeditionary  force  into  the  Punjab,  since  it  would  be  super- 
fluous if  the  insurrection  did  not  become  general,  and  would  be  annihilated 
if  it  did. 

The  result  was  that  the  insurrection  did  become  general.  The  British 
column  from  Lahore  had  hardly  joined  Edwardes  before  Multan  when 
Sher  Singh  withdrew  w^ith  his  whole  force  from  the  siege  and  began  to 
gather  all  the  old  members  of  the  Khalsa  to  his  standard.  Some  six 
weeks  later,  Gough,  with  the  army  of  invasion  which  he  had  been 
organising,  was  in  the  Upper  Punjab  seeking  to  force  a  decisive  battle 
upon  Sher  Singh.  At  the  crossing  of  the  river  Chenab  a  sharp  skirmish 
and  a  sharp  engagement  took  place  at  Ramnagar  and  at  Sadulapur  ;  but 
Sher  Singh  made  good  his  retreat  and  entrenched  himself  at  Rassul  on  the 
river  Jhelum.  The  Sikh  army,  established  in  an  entrenched  position,  was  not 
to  be  attacked  hastily.  Presently,  however,  Gough  advanced,  and  found 
the  enemy,  always  behind  entrenchments,  at  Chillianwalla,  where  there 
was  a  furious  engagement  with  very  heavy  losses  on  both  sides,  and  the 
Sikhs  were  again  able  to  retire  to  their  position  at  Rassul,  though  they  left 
the  British  masters  of  the  field  of  battle.  Rassul  was  impregnable,  and 
Gough  could  only  hold  Sher  Singh  under  watch.  A  month  later  Sher 
Singh,  who  had  received  considerable  reinforcements,  suddenly  slipped 
out  of  Rassul.  But  in  the  meanwhile  Multan  had  fallen,  and  the  British 
column  was  on  its  way  to  join  the  commander-in-chief.  A  week  after  his 
march  Gough  brought  Sher  Singh  to  battle  at  Gujerat,  where  the  Sikh 
army  was  decisively  and  finally  shattered.  The  Sikhs  accepted  the 
situation  ;  this  time  they  knew  that  they  had  had  a  stand-up  fight  with  the 
British  and  had  been  soundly  beaten  without  any  treachery  on  the  part  of 
their  own  leaders.  Perhaps  there  was  hardly  any  one  except  Henry 
Lawrence  himself  who  was  not  satisfied  that  the  annexation  of  the  Punjab 
was  now  the  only  course  possible.  It  was  the  course  adopted  by  Dalhousie, 
who  regarded  the  new  province  with  an  especial  favour  which  it  speedily 
repaid. 


VIII 

EARLY  VICTORIAN 

In  a  constitutional  monarchy  the  personality  of  the  monarch,  however 
striking  it  may  be,  is  of  less  importance  in  the  national  history  than  in 
days  and  realms  in  which  the  Crown  directly  controls  national  policy.  The 
dates  of  the  accession  of  kings  and  queens  are  no  more  than  convenient 
landmarks,  in  themselves  signalising  only  minor  events.     George   III.  was 


852  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

the  only  one  of  the  Hanoverian  kings  whose  accession  marked  a 
departure  from  the  normal  Hnes  of  national  development,  excepting  of 
course  his  great-grandfather.  Although  Queen  Victoria  herself  played  no 
insignificant  part  on  the  stage  of  history,  her  succession  rather  ensured 
continuity  of  development  than  gave  it  a  new  direction.  The  characteristics 
of  what  we  call  the  Victorian  Era  distinguished  her  second  uncle's  reign  as 
well  as  her  own.  The  epoch,  the  starting-point  of  the  era,  is  marked  by 
the  Reform  Bill,  whether  we  consider  its  political  or  its  social  aspects,  and 
we  can  legitimately  apply  the  term  Early  Victorian  to  the  twenty  years 
which  followed  the  passing  of  that  measure. 

During  those  twenty  years  the  Industrial  Revolution  was  carried  to 
completion  by  the  huge  development  of  steam  traffic  both  by  land  and  by 
water.  Passenger  traffic  by  rail  was  in  effect  inaugurated  by  the  opening 
of  the  Manchester  and  Liverpool  railway  in  1830  ;  in  1850  all  the  main 
railway  lines  were  at  work.     The  railroad  carried  goods  in  an  hour  perhaps 


Open  Coaches  on  the  Manchester  and  Liverpool  Railway,  1831. 
[From  a  print.] 

as  far  as  the  old  horse  haulage  conveyed  them  in  a  day,  and  in  immensely 
greater  quantities  at  a  time.  An  Act  of  Parliament  in  1844  required  the 
railway  companies  to  provide  a  sufficiency  of  trains  with  covered  accommo- 
dation for  passengers  at  the  rate  of  a  penny  a  mile — the  origin  of  the 
term  "Parliamentary  Trains."  Forced  against  their  will  to  provide  cheap 
fares,  the  railway  managers  very  soon  found  that  the  innovation  increased 
instead  of  diminishing  their  profits.  The  trains  were  used  by  thousands  of 
passengers,  most  of  whom  in  the  old  days  would  have  been  obliged  either 
to  stay  at  home  or  to  tramp  on  foot,  helped  forward  by  an  occasional  lift  on 
a  friendly  waggon.  The  steam-engine  drew  tons  of  goods  where  canals 
had  carried  them  by  the  hundredweight.  The  new  traffic  made  its  way  in 
defiance  of  aesthetic  and  academic  opposition,  and  in  spite  of  the  great 
financial    panics    which    followed    upon    excessive    inflation    especially    in 

1845- 

The  steamship  established  itself  less  rapidly.  The  first  ocean  line  was 
only  opened  in  1839,  the  year  after  the  first  passage  of  the  Atlantic  com- 
pleted under  steam.  It  is  to  be  remarked  that  even  these  first  steamers 
covered  the  distance   in   only  about  thrice  the  tinic   taken   by  the  swiftest 


THE    REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  853 

modern  vessels,  while  the  speed  of  George   Stephenson's  locomotive  has 
hardly  even  been  doubled. 

Out  of  the  development  of  steam  traffic  came  the  creation  in  1840  of 
the  Penny  Post,  carrying  with  it  an  enormous  increase  in  correspondence  ; 
and  immediately  after  the  establishment  of  the  Penny  Post  came  the 
Electric  Telegraph.  The  first  telegraphic  line  in  England  was  set  up  be- 
tween London  and  Slough  in  1844,  and  seven  years  later  came  the  laying 
of  the  first  submarine  cable  between  Dover  and  Calais.  It  is  a  little 
difficult  to  realise  that  until  Queen  Victoria  was  seated  on  the  throne  the 
conveyance  of  a  letter  from  London  to  Edinburgh  took  nearly  as  long  as 
its  carriage  from  London  to  New  York 
fifty  years  later,  and  that  the  journey  to 
India  might  take  any  time  from  six  to 
eighteen  months  instead  of  something  under 
three  weeks. 

The  most  prominent  feature  in  the 
modern  industrial  world  is  Trade  Unionism. 
The  formation  of  trade  unions,  combina- 
tions of  the  workers,  primarily  for  the 
purpose  of  collective  bargaining  with  the 
masters,  became  temporarily  active  after  the 
repeal  of  the  Combination  Laws  in  1825. 
But  the  movement  was  checked  by  the 
repeated  failure  of  strikes  owing  to  lack 
of  funds  and  inefficient  organisation.  The 
political  ideal,  the  demands  formulated 
shortly  afterwards  in  the  People's  Charter,  seemed  to  the  working  man 
to  promise  better  than  local  and  sectional  combinations.  In  the  thirties, 
however,  the  movement  took  new  shape.  In  place  of  the  simple  idea  of 
the  trade  union,  the  combination  of  the  employees  in  a  trade,  came  the 
idea  of  the  trades  union,  the  combination  of  workers  in  several  trades. 
Such  a  combination  was  the  Builders'  Union,  which  sought  to  unite  the 
workmen  in  all  the  diverse  departments  of  the  building  trade,  an  aggressive 
body  which  increased  the  alarm  created  by  its  aggressiveness  by  adopting 
a  fantastic  and  melodramatic  ceremonial  of  initiation.  The  masters  began 
to  announce  that  they  would  make  the  repudiation  of  this  trades  union  a 
condition  of  employment.  Another  such  union,  more  far-reaching  in  its 
conception,  was  the  Grand  National  Trades  Union  devised  by  Robert 
Owen,  who,  having  been  an  extremely  successful  and  liberal  employer  of 
labour,  developed  into  the  champion  of  a  reformed  social  order.  Capitalism 
and  competition  were  to  disappear,  and  the  workers  were  themselves  to  be 
the  proprietors  and  controllers  of  all  the  materials  and  machinery  of 
production  and  distribution. 

These  unions  did  in  effect  undoubtedly  increase  their  power  by  means 
of  intimidation.     The   accepted  doctrine  of  laisscz  /aire,  as  understood  by 


Robert  Owen. 


854  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

the  masters,  meant  that  the  prosperity  of  trade  depended  on  the  masters 
having  an  entirely  free  hand  in  the  control  of  their  business.  If  combina- 
tions could  resist  their  dictation  they  had  not  a  free  hand,  and  if  the 
workers  were  coerced  against  their  will  by  the  combinations  an  unmitigated 
tyranny  would  be  established.  In  actual  fact  at  this  time  the  alarm  of  the 
masters  was  groundless.  The  unions  were  invariably  beaten  if  they 
attempted  to  fight,  because  the  labour  market  was  still  largely  overstocked, 
and  labour,  doing  battle  with  capital,  requires  a  war  chest  which  the 
unions  did  not  possess.  The  masters  were  commonly  strong  enough  to 
compel  the  men  to  renounce  the  unions  as  a  condition  of  service  by  sign- 
ing a  declaration  known  as  the  Document.  But  the  masters  also  had  the 
whole  force  of  the  Government  on  their  side  ;  the  conspiracy  laws  could 
be  applied  so  as  effectively  to  paralyse  the  action  of  the  unions,  and  the 
obviously  unjust  severity  with  which  the  law  was  applied  in  some 
particular  instances  only  had  the  effect  of  embittering  class  hostilities. 
Trades  Unionism  and  Trade  Unionism  were  both  beaten  as  aggressive 
methods  of  fighting  capitalism,  and  from  1838  to  1848  Chartism  held  the 
field. 

But  not  altogether.  Intelligent  working-men  saw  the  futility  of  wasting 
the  union  funds  on  hopeless  battles  with  masters  ;  but  unions  and  funds 
could  be  turned  to  good  service  on  the  lines  of  benefit  societies,  and  on 
those  lines  their  organisation  could  be  steadily  and  quietly  strengthened. 
They  ceased  to  be  aggressive,  and  almost  confined  themselves  to  a  defensive 
resistance  to  aggression  on  the  part  of  the  masters.  In  those  employments 
especially  where  skill  and  higher  intelligence  are  demanded,  the  unions  set 
themselves  to  educate  their  own  members  and  to  study  the  problems  with 
which  they  had  to  deal  in  a  scientific  spirit.  Such  unions  were  no  longer 
aggregations  of  unreasoning  and  hot-headed  men,  but  bodies  of  intelligent 
persons  who  knew  what  they  w^anted  and  had  at  least  a  rational  idea  of 
how  it  was  to  be  obtained.  The  new  spirit  which  made  trade  unionism  an 
effective  force  in  the  country  found  its  most  convincing  expression  in  the 
carefully  organised  Amalgamated  Society  of  Engineers,  which,  in  1850, 
brought  into  a  single  combination  a  number  of  the  separate  societies  then 
existing  in  Lancashire  and  in  London.  The  great  strike  of  the  engineers  in 
1852  on  the  questions  of  piece-work  and  overtime  produced  an  immense 
impression  on  the  public  mind,  because  of  the  sobriety  and  discipline  with 
which  it  was  conducted.  The  men  were  beaten  ;  they  were  obliged  to 
return  to  work  without  gaining  what  they  had  demanded  ;  but  they  had 
won  public  sympathy  ;  their  union  had  not  been  broken  up,  and  they 
had  given  the  industrial  world  an  invaluable  lesson  in  organisation. 

If  the  working-men  were  beginning  to  realise  their  own  need  of  educa- 
tion, the  country  was  also  slowly  beginning  to  realise  that  education  wai 
becoming  a  national  concern.  Hitherto  it  had  been  left  entirely  to  private 
enterprise.  The  schools  in  which  the  children  of  the  poor  were  taught 
were  maintained  chiefly  by  the  National  Church  and  occasionally  by  other 


THE   REFORMED    PARLIAMENT  855 

religious  bodies,  supported  by  voluntary  contributions.  England  before 
the  Reform  Bill,  very  unlike  Scotland,  was  one  of  the  worst  educated 
countries  in  Europe.  The  spirit  of  reform  then  touched  education  so  far 
that  in  1833  the  Government  ventured  upon  a  grant  of  ;^20,ooo  in  its  aid, 
to  help  in  the  building  of  a  few  more  schools.  Five  years  later  came 
proposals  for  the  formation  of  a  Board  or  Committee  of  Education. 

But  from  the  moment  when  the  application  of  public  funds  to  education 
became    a    matter  of    debate  the  religious    difficulty  presented    itself.     It 
appeared   to  one  side  that  public  funds  must  be  distributed  and  applied 
irrespective  of  the  religious  opinions  of  teachers  or  pupils.     To  the  other 
side  it  appeared  imperative  that  the  Church  should  retain  its  effective  con- 
trol, since  the  teaching  of  religion  was  of  the 
essence  of  education,  and  no  teaching  could  be 
called  religious  which  was  not,  in  modern  phrase, 
denominational.       Neither    side    was    prepared 
even   to   consider   an  educational   system  from 
which  religion  was  omitted.    The  Liberal  Govern- 
ment only  so  far  got  its  way  that  its  committee 
was  appointed  for  the  distribution  of  a  slightly 
increased  grant,  which  was  not  actually  mono- 
polised as  hitherto  by  the  Church  schools.     The 
subject  continued  to  engage  attention  periodi- 
cally, and  another  bill  was  brought  in  in   1843  j^  %-  .fk'^  ^Vvi 
as  part  of  a  Factory  Bill.      It  was  wrecked  on              ^s^Xpc.  >" 
the  usual  rock.  Dissenters  and  Roman  Catholics  Dr.  Pusey. 
finding  it  too  favourable  to  the  Anglicans,  and                [From  a  photograph.] 
Anglicans  finding  it  too  favourable  to  Dissent. 

In  1847,  however,  the  government  grant  was  increased  to  ^(^loo^ooo,  of 
which  the  benefit  was  still  withheld  from  Roman  Catholics,  and  for  fifteen 
vears  no  further  steps  were  taken. 

Both  in  England  and  in  Scotland  religious  movements  were  extremely 
active  during  this  period.  The  moderation,  indifferentism,  or  rationalism 
prevalent  in  the  eighteenth  century  had  been  disturbed  by  the  Wesleyan 
revival  and  the  growth  of  a  more  vigorous  Evangelicalism  in  the  English 
Church.  But  now  a  new  fervour  of  Churchmanship  arose  within  the 
Anglican  communion,  known  as  the  Oxford  or  Oriel  movement  because  it 
took  its  rise  in  Oxford  and  especially  in  Oriel  College,  or  as  Tractarianism 
because  it  found  its  literary  expression  in  a  series  of  publications  called 
Tracts  for  the  Times.  The  most  spiritual  of  its  exponents  was  John  Henry 
Newman,  who,  with  many  of  his  followers,  ultimately  found  refuge  and 
rest  in  the  Church  of  Rome.  But  in  the  eyes  of  the  public  its  most 
prominent  figure  was  that  of  Dr.  Pusey.  Essentially  it  was  a  re-assertion 
of  the  Divine  authority  of  the  Catholic  Church,  the  Church  to  whose  priest- 
hood the  apostolic  authority  had  been  transmitted  in  unbroken  continuity 
through  the  centuries  by  the  rite  of  ordination.     That  authority  could  not 


856  I^HE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

be  overridden  by  the  state,  and  no  lay  jurisdiction  could  be  recognised. 
The  sanction  for  its  doctrines  and  ritual  was  to  be  found  in  the  decisions 
of  the  General  Councils  of  the  Church,  in  the  teaching  of  the  early  fathers, 
and  in  the  practice  of  the  Church  Universal.  On  this  basis  doctrines  and 
practices  which  had  been  condemned  as  papistical  were  revived.  Whatever 
views  may  be  held  with  regard  to  those  doctrines  and  practices  the  essential 
fact  must  be  recognised  that  the  movement  brought  a  new  intensity  of 
spiritual  life  into  the  Church,  while  it  challenged  the  essential  doctrine  of 
Protestantism  by  claiming  not  only  that  the  Church  was  independent  of 
the  state  but  that  the  priesthood  were  the  authoritative  intermediaries  of 
Divine  Grace.  The  state  declined  to  recognise  the  claims  of  the  new  school 
and  continued  to  assert  its  own  authority;  but  the  Tractarians  did  not 
adopt  the  solution  of  seceding  from  the  establishment  and  surrendering 
endowments  for  the  sake  of  spiritual  independence. 

This,  however,  was  the  more  heroic  course  adopted  in  Scotland.  In 
that  country  also  there  was  a  revival  of  religious  energy,  but  there  was  no 
question  of  dogma  or  ritual  or  priesthood.  The  question  was  that  of  the 
right  of  the  state  to  control  the  spiritual  independence  of  the  congregation. 
The  spiritual  independence  claimed  was  the  right  of  the  congregation  to 
choose  its  own  minister,  whereas  the  state,  that  is  to  say  the  law,  had 
placed  the  patronage  in  private  hands.  The  legal  question  was  carried  to 
the  highest  court  of  appeal,  the  House  of  Peers,  and  the  House  of  Peers 
upheld  the  rights  of  the  patrons.  Thereupon  the  party  of  spiritual  in- 
dependence separated  itself  from  the  establishment  ;  a  host  of  ministers 
resigned  their  livings,  departed  from  their  manses,  and  formed  a  church 
free  from  state  control — the  Free  Kirk — whose  clergy  depended  for  their 
emoluments  entirely  upon  stipends  provided  by  voluntary  contributions. 

The  splendour  of  the  last  literary  period  was  maintained  by  new 
writers.  Before  1840  Tennyson  and  Browning  had  begun  to  publish 
poetry;  before  1850  Tennyson's  fame  was  securely .  established,  though 
m^ny  years  were  to  pass  before  his  great  rival  had  won  popular  recognition. 
Charles  Dickens  gave  a  new  joy  to  life  with  the  appearance  of  the  Pickwick 
Papers  in  the  year  of  Queen  Victoria's  accession.  Thackeray  achieved  a 
triumph  with  Vanity  Fair  eleven  years  later.  Disraeli  revealed  himself  to 
the  world  in  a  series  of  novels  before  he  entered  Parliament.  Macaulay 
created  a  prose  style  which  became  the  model  of  half  the  writers  in 
England,  while  Carlyle,  Newman,  and  John  Ruskin  began  to  be  numbered 
among  the  prophets. 


CHAPTER    XXXV 

THE   PALMERSTONIAN   ERA 
I 


^"^ 


THE   CRIMEAN   WAR 

The  term  coalition  is  one  which  until  the  twentieth  century  had  a  perfectly 
clear  meaning.  It  meant  not  a  combination  of  parties  in  Parliament  in 
support  of  a  ministry  whose  members  are 
drawn  from  the  ranks  of  one  party,  but 
the  combination  in  a  single  ministry  of 
members  drawn  from  the  ranks  of  different 
parties.  The  Liberal  Government  formed 
by  Lord  John  Russell  in  1846  depended 
upon  the  support  of  the  Peelites,  as  the 
Melbourne  ministry  before  had  virtually 
been  established  by  a  compact  with 
O'Connell.  Lord  Aberdeen's  ministry  was 
what  they  were  not,  a  coalition  ministry 
in  the  correct  sense  of  the  term,  because 
the  ministers  were  drawn  from  the  ranks 
of  two  parties,  the  Peelites  and  the 
Liberals.  Its  chief,  Lord  Aberdeen,  was 
a  Peelite,  so  was  its  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  Gladstone.  Palmerston  was 
not  allowed  to  return  to  the  Foreign 
Office  but  had  to  be  contented  with  the 
post  of  Home  Secretary  ;  he  was  in  fact 
distinctly  antagonistic  to  Aberdeen,  who  was 
strongly  opposed  to  assuming  anything  like 
an  aggressive  attitude  in  foreign  ai^airs. 
By  the  not  unfamiliar  irony  of  politics 
Aberdeen  was  the  one  minister  under  whose 
leadership  the  British  Empire  has  been  in- 
volved in  a  European  war  since  Waterloo, 
actually  taken  at  first  by  Lord  John  Russell. 

The  year    1853   was  notable  for  the  first  Gladstone   budget,  in   which 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  advanced  along  the  lines  of  Free  Trade. 

f;7 


The  Earl  of  Aberdeen. 
[I'rom  a  sketch  made  in  the  House  of  Lords 

iu  1854.] 

Palmerston's  old   place  was 


858  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

Duties  upon  some  two  hundred  and  seventy  articles  were  either  reduced  or 
removed.  But  in  a  very  short  time  it  became  evident  that  foreign  not 
domestic  affairs  were  to  absorb  public  attention. 

Early  in  the  year,  Nicholas  I.,  the  Tsar  of  Russia,  expressed  to  the 
British  ambassador  his  conviction  that  the  Turkish  Empire  was  "a  very 
sick  man,"  very  near  to  dissolution.  Russia  and  Britain  ought  to  be  agreed 
upon  a  policy  when  that  contingency  should  arise  ;  and  if  Britain  wanted 
Egypt  and  Crete  for  her  share  he  should  not  object.  Britain  did  not 
receive  the  proposal  with  any  favour  ;  she  had  no  desire  to  see  Russia  in 
possession  of  Constantinople,  with  an  unlimited  fleet  in  the  Black  Sea  ready 
to  pass  through  the  Dardanelles  into  the  Mediterranean  whenever  it  might 
suit  her.  She  adhered  to  the  policy  of  maintaining  the  integrity  of  the 
Turkish  Empire,  a  fact  which  Nicholas  failed  to  grasp.  It  was  evidently 
his  intention  to  hasten  the  dissolution  which  he  had  persuaded  himself  to 
regard  as  inevitable,  and  he  found  his  opportunity  in  the  differences 
between  the  Greek  and  Latin  Christian  Churches  in  Palestine. 

France  had  a  traditional  and  purely  sentimental  theory  that  she  was 
the  protector  of  Latin  Christianity  in  the  East ;  Russia  had  a  traditional 
and  exceedingly  practical  theory  that  she  was  the  protector  of  Christians 
in  general,  but  particularly  those  of  the  Greek  Church.  Louis  Napoleon 
had  just  made  himself  Emperor  of  the  French,  and  it  was  necessary  for  him 
to  justify  his  position  in  the  eyes  of  France  and  of  the  world  by  an  active 
assertion  of  French  claims.  When  Greeks  and  Latins  quarrelled  over 
points  of  precedence,  Nicholas  on  one  side  and  Napoleon  III.  on  the  other 
brought  pressure  to  bear  upon  the  Porte.  The  Porte  tried  to  satisfy  both, 
and  succeeded  in  pleasing  neither,  with  the  result  that  the  Tsar  in  effect 
put  forward  a  claim  to  be  formally  recognised  as  the  protector  over  all  the 
Christian  subjects  of  the  Porte.  The  Porte  refused  the  demand,  which  no 
sovereign  state  could  possibly  have  tolerated,  whereupon  Russian  troops 
crossed  the  river  Pruth  and  occupied  the  trans-Danubian  principalities. 
Hostilities  were  delayed  by  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  Western  powers 
to  effect  a  pacification.  They  addressed  a  joint  note  to  Russia  and  Turkey. 
Russia  accepted  it,  but  Turkey  pointed  out  that  it  might  be  interpreted  as 
confirming  the  Tsar's  most  extravagant  demands.  The  Powers,  who  had 
no  such  intention,  thereupon  withdrew  the  note,  Turkey  demanded  the 
evacuation  of  the  Danubian  provinces,  Russia  did  not  move,  and  at  the  end 
of  October  1853  the  two  countries  were  technically  at  war. 

Now  after  the  episode  of  the  "  sick  man  "  it  was  impossible  for  the 
British  Government  to  doubt  that  Russia  was  bent  on  her  programme  of 
the  partition  of  the  Turkish  Empire,  according  to  the  precedent  of  the 
partition  of  Poland.  The  Tsar,  on  the  other  hand,  was  comfortably  con- 
vinced that  Britain  was  wholly  given  over  to  commercial  pursuits  and 
would,  at  any  rate,  stop  short  of  armed  intervention,  a  view  which  he 
might  not  have  taken  had  Palmerston  been  at  the  Foreign  Office,  where 
Russell's  place  had  been  taken  by  Lord  Clarendon,  Russell  himself  being 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN    ERA  859 

occupied  at  the  conferences  of  the  Powers.  The  French  Emperor,  how- 
ever, was  in  hearty  co-operation  with  the  British  Government,  and  was 
perhaps  rather  eager  for  war  than  otherwise,  since  miHtary  glory  was 
almost  a  necessity  to  the  imperial  successor  of  the  first  Napoleon. 

In  October  the  British  and  French  fleets  were  ordered  to  the  Bosphorus 
to  protect  their  national  interests  ;  Turkey  declared  war  upon  Russia,  and 
the  Tsar  announced  that  he  was  merely  holding  the  trans-Danube  princi- 
palities as  a  material  guarantee,  and 
would  not  take  the  offensive  against 
Turkey.  Almost  immediately  after- 
wards the  Russian  Black  Sea  Fleet 
fell  upon  and  annihilated  a  Turkish 
squadron  lying  in  the  Turkish  harbour 
of  Sinope.  Popular  indignation  in 
England  and  France  rose  high,  and 
Aberdeen  was  forced  to  consent  to  the 
occupation  of  the  Black  Sea  by  the 
joint  fleets.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted 
that  the  extremely  pacific  language 
adopted  by  the  Prime  Minister  had 
encouraged  the  Tsar  in  the  conviction 
that  Great  Britain  might  be  relied  upon 
not  to  declare  war. 

In  the  meantime  the  Turks  had 
crossed  the  Danube  and  had  achieved 
some  definite  successes.  In  February 
(1854)  France  and  Britain,  who  had 
reason  to  expect  support  from  Austria 
but  did  not  wait  for  her  joint  action, 
sent  to  Russia  a  demand  for  the  evacu- 
ation of  the  principalities  ;  and  the 
rejection  of  the  demand  was  followed 
at  the  end  of  March  by  the  declaration  of  war 
point  clearly   to   an   approaching  campaign   on 


The  Crimean  Peninsula. 


The  position  seemed  to 
the  Danube.  In  that  ex- 
pectation the  forces  of  the  allies  were  conveyed  to  Varna.  The  situation, 
however,  was  changed  by  the  intervention  of  Austria,  which,  although 
she  did  not  actually  declare  war,  induced  Russia  to  withdraw  from  the 
principalities.  This  was  enough  for  Austria,  but  not  for  Britain  and 
France.  It  was  universally  felt  that  the  retirement  of  the  Powers  would 
still  leave  Russia  free  to  choose  her  own  opportunity  for  striking  at  Turkey. 
It  was  imperative  to  strike  a  blow  which  would  enable  the  Powers  to 
dictate  terms  giving  the  necessary  security.  The  strength  of  the  Russians 
in  the  Black  Sea  depended  on  their  position  at  Sevastopol  in  the  Crimea, 
and  a  campaign  in  the  Crimea  was  resolved  upon. 

Unfortunately  it  was  not  anticipated  that  there  would  be  any  necessity 


86o  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

for  a  winter  campaign.  Had  it  been  possible  to  carry  out  the  plan  at  the 
moment  when  it  was  first  mooted  by  Lord  Palmerston,  in  June,  it  is 
probable  that  Sevastopol  would  have  fallen  at  once ;  but  transport  diffi- 
culties and  cholera  intervened,  and  it  was  not  till  the  second  week  of 
September  that  the  French  and  British  forces  landed  in  the  Crimea,  at  a 
point  some  thirty  miles  to  the  north  of  Sevastopol,  in  the  Bay  of  Eupatoria. 
The  British,  commanded  by  Lord  Raglan,  numbered  something  less  than 
twenty-five  thousand  men,  the  French  force,  under  Marshal  St.  Arnaud, 
being  slightly  larger.  The  advance  of  the  force  was  blocked  by  the 
Russians  on  the  river  Alma.  After  a  hard  fight,  of  which  the  British  bore 
the  brunt,  the  Russians  were  driven  back  in  rout,  but  owing  to  the 
opposition  of  the  French  Marshal  the  pursuit  was  not  pressed.  When 
the   army  did    advance    Lord    Raglan    again    yielded    to    St.  Arnaud,   and 


The  British  forces  marching  to  the  attack  at  the  Battle  of  the  Alma,  September  20,  1S54. 
[After  a  sketch  made  from  a  battleship  stationed  in  the  river  during  the  battle.] 


instead  of  making  an  immediate  attack  on  the   north   side  of  Sevastopol, 
the  allies  marched  round  and  took  up  their  position  at  Balaclava. 

For  the  third  time  the  British  yielded  to  the  French,  who  objected  to 
an  immediate  attack,  and  the  allies  prepared  themselves  to  lay  siege  to 
Sevastopol  on  the  southern  side,  the  British  lying  on  the  east  of  the  French, 
and  therefore  being  in  the  more  dangerous  position.  For  the  Russian 
general,  Menschikoff,  had  withdrawn  into  the  interior  to  secure  his  com- 
munications, not  into  the  fortress,  and  any  attack  from  him  would  fall 
upon  the  British.  His  communications  with  Sevastopol  were  also  open, 
the  allied  force  not  being  sufficiently  large  to  effect  a  complete  investment. 
The  delay  in  attack  enabled  the  Russian,  or  rather  German,  engineer, 
Todleben,  to  strengthen  the  defences,  a  work  accomplished  with  extra- 
ordinary skill  and  rapidity  ;  while  the  harbour  had  been  protected  from 
the  operations  of  the  allied  fleet  by  sinking  Russian  ships  in  the  entrance. 
The  actual  garrison  consisted  mainly  of  the  sailors  from  the  Russian  fleet. 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN    ERA  86i 

The  general  result  was  that  a  great  bombardment  was  opened  on 
October  17th  and  was  maintained  for  a  week,  but  only  to  prove  that 
Sevastopol  would  not  fall  without  a  prolonged  siege.  On  the  25th 
the  Russians  attempted  to  relieve  the  fortress  by  seizing  the  port  of 
Balaclava,  on  which  the  British  were  dependent  for  their  supplies.  The 
attempt  was  foiled  mainly  by  the  magnificent  charge  of  the  Heavy  Brigade, 
which  shattered  and  rolled  back  an  advancing  column  of  Russians  of  five 
times  their  own  numbers.  But  the  splendid  action  of  the  Heavy  Brigade, 
crowned  as  it  was  by  triumphant  success,  has  been  eclipsed  in  the  minds 
of  men  by  the  famous  charge  of  the  Light  Brigade,  as  futile  and  purpose- 
less as  it  was  heroic.  Under  a  misappre- 
hension of  orders  received  from  the  general, 
Lord  Lucan,  in  command  of  the  cavalry, 
entirely  against  his  own  judgment,  ordered 
the  Light  Brigade  of  six  hundred  men  to 
charge  through  a  deadly  storm  of  fire  upon 
a  distant  Russian  battery.  The  order  was 
obeyed.  The  six  hundred  charged  to  the 
guns,  carried  them,  and  then  the  survivors 
rode  back  again — "  all  that  was  left  of  them." 

Ten  days  later  Menschikoff  again  attacked 
the  British  position  at  Inkermann.  The 
attack  was  made  in  the  early  morning  in  a 
thick  mist.  As  a  consequence  of  the  con- 
ditions the  battle  resolved  itself  into  one  in 
which  groups  of  soldiers  fought  independently 
in  detached  parties  not  knowing  what   was  .r- 

i^  o  [From  a  draw 

going  on  in  other  parts  of  the  field.  It  was 
a  soldiers'  battle,  fought  and  won  by  the  sheer  obstinate  valour  of  the  men, 
unaided  by  tactical  skill  or  science  on  the  part  of  the  officers,  for  which 
there  was  literally  no  opportunity.  By  downright  valour  and  discipline  the 
British  won  and  drove  off  the  hosts  of  the  Russians. 

After  Inkermann  the  army  settled  down  to  the  long  horrors  of  the 
winter  siege  which  have  become  a  proverb.  The  campaign  had  been 
entered  upon  with  no  expectation  that  it  would  be  prolonged  through 
the  winter,  and  with  no  preparations  for  that  contingency.  The  home 
organisation  failed  disastrously  in  providing  supplies  ;  even  those  which 
reached  Balaclava  in  the  first  instance  were  destroyed  in  a  gale  before  they 
could  be  disembarked.  Those  which  arrived  later  could  only  with  extreme 
difficulty  be  carried  to  the  front.  The  criminality  of  contractors  from 
whom  the  supplies  were  obtained  made  matters  infinitely  worse.  The 
storm  of  public  indignation  which  was  aroused  compelled  Aberdeen  to 
resign,  and  the  nation  demanded  that  Palmerston  should  be  called  to  the 
position  of  Prime  Minister.  Fresh  vigour  was  imparted  to  the  administra- 
tion ;  the   system  was   reorganised,   and   the    conditions  improved  rapidly 


Lord  Raglan. 
g  by  Edward  Armitage  in  1854.] 


862  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

with  the  advance  of  the  spring.  But  perhaps  the  most  notable  feature  in 
the  improvements  was  due  to  the  initiative  of  Miss  Florence  Nightingale 
and  her  heroic  staff  of  nurses,  to  which  has  been  due  the  whole  new 
modern  conception  of  the  treatment  of  the  sick  and  wounded  in  war. 

A  conference  of  the  Powers  was  summoned  in  March  ;  it  came  to 
nothing;  but,  when  Sevastopol  fell  in  September,  peace  negotiations  were 
renewed,  and  in  March  1856  the  Powers  signed  the  Treaty  of  Paris.  Even 
then  Britain  would  hardly  have  obtained  by  the  treaty  the  security  against 
Russian  aggression  for  the  sake  of  which  she  had  entered  upon  the  war,  but 
for  the  resolute  attitude  of  Palmerston  and  Clarendon,  who  was  still 
Foreign  Secretary.  The  Emperor  of  the  French  had  won  the  military 
prestige  which  was  more  important  to  him  than  the  curbing  of  Russia, 
and  he  was  anxious  for  peace.     The  Austrian   Emperor  had  owed  a  good 


The  Port  and  town  of  Sevastopol,  showing  the  Forts,  in  1854. 
[From  a  drawing  made  in  1854.] 

deal  to  Russia  in  the  past,  and  Russia  was  prepared  to  concede  as  much  as 
the  direct  Austrian  interests  demanded.  It  was  only  by  making  it  clear 
that  Britain  was  prepared  to  carry  on  the  war  single-handed  if  necessary, 
that  Clarendon  obtained  a  satisfactory  treaty.  The  Black  Sea  was 
neutralised  ;  it  was  to  be  open  to  commerce,  but  the  Russians  were  to  be 
allowed  to  have  only  six  ships  of  war  upon  it.  All  disputes  between  the 
Porte  and  any  of  the  Powers  which  signed  the  treaty  were  to  be  referred 
to  the  joint  decision  of  the  signatory  Powers.  All  conquests  were  to  be 
restored,  and  the  Sultan  was  again  pledged  to  carry  out  the  engagements 
which  he  had  made  as  to  the  treatment  of  his  Christian  subjects.  The 
trans-Danube  principalities  were  to  be  in  effect  autonomous  but  under 
Turkish  suzerainty.  The  British  conceded  sundry  points  which  they  had 
hitherto  upheld  with  regard  to  maritime  law  in  time  of  war  ;  the  goods  of 
neutrals  and  goods  carried  under  a  neutral  flag,  with  the  exception  of 
actual    contraband    of    war,    were    to    be    exempt     from    capture.       But 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN    ERA  863 

blockades,  to  be  technically  recognised,  must  be  actually  effective,  and 
privateering  was  to  be  abolished. 

Apart  from  the  retirement  of  the  Peelites,  including  Gladstone,  when 
Palmerston's  administration  was  formed,  the  only  political  event  of  domestic 
importance  at  this  time  was  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  revive  the  creation 
of  Life  Peerages.  Had  the  attempt  been  successful,  it  would  have  become 
possible  to  modify  very  considerably  the  character  of  the  House  of  Lords 
by  mtroducing  an  increasing  non-hereditary  element.  Baron  Parke  was  to 
be  raised  to  the  peerage  as  Lord  Wensleydale,  but  the  form  of  the  patent 
conveyed  the  peerage  for  his  own  life  only.  The  Lords  protested  ;  the 
question  was  referred  to  a  Committee  of  Privilege  ;  and  it  was  found  that 
no  such  form  had  been  used  for  four  hundred  years.  The  Government 
gave  way  and  the  ordinary  form  was  adopted. 

Though  the  vrar  in  Europe  w^as  brought  to  an  end,  two  other  minor 
wars  were  soon  engaging  a  degree  of  public  attention.  The  Shah  of  Persia, 
misled,  like  other  orientals,  as  to  the  character  of  the  Crimean  War,  and 
by  Russian  successes  which  attended  it  in  Asia  Minor,  imagined  that  the 
British  powder  was  collapsing  and  that  the  Russian  star  was  in  the  ascendant. 
Therefore  once  more  he  attacked  Afghanistan  and  captured  Herat.  Lord 
Auckland's  blunder,  however,  was  not  repeated ;  the  British  came  to  the 
aid  of  Dost  Mohammed,  and  an  expedition  to  the  Persian  Gulf  under  the 
command  of  Sir  James  Outram  very  soon  brought  the  Shah  to  reason. 
He  retired  from  Afghanistan,  promised  not  to  interfere  with  it  again,  and 
accepted  Britain  as  arbitrator  in  any  dispute  which  might  arise  between 
himself  and  the  Russians.  The  British  action  also  had  the  valuable  effect 
of  securing  the  confidence  and  loyalty  of  the  Amir  at  Kabul.  But  the 
necessity  for  the  Persian  expedition  was  unfortunate,  because  it  withdrew 
white  troops  from  India  at  the  moment  when  a  grave  and  unsuspected 
crisis  was  impending. 

Almost  at  the  same  moment  the  country  became  involved  in  compli- 
cations with  China.  A  collision  some  years  before,  arising  out  of  the 
opium  traffic,  had  resulted  in  a  small  war  terminated  in  1842  by  the  Treaty 
of  Nankin,  under  which  Hong-Kong  had  been  ceded  to  the  British.  In 
1856,  a  Chinese  vessel  called  the  Arrow,  commanded  by  an  Englishman 
and  flying  the  British  flag,  was  seized  by  the  Chinese  authority  at  Canton, 
and  her  crew  were  carried  off  on  a  charge  of  piracy.  On  the  doubtful 
assumption  that  the  Arrow  was  a  British  vessel,  the  Chinese  were  bound  by 
treaty  to  hand  over  the  crews  to  the  British  authority  at  Hong-Kong  for 
the  investigation  of  the  case.  The  Chinese  refused  to  do  so.  Sir  John 
Bowring  at  Hong-Kong  summoned  the  British  squadron  to  coerce  the 
Chinese.  Palmerston  supported  his  action  in  Parliament,  and  the  hostili- 
ties developed  into  open  war.  The  high-handed  action  of  the  Government 
was  seized  upon  both  by  the  formal  Opposition  and  by  the  advanced 
Liberals,  who  disliked  Palmerston's  aggressiveness,  as  providing  a  ground 
for  attacking  the  ministry.     Palmerston,  however,  appealed  to  the  country, 


864  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

finding  his  actual  position  in  parliament  untenable,  and  the  country  returned 
him  to  power  with  a  decisive  majority.  But  the  operations  against 
China  were  delayed  by  the  diversion  of  the  expedition  to  the  support  of 
the  British  Government  in  India,  which  in  the  early  summer  of  1857  was 
plunged  into  the  great  catastrophe  of  the  Sepoy  Mutiny. 


DALHOUSIE    AND   THE    SEPOY   REVOLT 

Great  men  of  the  highest  rank  have  been  numbered  among  the  British 
Governors-General  of  India  ;  brilliant  men  who  might  have  achieved 
greatness  but  failed  to  do  so  ;  masterful  men  whose  successes  were  achieved 
by  methods  which  were  sometimes  questionable  ;  strong  men  who  went 
their  way  wisely  and  quietly,  whose  names  the  British  public  has  almost 
forgotten.  But  in  the  whole  series  from  Warren  Hastings  himself  to  the 
distinguished  statesmen  who  are  still  living  among  us  to-day  there  is  no 
figure  more  remarkable  than  that  of  the  man  who  left  India  at  the  beginning 
of  1856  after  eight  years  of  strenuous  rule. 

Two  only  among  the  great  Governors-General,  Wellesley  and  Dalhousie, 
have  been  guided  by  the  conviction  that  it  was  desirable  to  seize  every 
opportunity  to  bring  native  states  under  direct  British  dominion.  All 
have  recognised  the  necessity  for  asserting  British  influence  and  British 
control,  but  all  the  rest  have  done  so  with  a  distinct  preference  for  main- 
taining the  government  of  the  native  dynasty  if  it  were  practicable  to  do  so. 
Dalhousie  and  Wellesley  alone  preferred  on  principle  to  substitute  direct 
British  dominion  wherever  it  was  possible  to  do  so  without  positive  in- 
justice. The  most  extensive  annexations  were  indeed  those  for  which 
Lord  Hastings  was  responsible  ;  but  in  his  case  there  had  been  no  alterna- 
tive ;  they  were  necessitated  by  the  Maratha  War.  Wellesley  had  proceeded 
mainly  by  the  method  of  subsidiary  alliances,  and  in  the  case  of  Arcot 
by  the  ejection  of  a  dynasty  which  had  proved  itself  hopelessly  unfit  to 
govern. 

Dalhousie  now  added  to  the  British  dominion  by  the  conquest  and 
annexation  of  the  Punjab  as  already  narrated,  and,  somewhat  against  his 
will,  by  the  conquest  and  annexation  of  a  great  part  of  Burmah.  In  both 
cases  the  war  was  not  of  his  making,  and  the  annexation  was  bound  to 
follow  ;  but  the  case  was  very  different  in  sundry  other  cases,  where  it  may 
be  laid  down  with  certainty  that  Dalhousie's  predecessors  would  not  have 
annexed  at  all.  Most  of  them  were  examples  of  "escheat"  ;  that  is  to  say, 
the  territories  passed  to  the  paramount  power,  the  suzerain,  by  lapse  or 
failure  of  heirs,  a  process  familiar  alike  to  Western  and  to  Indian  law. 
The  most  prominent  instance  was  that  of  Nagpur,  where  Lord  Hastings  in 
similar   circumstances    had    not    annexed    but    had    preserved    the    native 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN    ERA  865 

government  by  setting  up  a  Bhonsia  who  was  of  the  kindred  of  the  lapsed 
family,  though   he  had   no   legal  title  to  the  succession.      But  Dalhousie, 


when  the  Nagpur  Rajah  died  without  an  heir,  refused,  acting  perfectly 
within  his  legal  rights,  to  seek  for  a  native  successor,  and  annexed  the 
Nagpur  territory. 

3  I 


866  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

But  he  went  further  than  this  in  other  cases.  It  had  been  customary 
for  a  Rajah,  failing  heirs  of  his  body,  to  adopt  a  successor  in  accordance 
with  Hindu  law.  The  paramount  power,  whether  the  Moguls  or  the 
British,  had  never  admitted  an  obligation  to  recognise  adoption  as  con- 
veying a  title  to  the  throne,  but  had  habitually  recognised  it  as  a  matter 
of  grace.  At  Satara,  Jhansi,  and  elsewhere  Dalhousie  refused  to  sanction 
adoption,  and  annexation  by  lapse  was  the  necessary  result.  No  one  could 
dispute  either  the  legality  of  his  action  or  the  immensely  superior  character 
of  the  administration  by  the  British  ;  but  intense  uneasiness  was  created 
among  all  the  native  dynasties  who  saw  that  a  continuation  of  the  process 
would  gradually  absorb  the  whole  of  India  under  direct  British  dominion. 
The  final  annexation  was  that  of  Oudh,  but  for  a  different  reason — the 
persistent  maladministration  by  the  reigning  Mohammedan  dynasty  in  spite 
of  repeated  warnings.  Here,  however,  the  responsibility  did  not  rest  with 
Dalhousie,  who  had  recommended  a  different  course  ;  and  he  had  himself 
left  India  when  the  annexation  was  actually  carried  out  in  accordance  with 
instructions  from  England. 

Dalhousie  during  his  term  of  office  greatly  extended  the  system  of 
education,  carried  out  immense  public  works,  introduced  the  telegraph, 
initiated  railway  construction,  developed  the  material  prosperity  of  the 
country,  and  completely  mastered  the  disorderly  elements.  The  Punjab 
in  particular,  first  under  Henry  Lawrence  and  then  under  his  brother  John, 
was  converted  into  an  exceedingly  prosperous  and,  as  was  presently  proved, 
loyal  province.  But  Dalhousie's  S3^stem  had  produced  an  intense  unrest 
beneath  the  surface  ;  it  had  involved  a  large  increase  in  the  native  army, 
while,  in  spite  of  his  own  protests,  this  had  been  accompanied  by  a  reduction 
in  the  number  of  the  white  troops.  His  masterfulness  and  his  personal 
hold  upon  every  branch  of  the  administration  had  taught  many  of  the 
higher  officials  to  look  to  headquarters  for  direction  instead  of  being 
prepared  to  take  a  vigorous  initiative  themselves  ;  and  thus  Dalhousie's 
powerful  rule  even  by  its  own  efficiency  and  progressiveness  prepared  the 
way  for  the  cataclysm  which  followed. 

The  mutiny  is  apt  to  be  regarded  outside  of  India  as  a  somewhat 
unintelligible  phenomenon,  the  outcome  in  part  of  the  arrogant  attitude  of 
the  British  towards  the  natives  and  in  part  of  a  panic  because  of  what  was 
called  the  Cartridge  Incident.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  phenomenon  is 
perfectly  intelligible  if  we  attempt  to  realise  the  whole  situation.  In  the 
first  place  the  government  was  lulled  into  a  sense  of  perfect  security  by 
the  completeness  of  its  power  demonstrated  during  the  regime  of  Lord 
Dalhousie,  and  also  by  the  consciousness  of  the  material  advantages  that 
the  peoples  were  reaping  or  would  reap  from  the  excellence  of  its  adminis- 
tration. That  sense  of  security  provided  the  very  best  opportunity  for 
those  who  wished  to  organise  a  revolt.  There  were  two  groups  of  natives 
who  had  a  very  strong  inducement  in  their  own  history  to  overthrow  the 
British  power,  the  Mohammedans  who  had  been  the  lords  of  India,  and  the 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN  "^  ERA  867 

Marathas  who  believed  that  they  would  have  been  the  lords  of  India  but 
for  the  British.  The  available  instrument  of  revolution  was  there  in  the 
sepoy  army,  if  it  could  be  persuaded  that  its  own  interests  lay  in  the  over- 
throw of  British  dominion.  The  government  in  its  unconsciousness  blindly 
played  into  the  hands  of  agitators  by  giving  them  the  opportunity  of 
appealing  to  the  superstitious  or  religious  terrors  of  the  soldiery  ;  and  it 
had  alienated  the  Hindu  princes,  who  would  normally  prefer  a  British  to  a 
Mohammedan  or  a  Maratha  ascendency,  by  its  new  attitude  on  the  adoption 
question.  As  for  the  population  at  large  it  had  been  accustomed  for 
centuries  to  treat  wars  and  revolutions  like  earthquakes  and  famines  as 
inflictions  to  which  it  had  to  submit  passively  without  dreaming  of  taking  a 
direct  part.  The  elements  which  were  not  thus  fatalistically  peaceful  were 
precisely  those  which  very  much  preferred  anarchy  to  any  orderly  govern- 
ment, and  especially  such  a  government  as  that  of  the  British.  Finally,  all 
over  Hindustan  from  the  borders  of  Bengal  proper  to  the  river  Sutlej  there 
were  swarms  of  native  regiments,  while  the  white  troops  could  be  reckoned 
in  hundreds.  The  salvation  of  the  British  lay  in  the  fact  that  there  was 
not  and  could  not  be  any  national  organisation  of  India  for  their  overthrow 
because  there  was  not  and  never  had  been  an  Indian  nation.  The  over- 
throw of  the  British  could  only  bj  followed  by  an  internecine  struggle  for 
supremacy  among  the  different  divisions  and  cross  divisions  into  which 
India  was  broken  up  by  races,  religions,  and  dynasties.  The  Mohammedans 
were  not  going  to  fight  for  Hindu  liberties  or  a  Maratha  supremacy.  The 
Marathas  were  not  going  to  fight  for  a  Mogul  supremacy.  The  Rajput 
princes  were  not  going  to  fight  either  for  Marathas  or  for  Mussulmans. 
There  could  be  no  common  aim  except  a  merely  destructive  one.  And  so 
when  the  insurrection  came  it  was  the  work  mainly  of  the  Mogul  faction., 
and  was  joined  only  by  such  Hindu  princes  or  chiefs  as  had  a  personal 
grudge  against  the  British  Government.  The  Nizam  remained  loyal,  though 
he  found  it  hard  to  keep  his  troops  in  restraint  ;  Sindhia  remained  loyal, 
though  it  was  only  for  a  time  that  he  succeeded  in  keeping  his  soldiers  in 
check.  The  Rajputs  and  the  Punjab  remained  loyal,  and  in  the  end  the 
Sikhs,  who  were  traditional  enemies  of  the  Moguls  and  detested  the  Hin- 
dustanis, rendered  splendid  service  to  the  British.  Even  in  Oudh  the 
great  landowners  or  taliikdars  stood  resolutely  aloof  until  after  the  back 
of  the  revolt  had  been  broken. 

The  organisers  then  of  the  revolt,  so  far  as  it  was  organised  at  all,  were 
a  Mussulman  faction  on  the  one  hand,  who  intended  to  reinstate  the  Mogul 
empire  over  India,  and  on  the  other  Nana  Sahib,  the  adopted  son  of  the 
last  Peishwa  who  had  been  deposed  in  18 19.  The  Nana  looked  upon 
himself  as  the  hereditary  head  of  the  Marathas,  and  he  cherished  an  intense 
personal  grudge  against  the  British  Government  because,  while  it  left  him 
great  estates,  it  had  not  continued  to  him  the  immense  pension  which  it 
had  allowed  his  adoptive  father  for  life.  The  Nana  secretly  fomented 
sedition,  while  the  Mussulman  conspirators  directed  their  especial  attention 


868  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

to  the  army,  utilising  for  that  purpose  the  superstitions  of  the  Hindu 
soldiery  as  well  as  the  sympathies  of  the  Mohammedans.  An  ancient 
prophecy  was  circulated  which  pronounced  that  the  British  Raj  would  end 
with  its  hundredth  year,  1857.  Hindus  and  Mohammedans  alike  could 
never  rid  themselves  of  a  belief  that  the  British  intended  by  force  or  by 
trickery  to  make  them  all  Christians,  for  which  Mohammedan  rulers  had 
given  ample  precedents  in  the  forcible  conversion  of  Hindus  to  Moham- 
medanism.    The  Hindus  had  recently  been  disturbed  by  being  ordered  to 

serve  in  Burmah  ;  for  the  Hindu  who  crosses 
the  seas  thereby  loses  his  caste,  a  matter  at 
least  as  serious  to  him  as  excommunication 
to  a  Roman  Catholic.  This  alarm  was  in- 
creased by  a  proclamation  issued  by  Lord 
Canning,  soon  after  his  arrival  as  Governor- 
General  in  1856,  announcing  that  in  future 
all  regiments  would  be  liable  to  service 
across  the  sea.  Then  came  the  Cartridge 
Incident.  A  new  rifle  was  adopted  in  which 
greased  cartridges  were  used,  the  tips  of 
which  the  sepoy  had  to  bite.  It  was  reported 
i%'Wi--^''=^^^^bsi^  'if  f/M  ^hat  the  grease  was  made  from  the  fat  of 
r^^^^^^M"^^^  /wm^  cattle  and  pigs.  To  the  Mussulman  the  pig 
is  an  unclean  animal  and  to  the  Hindu  the 
cow  is  a  sacred  one.  The  panic  was  not 
allayed  even  by  the  withdrawal  of  the  first 
batch  of  cartridges  and  the  public  declara- 
tion that  the  grease  employed  would  be  free 
from  the  obnoxious  ingredients. 

The  whole  sepoy  army  throughout  Hindu- 
stan was  in  a  ferment.  Regiments  began  here 
and  there  to  mutiny;  then  on  May  10,  1857, 
the  whole  of  the  regiments  at  Mirat,  a  great  military  station  in  the  north-west 
provinces,  mutinied,  killed  ev^ery  European  they  could  lay  hands  on,  marched 
upon  Delhi,  and  proclaimed  the  restoration  of  the  Mogul.  la  the  next  few 
weeks  nearly  every  sepoy  regiment  between  Delhi  and  Patna  had  thrown 
off  its  allegiance  though  Allahabad  was  secured,  and  almost  all  the  British 
with  the  few  sepoys  who  remained  loyal  were  shut  up  in  the  Lucknow 
Residency,  or  at  Cawnpore  or  Agra,  or  were  assembled  on  the  Ridge  out- 
side Delhi  besieging  a  mutineer  force  in  that  city  which  outnumbered  the 
besiegers  by  at  least  five  to  one. 

Before  the  end  of  June  Cawnpore  had  fallen.  There  a  mere  handful 
of  combatants  and  a  large  number  of  non-combatants,  women  and  children, 
were  besieged  by  Nana  Sahib.  P'or  three  weeks  the  defence  was  maintained 
till  the  place  had  become  untenable.  Then  the  defenders  took  the  only 
Course  open   to  them  and  surrendered   on   terms.     They  were  to  be  sent 


Nana  SahiL. 
[From  a  sketch  made  ii 


1857. 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN    ERA 


869 


down  tlie  liver  in  safety  to  Allahabad.  They  were  crowded  into  boats  and 
pushed  off  into  the  stream.  Then  the  native  boatmen  slipped  overboard, 
and  the  Nana's  men  from  the  shore  began  to  pour  volleys  into  the  helpless 
fugitives.  The  treacherous  attack  was  followed  up  by  a  general  massacre 
of  the  men,  while  the  women  and  children  were  carried  back  to  captivity 
in  Cawnpore. 

From  the  end  of  June  to  the  second  half  of  September  the  interest  of 
the  great  struggle  concentrated  at  three  points,  the  siege  of  Delhi  by  the 


fence  of  the  Lucknow'  Residency, 
and  the  efforts  of  Sir  Henry  Have- 
lock  to  effect  the  relief  of  Lucknow. 
The  mutineers  were  assembled  in 
force  at  Delhi  itself,  in  the  city  of 
Lucknow,  and  at  Cawnpore,  block- 
ing the  advance  of  the  relieving 
force.  Until  the  latter  part  of 
August  the  six  thousand  men  on 
the  Ridge  before  Delhi  were  kept 
mainly  on  the  defensive.  By  that 
time  John  Lawrence  had  been  able 
to  despatch  a  flying  column  from 
the  Punjab  under  General  Nicholson 
to  reinforce  the  besieging  army, 
followed  at  the  beginning  of  Sep- 
tember by  a  siege  train,  without 
which  it  would  have  been  impos- 
sible to  attempt  the  actual  capture 
of  the  mutineer  stronghold.  By 
the  daring  and  skill  of  the  engineer 
operations,  actively  conducted  by 
Alexander   Taylor,    breaching    bat-  .    - 

teries  were  at  last  brought  to  bear  on  September  nth;  on  the  14th  the 
Kashmir  gate  was  blown  up  and  the  ramparts  of  Delhi  were  stormed  ;  day 
by  day  the  British  troops  fought  their  way  into  the  city,  and  on  the  21st 
they  were  in  full  possession,  with  the  Mogul  himself  in  their  hands,  though 
a  large  portion  of  the  mutineer  force  was  on  its  retreat  to  Lucknow. 

Meanwhile  at  Lucknow  itself  the  Residency  held  out  stubbornly.  The 
character  of  the  defence  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  no  fewer  than 
twenty-five  mines  were  detected  and  exploded  by  the  vigilance  of  the  garrison 
engineers  in  nine  weeks.  The  force  was  never  in  actual  danger  of  starva- 
tion, but  the  absolutely  ceaseless  strain  was  terrific  ;  practically  no  news 
could  be  obtained  from  outside  ;  a  serious  loss  had  been  suffered  by  the 
death  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence  in  the  first  week  of  the  siege,  and  even  the 
loyal   sepoys,  splendidly   as   they   fought,  were   declaring   that   they   must 


Sir  John  Lawrence. 


870  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

march  out  on  October  ist  unless  relief  had  arrived,  when  Havelock  and 
Outram  broke  their  way  in  on  September  25th  and  the  pressing  danger 
was  averted. 

Havelock  had  begun  his  march  from  Allahabad  on  July  7th  with  two 
thousand  men  all  told,  a  quarter  of  whom  were  sepoys.  The  first  object 
was  to  rescue  the  captives  at  Cawnpore,  the  next  to  advance  through  Oudh 

to  Lucknow.  On  the  tenth 
day  he  reached  Cawnpore. 
On  one  day  he  had  fought 
two  successive  actions,  and 
on  this  tenth  day  three. 
He  was  too  late.  When 
Nana  Sahib  found  that  no- 
thing could  stop  Havelock, 
he  deliberately  butchered 
the  women  and  children 
in  cold  blood  and  flung 
the  bodies  of  his  victims 
into  a  well.  Never  in  our 
history  had  such  a  cry  for 
vengeance  arisen  as  when 
the  story  of  that  hideous 
crime  was  told. 

Havelock  crossed  the 
Ganges  and  drove  the 
rebels  before  him  in  one 
fight  after  another  ;  but 
cholera  had  attacked  his 
force,  and  now  came  news 
that  down  the  river  Dina- 
pur  had  mutinied  and  on 
the  west  the  Gwalior  army 
was  on  the  march.  With- 
out some  reinforcement  it  was  impossible  to  advance,  and  he  had  to  fall 
back  on  Cawnpore  itself.  It  was  an  unfortunate  necessity,  for  it  made 
the  people  of  Oudh  imagine  that  the  relief  was  abandoned  and  the  triumph 
of  the  mutiny  was  assured,  so  that  the  talukdars  no  longer  ventured  to 
restrain  their  dependents  from  joining  the  insurgents. 

Nevertheless  reinforcements  under  Outram  did  arrive.  On  the  day 
after  the  ramparts  of  Delhi  were  stormed,  Havelock  and  Outram  joined 
hands  at  Cawnpore,  their  whole  force  numbering  three  thousand  men. 
Outram,  the  senior  officer,  would  not  deprive  his  heroic  comrade  of  the 
glory  of  achieving  the  relief,  but  chose  instead  to  serve  as  a  volunteer  under 
him.  Ten  days  later  they  drove  their  way  through  the  mutineer  hosts,  and 
the  Lucknow  Residency  was  secured. 


The  ATemorial  Well  at  Cawnpore. 


^A 


r-^  -^^ 


^  / 


\ 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN    ERA  871 

The  tide  had  been  stemmed ;  now  it  turned.  Sir  Cohn  Campbell  had 
already  arrived  in  India  to  take  the  chief  command.  On  November  17th 
he  effected  the  actual  relief  of  the  Residency,  the  non-combatants  were 
^'ithdrawn,  the  position  so  long  and  so  stubbornly  defended  was  abandoned, 
and  a  strong  garrison  was  placed  instead  under  Outram  in  the  neighbour- 
ing fort  called  the  Alam  Bagh.  Havelock's  work  was  already  done;  that 
typical  Puritan  hero  passed 
away  a  few  days  after  Sir 
Colin's  arrival. 

There  was  still  plenty 
for  the  commander-in-chief 
to  do.  The  city  of  Lucknow 
was  still  held  by  an  im- 
mense force  of  mutineers. 
On  the  south-west  the 
Gwalior  army,  under  the 
one  really  capable  mutineer 
leader,  Tantia  Topi,  had 
joined  Nana  Sahib  at  Cawn- 
pore.  Not  three  weeks  after 
the  relief  of  the  Residency, 
on  December  6th,  Campbell 
routed  and  split  the  enemy's 
force,  driving  the  Nana  over 
the  Ganges  in  one  direction 
and  Tantia  Topi  over  the 
Jumna  in  another.  On 
March  17th  Lucknow  itself 
was  captured  after  hard 
fighting.  Meanwhile  Sir 
Hugh  Rose  had  been  con- 
ducting a  brilliant  campaign 
in  Central  India,  and  at  the 
beginning  of  April  he  put 
Tantia  Topi  finally  to  rout  and  captured  Jhansi,  the  last  real  stronghold 
of  resistance,  though  many  months  still  passed  before  the  last  embers 
of  the  great  revolt  were  stamped  out.  Only  in  the  final  stage  the  Oudh 
talukdars  had  taken  alarm  at  a  proclamation  issued  by  the  Governor- 
General  and  had  thrown  themselves  actively  into  the  revolt  when  it  was 
already  hopeless. 

No  episode  in  our  history  has  in  it  so  much  of  tragedy,  none  more 
of  heroism  than  the  story  of  the  Indian  Mutiny,  when  the  British  fought 
with  their  backs  to  the  wall  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  loyal  natives ;  when 
numbers  of  women  showed  a  supreme  fortitude  in  the  day  of  supreme 
horror.     But  not  the  least  heroic  among  many   heroic   figures   was   that 


%f 


Sir  Henry  Havelock. 
[After  the  portrait  by  Frederick  Goodall,  R.A.] 


872  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

of  Lord  Canning,  the  Governor-General,  who,  in  the  midst  of  such  a  storm 
of  wrath  as  never  before  or  since  has  moved  the  British  people,  dared 
to  face  bitter  obloquy,  fierce  denunciation,  and  angry  ridicule,  while  he 
held  fast  to  the  principles  of  justice  and  refused  to  seek  an  undiscriminat- 
ing  revenge.  The  name  of  "  Clemency  "  Canning,  flung  at  him  in  scorn, 
will  cling  to  him  through  the  ages  as  a  high  title  of  honour. 

The  mutiny  brought  the  end  of  the  old  order.  It  convinced  the 
government  at  home  that  the  time  had  definitely  come  for  ending  the  old 
East  India  Company  and  transferring  the  government  of  India  to  the 
Crown.  It  was  not  British  dominion  but  the  dominion  of  the  East  India 
Company  which  lasted  for  a  hundred  years.  The  India  Act  of  1858 
established  the  system  under  which  the  government  of  India  is  vested 
in  the  Viceroy  and  Council,  responsible  to  the  Secretary  of  State  for  India, 
who  is  a  member  of  the  ministry  responsible  to  Parliament.  The  first 
Viceroy  under  the  new  regime  was  the  last  Governor-General  under  the 
old.  Clemency  Canning. 


Ill 
PALMERSTON 

While  the  Indian  Mutiny  was  still  in  progress  the  Chinese  war  was 
brought  apparently  to  a  conclusion.  The  French  were  associated  in 
it  with  the  British  because  they  had  taken  the  opportunity  to  press  demands 
of  their  own,  and  the  Chinese  governor,  who  defied  the  British,  had  issued 
a  proclamation  setting  a  price  upon  the  heads  of  Frenchmen  as  well 
as  Englishmen.  In  January  1858  Canton  was  captured.  The  Chinese 
government  made  no  reply  to  peace  proposals,  so  the  Europeans  attacked 
the  Piho  River,  destroyed  the  forts  which  were  intended  to  secure  it,  and 
advanced  to  Tien-tsin.  There  a  treaty  was  concluded  in  June,  by  which  the 
Chinese  were  forced  to  open  some  additional  ports  and  the  rights  and 
powers  of  jurisdiction  of  the  foreigners  were  defined. 

The  announcement  of  the  peace  did  not  fall  to  the  Palmerston  Govern- 
ment, which  had  come  to  a  sudden  and  unexpected  end  in  February.  An 
attempt  was  made  upon  the  life  of  the  French  Emperor  by  throwing  bombs 
under  his  carriage.  The  principal  conspirator  was  a  man  named  Orsini, 
who  had  been  a  refugee  in  England  while  the  plan  was  concocted.  In 
France  there  was  great  excitement  and  a  clamour  for  severe  repressive 
measures  in  England.  Language  of  a  highly  aggressive  and  bombastic 
character  was  used,  which  created  corresponding  irritation  among  the 
British.  Palmerston  and  Clarendon  were  the  last  men  to  yield  on  points 
where  British  honour  and  British  interests  were  concerned  ;  but  Palmerston 
desired  to  remain  on  good  terms  with  the  Emperor,  and  there  was  obvious 
reason  at  the  bottom  of  the  clamour  in   France  when  the  right  of  asylum 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN    ERA  873 

in  England  for  political  refugees  was  utilised  for  the  concoction  of  assassina- 
tion plots.  Lord  Palmerston  introduced  what  is  known  as  the  Conspiracy 
to  Murder  Bill.  Conspiracy  to  murder  was  a  capital  offence  in  Ireland, 
but  only  a  misdemeanour  in  England.  The  bill  proposed  to  make  it 
both  in  England  and  Ireland  a  felony  punishable  by  transportation  or 
imprisonment  with  hard  labour,  without  respect  to  the  particular  country 
in  which  it  was  intended 
that  the  murder  should  be 
committed.  But  the  country 
took  it  as  a  base  submission 
to  the  threats  of  France, 
while  advanced  Liberals  re- 
garded it  as  a  surrender  of 
the  right  of  asylum.  The 
Government  was  defeated, 
and  Palmerston  resigned. 
For  the  second  time  Lord 
Derby  took  office,  with  Dis- 
raeli as  the  leader  of  the 
Conservative  party  in  the 
House  of  Commons. 

The  fallof  the  Palmerston 
ministry  followed  upon  the 
introduction  of  a  bill  for 
transferring  the  government 
of  India  to  the  Crown.  A 
new  bill  was  now  introduced, 
remarkably  ingenious,  but 
obviously  open  to  the  most 
hostile  criticism  ;  yet  the 
Liberals,  seriously  shaken  by 
the  dissensions  which  had 
brought  about  the  fall  of  the 
late  administration,  were  by 
no  means  anxious  to  turn  the  nev^  Government  out,  though  they  could  hardly 
have  avoided  voting  against  the  bill.  Both  parties,  then,  accepted  Russell's 
proposal  that  the  bill  should  be  withdrawn,  the  sense  of  the  House  taken 
upon  a  series  of  resolutions,  and  a  bill  then  introduced  embodying  the 
views  which  had  found  favour,  the  scheme  not  being  treated  as  a  party 
question  at  all.  The  plan  was  successfully  followed  ;  the  India  Act  was 
passed,  and  the  government  of  the  great  dependency  was  transferred  to  the 
Crown. 

For  some  years  past  there  had  been  a  growing  inclination  in  the  country 
to  recognise  the  need  of  further  parliamentary  reform.  Palmerston,  how- 
ever, with  a  considerable  section  of  the  Liberals,  was  by  no  means  willing 


Queen  Victoria  in  1857. 

[From  a  pastel  painting  by  Alexander  Elaikley.] 


74 


THE  MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 


had  thrown  in  h 


to  proceed  further  in  the  direction  of  democrac}',  and  the  question  had 
more  than  once  been  shelved.  But  now  the  Conservatives  were  uneasily 
dominated  by  the  personahty  of  their  brilhant  leader  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  Benjamin  Disraeli.  DisraeH  was  a  man  of  ideas,  to  an  extent 
exceedingly  rare  among  British  politicians.  Those  ideas  were  as  remote 
as  possible  from  the  unimaginative  conservatism,  which  views  with  alarm 
any  possible  change  from  that  to  which  it  has  been  accustomed,  and 
remains  blind  to  altering  conditions,  impervious  to  new  facts.  But  he 
lot  with  the  Conservative  party  ;  it  was  the  instrument 
v.'ith  which  he  had  to  work,  and  he  had  to 
educate  it  into  acceptance  of  his  leadership 
along  paths  wjiich  it  would  never  have  dreamt 
of  treading  on  its  own  account.  Disraeli  was 
not  afraid  of  democracy,  because  he  believed  in 
his  own  power  of  leadership  and  in  popular 
support  as  the  strongest  basis  on  which  govern- 
ment can  rest.  He  saw  now  his  opportunity 
for  transforming  the  Conservatives  into  the 
popular  party,  and  came  forward  as  the  advocate 
of  parliamentary  reform,  wliich  the  Liberals  had 
successfully  relegated  to  the  background. 

But  Disraeli  had  not  yet  realised  that  he 
was  too  ingenious  both  for  the  old  Tories  and 
for  the  country  at  large.  The  Government  bill 
was  full  of  subtle  devices  which,  in  the  eyes 
of  a  suspicious  Opposition,  were  intended  only 
to  bring  into  the  enlarged  franchise  classes 
whose  interest  it  would  be  to  vote  for  the 
Conservatives,  w^hile  shutting  out  those  who 
were  likely  to  vote  Liberal ;  whereas  to  cautious 
Conservatives  it  seemed  fraught  with  democratic  perils.  The  Reform  Bill 
was  thrown  out.  Lord  Derby  appealed  to  the  country,  and  when  the  new 
Parliament  met  a  vote  of  "  no  confidence "  in  the  Government  was  im- 
mediately carried.  Lord  Derby  resigned,  Russell  consented  to  serve  under 
Palmerston  with  the  charge  of  the  Foreign  Office,  and  all  administration 
was  formed  which  remained  in  power  till  Palmerston's  death. 

It  was  inevitable  in  the  circumstances  that  the  new  Government  should 
bring  in  a  reform  bill  of  its  own.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  country, 
the  House,  and  the  Cabinet  were  all  apathetic.  It  was  not  difficult  to  find 
excuses  for  postponement,  and  the  postponement  was  in  effect  a  withdrawal. 
The  question  was  once  more  shelved,  and  it  was  generally  understood  that 
it  would  not  again  be  officially  brought  forward  under  Palmerston.  The 
interest  of  domestic  affairs  during  Palmerston's  premiership  centres  almost 
entirely  in  the  series  of  budgets  by  which  Gladstone,  as  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  carried  to  completion  the  system  of  Free  Trade  which  logically 


Benjamin  Disraeli. 

[From  an  early  portrait  in  the  ' 
Portrait  Gallery." 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN    ERA  875 

followed  upon  the  financial  policy  of  Sir  Robert  Peel.  Incidentally  one 
of  Gladstone's  finance  bills  foreshadowed  the  great  collision  between  the  two 
Houses  of  Parliament  which  was  precipitated  by  another  finance  bill  almost 
fifty  years  afterwards. 

No  effective  movement  was  made  in  this  direction  in  the  1859  budget, 
because  the  European  situation  was  threatening,  an  increased  expenditure 
was  anticipated,  and,  instead  of  reducing  taxation,  Gladstone  increased  the 
income  tax,  a  course  which  was  held  preferable  to  that  of  raising  a  loan. 
It  was  in  effect  becoming  a  recognised  principle  that  the  year's  expenditure 
should  be  met  out  of  the  year's  revenue  whenever  the  country  was  not 
actually  at  war.  But  before  the  next  budget  was  introduced  in  i860  a 
commercial  treaty  was  entered  upon  with  France  which  was  negotiated  by 
Richard  Cobden,  the  great  apostle  of  Free  Trade.  Napoleon  III.  him- 
self was  a  believer  in  the  economic  doctrines  which  now  held  the  field 
in  England  ;  but  neither  in  France  nor  speaking  generally  in  the  rest  of 
Europe  were  those  doctrines  accepted.  The  treaty,  therefore,  went  just 
as  far  as  the  emperor  could  venture.  Cobden  and  the  free-traders  them- 
selves believed  in  the  commerc'al  advantage  of  abolishing  all  tariffs,  whether 
foreign  countries  adopted  the  same  system  or  no  ;  although  they  anticipated 
that  foreign  countries  would  adopt  the  system  and  that  British  commerce 
would  gain  all  the  more,  an  anticipation  which  has  not  been  fulfilled.  But 
in  form  the  commercial  treaty  was  one  of  reciprocity  ;  that  is,  France  agreed 
to  abolish  prohibitions  and  to  reduce  the  duties  on  practically  all  British 
goods,  while  no  preference  was  to  be  given  to  goods  from  any  other  country. 
On  the  other  hand,  Britain  removed  the  tariff  on  very  nearly  all  imported 
goods. 

This  principle  was  embodied  in  the  budget  of  i860.  Of  the  four 
hundred  and  nineteen  articles  still  on  the  schedule  all  but  forty-eight 
were  struck  off.  Between  1845  and  1859  more  than  seven  hundred  had 
been  removed.  As  regards  the  forty-eight  articles  now  remaining,  none 
of  the  duties  were  either  preferential  or  protective  ;  that  is  to  say,  the 
whole  of  the  proceeds  went  directly  to  the  revenue,  all  producers  competing 
on  equal  terms  so  far  as  British  taxation  was  concerned.  In  spite  of  the 
greatly  diminished  cost  of  collection,  it  was  estimated  that  the  immediate 
loss  to  revenue  would  exceed  two  millions,  although  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  looked  forward  to  increased  receipts  in  the  future  from  articles 
on  which  the  duty  was  reduced.  For  the  time,  therefore,  the  full  amount 
of  the  duties  on  tea  and  sugar  was  retained  and  the  income  tax  was 
placed  at  tenpence. 

At  this  date  a  very  substantial  item  in  the  national  revenue  was  derived 
from  the  tax  upon  paper,  which  it  was  now  proposed  to  abolish.  This  was  a 
demand  which  the  Radicals  had  been  urging,  because  the  high  price  of  paper 
stood  in  the  way  of  the  publication  of  cheap  literature.  From  the  high 
Conservative  point  of  view  the  publication  of  cheap  literature  appeared  to 
be  not  desirable  but  dangerous,  since  it  would  enable  the  lucubrations  of 


876  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

agitators  to  be  scattered  broadcast.  But,  apart  from  this,  it  appeared 
at  least  questionable  whether  cheaper  literature  was  needed  more  urgently 
than  cheaper  tea  and  sugar.  Palmerston  himself  and  many  other  Liberals 
viewed  the  proposal  with  anything  but  enthusiasm.  The  bill  for  the 
abolition  of  the  paper  duties  was  not  incorporated  with  the  rest  of  the 
financial  proposals  for  the  year  in  one  bill,  but  stood  by  itself.  It  was 
passed  in  the  House  of  Commons  by  a  majority  of  fifty  on  the  second 
reading,  but  on  the  third  reading  the  majority  dwindled  to  nine.  The 
bill  went  up  to  the  House  of  Lords.  Since  the  days  of  the  Stuarts  the 
Lords  had  never  interfered  with  a  finance  bill ;  but  Lord  Lyndhurst,  a 
former  Conservative  Lord  Chancellor,  now  led  the  opposition  to  the 
paper  bill,  laying  it  down  as  the  law  of  the  constitution  that,  while  the 
Lords  might  not  amend  a  finance  bill,  they  had  the  right  of  rejecting  it 
in  its  entirety,  and  were  therefore  free  to  reject  this  particular  bill  if  they 
thought  fit.  The  Opposition  were  victorious,  and  the  Lords  threw  out  the 
bill  by  a  large  majority. 

It  is  curious  to  find  that  the  Prime  Minister  expressed  to  the  Queen  his 
own  personal  conviction  beforehand  that  if  the  Lords  rejected  the  bill  they 
would  deserve  well  of  the  country,  although  the  Cabinet,  of  which  he  was 
the  head,  was  responsible  for  it.  Extreme  indignation,  however,  was 
aroused  by  the  action  of  the  Lords,  and  a  violent  collision  was  only  averted 
when  Palmerston  introduced  in  the  House  of  Commons  a  series  of  resolu- 
tions, claiming  that  the  Commons  alone  had  the  right  of  controlling 
supplies,  that  the  Lords'  right  of  rejecting  money  bills  was  viewed  with 
extreme  jealousy  by  the  Commons,  and  in  effect  that  the  remedy  lay 
within  the  hands  of  the  Commons  themselves.  Effect  was  given  to  the 
resolution  by  the  Commons  in  the  following  year  when  the  paper  bill  was 
incorporated  with  the  rest  of  the  budget.  The  Lords  did  not  venture  to 
throw  out  the  budget  in  its  entirety,  and  thus  the  abolition  of  the  paper 
duties  was  carried.  The  right  of  the  Lords  to  throw  out  a  money  bill  was 
not  again  asserted  until  1909. 

The  expansion  of  trade  and  the  increase  of  revenue  derived  from  the 
lowered  duties  were  so  remarkable  that,  in  spite  of  increased  expenditure  on 
national  defence,  the  income  tax,  the  tea  duties,  and  the  sugar  duties  were 
all  materially  reduced  in  1863  and  1864.  The  rapid  increase  in  the 
national  wealth  may  be  realised  from  the  fact  that  between  1842  and  1861 
the  assessments  for  income  tax  rose  more  than  forty  per  cent. ;  and  the 
increase  in  the  last  eight  years  had  been  more  than  three  times  as  great 
as  that  in  the  first  ten.  It  was  this  enormous  advance  which  completely 
established  the  almost  universal  conviction  which  prevailed  throughout  the 
rest  of  the  century  that  Protectionism  was  absolutely  dead  and  could  never 
be  revived. 

In  the  summer  of  1865  Parliament  was  dissolved  after  a  life  of  six 
years.  Several  successes  in  bye-elections  had  produced  an  impression 
that  the  Conservatives  would  come  back  to  Parliament  in  greatly  increased 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN    ERA  877 

numbers.  But  the  anticipation  was  not  fulfilled.  Palmerston  was  still  the 
most  popular  minister  in  the  country  ;  he  commanded  a  great  amount  of 
support  from  Conservative  sentiment,  and  his  majority  when  the  new 
Parliament  met  numbered  more  than  sixty.  But  his  reign  was  almost  over. 
He  was  past  eighty  years  of  age  ;  he  had  recently  been  suffering  from  ill- 
health  ;  and  in  October  he  died,  two  days  after  his  eighty-first  birthday. 
The  long  truce  was  over ;  the  battle  of  democracy  was  immediately 
to  be  renewed. 


IV 

FOREIGN    AFFAIRS 

The  period  of  the  Derby  and  Palmerston  administrations  was  one  of 
arrested  activities  at  home.     Foreign  affairs  were  of  a  more  exciting  order. 


The  capture  of  the  North  Fort  at  Piho,  August 
[From  a  sketch  made  on  the  spot.] 

We  had  affairs  of  our  own  to  settle  with  the  Chinese  and  Japanese,  and 
also  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  African  Gold  Coast,  all  of  them  in- 
volving military  or  naval  operations.  But  also  we  had  in  Europe  the 
exceedingly  difficult  task  of  endeavouring  to  assert  ourselves  effectively 
and  at  the  same  time  avoiding  war  ;  while  events  in  the  United  States 
provided  an  equally  difficult  problem  in  another  hemisphere. 

The  Chinese  trouble  had  not  after  all  been  settled  by  the  Treaty  of 
Tien-tsin  since  the  Chinese  government  took  no  steps  towards  acting 
upon  it.  When  the  French  and  English  envoys  endeavoured,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  terms  of  the  treaty,  to  make  their  way  to  Pekin,  they 
found  the  forts  on  the  Piho  rebuilt,  the  obstructions  in  the  river  restored, 
and  their  own  passage  refused.  An  attempt  to  carry  the  forts  was  repulsed  ; 
and  the  usual  necessity  in  dealing  with  orientals  followed,  of  despatching 


878  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

an  irresistible  joint  force  of  British  and  French.  An  uUimatum  forwarded 
to  Pekin  was  rejected.  The  Piho  forts  were  taken  after  hard  fighting. 
A  conference  was  arranged  to  take  place  near  Pekin,  but  the  British 
officials  who  w^ere  sent  forward  to  meet  the  Chinese  commissioners  were 
treacherously  seized,  some  of  them  murdered,  and  others  imprisoned.  Lord 
Elgin,  the  British  Plentipotentiary,  demanded  their  release  within  three  days  ; 
as  they  were  not  released  the  army  advanced,  and  seized  and  sacked  the 
celebrated  "  summer  palace."  The  Chinese,  however,  now  found  resistance 
useless,  the  prisoners  were  released,  the  allies  occupied  Pekin,  and  the 
Chinese  submitted  to  the  terms  dictated.  The  previous  treaty  was  ratified, 
a  large  indemnity  paid,  and  the  port  of  Tien-tsin  was  opened. 

Japan  had  hitherto  cut  herself  off  from  the  outside  world  even  more 
completely  than  China.  Until  1858  the  Dutch  were  the  only  foreigners 
admitted  to  trade,  and  that  only  under  very  restricted  conditions.  At  that 
time,  however.  Lord  Elgin  procured  a  treaty  of  commerce  under  which  five 
ports  were  opened  to  British  subjects,  and  a  British  embassy  and  consular 
agents  were  admitted.  Four  years  later  a  Japanese  embassy  visited  England. 
But  the  Japanese  were  not  yet  reconciled  to  the  presence  of  foreigners. 
A  member  of  the  British  embassy  at  Yokohama  was  murdered.  Compensa- 
tion was  demanded  ;  the  compensation  was  promised  but  not  paid,  and 
the  ports  were  closed.  The  British  admiral  in  those  seas  seized  some 
Japanese  ships  at  Kagosima.  The  batteries  on  the  shore  opened  fire  on 
the  squadron,  and  the  squadron  bombarded  Kagosima.  Thereupon  the 
Japanese  gave  way,  and  the  ports  were  again  opened. 

The  African  affair  referred  to  was  an  expedition  from  the  Gold  Coast 
against  Ashanti,  a  somewhat  futile  demonstration  against  a  savage  native 
potentate  who  had  been  harrying  friendly  tribes.  Such  expeditions  in 
peculiarly  unhealthy  regions  are  inevitably  costly  both  in  lives  and  in 
money,  and,  necessary  though  they  are,  always  appear  to  be  unproductive. 
The  Ashanti  expedition  of  1864  was  no  exception  to  the  general  rule. 

Meanwhile  Europe  and  America  kept  Lord  John  Russell  at  the  Foreign 
Office  very  fully  occupied,  and  it  is  possible  that,  but  for  the  restraining  in- 
fluence of  the  Queen  and  of  the  Prince  Consort  while  he  lived,  the  self-asser- 
tiveness  of  Russell  and  Palmerston  might  have  involved  the  country  in 
war.  Grave  European  complications  arose  at  the  beginning  of  1859  in  Italy. 
The  hopes  of  Italian  nationalism  centred  in  Victor  Emmanuel,  the  King  of 
Sardinia,  and  the  first  condition  for  Italian  nationalism  was  the  ending  of 
the  Austrian  supremacy  in  North  Italy.  Victor  Emmanuel's  great  minister, 
Cavour,  secured  the  alliance  of  the  French  Emperor,  and,  after  the  failure 
of  attempts  to  procure  a  European  conference,  a  campaign  was  opened  in 
Northern  Italy  in  which  the  arms  of  the  allies  were  successful.  Napoleon, 
however,  was  playing  for  his  own  hand  and  stopped  short  of  driving  the 
Austrians  out  of  the  Peninsula.  A  temporary  arrangement  was  arrived  at, 
at  the  Treaty  of  Villafranca,  by  which  Austria  gave  up  Lombardy  to  Sardinia, 
Sardinia  gave  up  Nice  to  France,  and  the  former  ducal  dynasties  were  to 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN    ERA  879 

be  restored  in  the  Italian  duchies.  But  the  duchies  entirely  declined  to 
accept  the  arrangement  and  were  solidly  determined  to  annex  themselves 
to  Sardinia.  The  British  Government  had  refused  to  intervene,  while  dis- 
playing the  strongest  sympathy  with  the  Italian  movement,  and  by  its  atti- 
tude it  probably  prevented  Prussia  from  lending  aid  to  Austria.  Now 
its  attitude  was  again  the  decisive  factor  in  the  situation.      British  influence 


-<?^^T^i^ 


Lord  Palmerston. 
[From  a  photograph.] 


was  exerted  to  the  utmost  to  prevent  any  interference  with  the  duchies  in 
deciding  their  own  fate. 

Austria  accepted  the  situation,  and  those  of  the  duchies  which  desired 
it — ^which  meant  every  one  of  them — were  permitted  to  annex  themselves 
to  the  kingdom  of  Northern  Italy.  France  however  demanded  the 
cession  to  herself  of  Savoy,  which  Savoy  itself  favoured.  But  the  whole 
performance  fomented  British  distrust  of  Napoleon,  whose  selfish  designs 
had  been  made  unmistakjibly  clear.  Ostensibly  the  two  Powers  had  been 
working  together ;  but  in  fact  the  action  of  the  British  had  thwarted  the 


88o  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

Emperor's  real  intentions.  The  sudden  insurrection  of  Sicily  led  by  the 
warrior-hero  of  Italian  liberty,  Garibaldi,  the  overthrow  of  the  Bourbon 
dynasty  of  Naples,  the  skilfully  audacious  management  of  the  situation  by 
Cavour,  and  the  voluntary  annexation  of  the  Southern  state  to  Sardinia, 
made  Victor  Emmanuel  King  of  Italy,  with  the  exception  of  Rome,  which 
was  still  held  by  the  Pope  under  French  protection,  and  of  Venetia,  which 
was  still  an  Austrian  province.  In  these  developments  the  attitude  of  the 
British  Government  once  more  went  far  towards  preventing  active  interven- 
tion by  any  other  of  the  Powers. 

Very  much  less  satisfactory,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the  line  taken  by 
the  Foreign  Secretary,  now  raised  to  the  peerage  as  Earl  Russell,  in  con- 
nection with  other  European  complications.  The  exceedingly  intricate 
question  of  the  sovereignty  of  Schleswig-Holstein,  provinces  attached  to 
the  kingdom  of  Denmark,  became  acute.  Very  few  people  indeed  under- 
stood them,  but  to  the  British  public  it  seemed  that  Prussia  and  Austria 
were  combining  to  rob  the  little  state  of  Denmark.  It  appeared  that  the 
Powers  had  guaranteed  the  integrity  of  Denmark,  and  popular  sentiment 
was  greatly  excited.  Russell  remonstrated  in  a  manner  which  was  absurd, 
unless  it  was  intended  to  back  the  remonstrance  by  force  of  arms,  a  course 
which  the  country  would  probably  have  endorsed.  Already  Russell  had 
followed  a  similar  line  in  addressing  bellicose  remonstrances  to  Russia 
on  her  treatment  of  an  insurrection  in  Poland,  when  he  had  also  induced 
Napoleon  to  remonstrate  ;  but  he  had  then  permitted  both  the  Tsar  and 
the  French  Emperor  to  see  that  the  remonstrance  would  not  be  backed  by 
force.  Both  the  Western  Powers  were  snubbed  for  their  pains.  Now, 
therefore,  when  Russell  invited  Napoleon  to  join  in  bringing  diplomatic 
pressure  to  bear  upon  Austria  and  Prussia  on  behalf  of  Denmark,  the 
Emperor  declined  to  subject  himself  to  the  risk  of  another  affront,  and  for 
the  second  time  Britain  was  placed  in  an  ignominous  position  in  the  eyes 
of  Europe.  British  prestige  suffered  severely,  not  from  Briti-h  non- 
intervention, but  because  non-intervention  had  been  preceded  by  threaten- 
ing language  to  which  the  minister  who  used  it  had  never  been  prepared  to 
give  actual  effect. 

Altogether  different  was  the  tone  adopted  by  the  British  Government 
in  relation  to  the  great  civil  war  which  broke  out  in  the  United  States  of 
America  early  in  1861.  There  the  attitude  assumed  was  one  of  determined 
neutrality.  The  Southern  States  declared  their  right  to  separate  themselves 
from  the  union  and  form  a  distinct  confederation.  Their  ostensible  reason 
for  doing  so  was  the  claim  of  the  central  government  of  the  whole  body  to 
exercise  over  the  separate  states  a  larger  control  than  it  was  entitled  to  in 
the  eyes  of  those  states.  The  immediate  cause  was  the  growing  determina- 
tion of  the  Northern  States  to  abolish  slavery.  The  Northern  States 
denied  the  right  of  secession,  claiming  that  the  union  was  a  "federal  "  one, 
in  which  case  the  attempt  at  separation  is  rebellion.  The  Southern  States 
claimed  that  the  Union  was  a  "  confederation  "  from  wh-ch  any  member  is 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN    ERA  88 1 

entitled  to  separate  itself.  Hence  the  names  "  Confederates "  applied  to 
the  Southern  States  and  "  Federals "  applied  to  the  Northerners.  The 
British  Government  declined  to  judge  between  them.  Popular  sentiment 
was  violently  divided,  the  passionate  horror  of  slavery  drawing  one  section 
of  the  public  into  fervent  sympathy  with  the  North,  while  the  political 
advocacy  of  the  right  of  self-government,  which  in  fact  had  originally 
brought  the  United  States  into  being,  attracted  the  sympathies  of  another 
section  to  the  Confederates.  It  must  also  be  remarked  that  the  sporting 
instincts  of  the  British  people  were  a  powerful  influence  in  favour  of  the 
South,  since  it  was  fighting  against  heavy  odds. 

In  America,  however,  British  neutrality  was  viewed  with  extreme  indig- 
nation. That  the  indignation  was  unjustified  is  most  effectively  proved  by 
the  fact  that  North  and  South  felt  it  in  almost  equal  degree,  each  being 
firmly  convinced  that  right  was  on  its  side  and  that  it  was  monstrous  for 
the  British  not  to  act  on  that  assumption.  The  Northerners  felt  that 
American  nationality  was  at  stake,  while  to  many  of  them  it  seemed  im- 
possible to  question  that  every  right-thinking  man  was  bound  to  give  his  whole 
sympathies  to  the  abolition  of  slavery.  The  Southerners  felt  that  they  were 
fighting  for  a  principle  of  political  freedom  which  ought  to  appeal  to  every 
Briton  ;  they  had  been  brought  up  to  believe  that  slavery  was  a  system 
emphatically  sanctioned  by  Scripture,  and  half  of  them  were  much  more 
alive  to  the  condition  of  perfect  contentment  in  which  most  of  the  slaves 
lived  in  the  older  states  than  to  the  ghastly  abuses  to  which  the  whole 
system  was  liable.  Therefore  neither  side  forgave  the  British  for  not  giving 
it  whole-hearted  and  uncompromising  support. 

The  attitude  of  neutrality  was  at  first  advantageous  to  the  South,  whose 
arms  were  the  more  successful,  for  the  British  Government  recognised  the 
South  as  belligerents  not  rebels.  Sympathy  with  the  South  in  England 
was  increased  by  the  affair  of  the  Trenty  which  very  nearly  involved  Great 
Britain  in  the  war.  The  Southerners,  having  set  up  a  government  of  their 
own,  despatched  two  commissioners  to  England  and  France.  The  com- 
missioners reached  a  neutral  port  and  embarked  on  a  British  vessel,  the 
Trent.  The  Trent  was  boarded  by  a  Federal  warship  and  the  commis- 
sioners were  carried  off.  A  declaration  of  war  was  only  averted  when 
President  Lincoln  gave  way  to  the  demands  of  the  British  Government  and 
released  the  commissioners. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Federals  had  serious  cause  of  complaint.  It 
was  found  that  ships  were  built  and  fitted  out  in  British  docks  and  sailed 
from  British  ports  with  apparently  harmless  intent,  their  real  destination, 
to  be  employed  as  cruisers  by  the  Confederates,  having  been  carefully  con- 
cealed. It  was  claimed  that  the  British  Government  did  not  display  due 
vigilance  in  preventing  such  action,  the  most  notorious  instance  being  that  of 
the  Alabama.  The  British  Government  flatly  repudiated  the  charge,  but  when 
the  war  had  terminated  in  favour  of  the  North,  immense  claims  were  brought 
forward  for  damages  in  respect  of  the  depredations  wrought  by  the  cruisers. 

3  i^ 


# 


882  THE    MODERN    BRITISH   EMPIRE 

Another  circumstance  offered  a  very  strong  inducement  to  the  British 
Government  to  render  effective  support  to  the  South.  The  blockade  of  the 
Southern  ports  cut  off  the  supphes  of  raw  cotton  on  which  the  great 
Lancashire  cotton  industry  was  mainly  dependent.  The  cotton  famine 
deprived  vast  numbers  of  the  Lancashire  operatives  of  their  means  of  liveli- 
hood. Immense  credit  was  due  to  the  Government  and  to  the  lavish  gener- 
osity of  the  general  public  for  the  admirably  organised  efforts  to  relieve 
the  terrible  distress  which  resulted.  But  still  higher  praise  is  due  to  the 
operatives   themselves  for  the   splendid  self-control  they  displayed.      Had 


JS^ 


The  "Alabama."' 
[From  a  sketch  by  Charles  W.  Wyllie.] 

they  clamoured  as  they  might  well  have  done  for  a  refusal  to  recognise  the 
blockade  of  the  Southern  ports  as  efficient,  so  that  the  cotton  ships  might 
have  sailed,  the  Government  could  hardly  have  resisted.  But  the  Lancashire 
men,  in  spite  of  their  own  sufferings,  would  not  urge  a  course  which  would 
help  in  the  perpetuation  of  slavery,  and  they  bore  their  deprivations  with  a 
noble  fortitude  which  exhibited  the  character  of  the  British  working-man 
in  the  very  highest  light. 

The  resolute  neutrality  preserved  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the 
war  was  bitterly  resented  for  opposite  reasons  both  by  the  North  and  by 
the  South  ;  and  in  that  fact  is  to  be  found  the  very  strongest  testimony  to 
the  essential  justice  of  the  British  attitude  and  to  the  dignified  self-control 
displayed  by  the  Palmerston  Government. 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN   ERA  883 


AFTER    PALMERSTON 

The  death  of  Pahnerston  involved  little  change  in  tr.e  ministry,  but  it 
restored  Earl  Russell  to  his  old  position  as  leader  of  the  Liberal  party, 
and  it  removed  tlie  great  check  upon  the  activities  of  the  more  advanced 
section  of  that  party.  Forty  years  before,  Russell  had  already  been  con- 
spicuous as  the  importunate  advocate  of  parliamentary  reform;  and  if  he 
had  declared  himself  satisfied  with  the  great  Reform  Act,  he  had  never- 
theless for  several  years  past  been  an  advocate  of  further  franchise  exten- 
sion. The  question,  however,  was  one  on  which  it  was  almost  certain  the 
Liberals  would  split,  since  the  Palmerstonian  section  was  averse  from  any 
further  democratic  movement.  But  before  the  meeting  of  the  Parliament 
v,'hich  was  destined  to  take  up  the  question  of  reform,  Irish  affairs  once 
more  assumed  a  prominence  which  they  had  lost  since  Smith  O'Brien's 
abortive  insurrection  in  1848. 

The  destitution  of  the  Irish  peasantry  intensified  by  the  famine  had 
brought  about  an  immense  emigration  to  America.  Under  the  then 
existing  conditions  of  industry  and  agriculture  the  country  had  becom.e 
over-populated ;  emigration  relieved  the  strain,  the  excessive  supply  of  labour 
in  comparison  with  the  actual  demand  was  diminished,  and  the  state  of  the 
country  generally  appeared  to  improve.  But  the  emigrants  departed  to 
America  with  bitterness  in  their  hearts,  and  the  Irish  in  the  United  States 
became  a  new  and  disturbing  factor  in  the  Irish  problem.  In  their  eyes 
the  root  cause  of  the  evils  which  had  driven  them  into  exile  was  the  British 
dominion,  and  for  many  of  them  the  release  of  their  native  country  from 
what  they  regarded  as  a  foreign  yoke  became  a  passion.  In  1858  the 
Fenian  Brotherhood  was  formed  among  them,  a  secret  organisation  having 
severance  from  England  as  its  avowed  aim  and  secret  warfare  as  its  avowed 
method,  since  open  war  was  out  of  the  question  and  force  was  regarded  as 
the  sole  possible  instrument  for  achieving  the  end  in  view.  The  strength 
of  the  movement  lay  in  America,  for  it  was  essentially  political,  neither 
agrarian  nor  religious,  appealing  very  little  to  the  Irish  peasant  and  not 
at  all  to  the  Irish  priest.  And  the  organisation  gathered  a  new  strength 
from  the  American  Civil  War.  Irishmen  fought  in  the  ranks  on  both  sides, 
and  learnt  something  of  discipline  and  of  military  organisation  ;  and  the 
leaders  were  not  without  hope  that  the  hostility  to  the  British  which  had 
been  aroused  in  America  might  be  utilised  to  further  their  schemes. 

Secret  societies,  however,  rarely  remain  for  long  exempt  from  the 
activities  of  informers.  Acting  upon  information,  the  Government  in 
Ireland  suddenly  arrested  a  number  of  the  Fenian  ringleaders  and  seized 
their  papers.     They  were  condemned  to  long  terms  of  imprisonment,  and 


884  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

the  widespread  character  of  the  conspiracy  was  revealed.  The  Habeas 
Corpus  Act  was  suspended,  numerous  other  arrests  were  made,  there  was 
a  hasty  exodus  of  Fenians,  and  the  United  States  Government  dashed  all 
hoped  of  assistance  from  that  quarter  by  suppressing  raids  over  the 
Canadian  frontier. 

In  March  Lord  Russell's  Reform  Bill  was  introduced  by  Gladstone, 
who  had  succeeded  Palmerston  as  leader  of  the  Liberals  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  county  franchise  was  to  be  lowered  to  £i^  and  the 
borough  franchise  to  £'j.  It  was  estimated  that  some  four  hundred 
thousand  voters  would  thus  be  added  to  the  register.  The  bill  went  far 
enough  to  excite  the  alarm  of  the  Conservative  element,  but  not  far 
enough  to  arouse  enthusiasm  on  the  other  side.  It  was  opposed  by  a 
section  of  the  Liberals  who  were  nicknamed  the  "  AduUamites  "  by  John 
Bright,  who  likened  them  to  the  followers  of  the  outlawed  David.  The 
bill  passed  its  second  reading  by  a  majority  of  only  five,  and  an  adverse 
vote  in  committee  induced  the  Government  to  resign.  For  the  third  time 
Lord  Derby  took  office,  with  Disraeli  as  his  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
and  leader  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

The  introduction  of  the  Reform  Bill  had  been  received  in  the  country 
with  apparent  apathy,  but  its  rejection  aroused  a  surprising  amount  of 
resentment.  A  great  Reform  demonstration  was  announced  to  be  held 
in  Hyde  Park.  At  the  last  moment  the  authorities  closed  the  park  gates, 
and  it  was  not  surprising  that  the  mob  which  assembled  broke  down  the 
park  railings  and  behaved  with  considerable  violence  and  disorderliness, 
though  no  very  serious  damage  was  done  and  no  lives  were  lost.  A 
vigorous  oratorical  campaign  was  opened  in  the  country,  and  the  result 
was  that  when  Parliament  met  again  at  the  beginning  of  1867  Disraeli  had 
persuaded  his  colleagues  that  they  must  carry  a  Reform  Bill  themselves. 

It  was  Disraeli's  intention  to  follow  the  precedent  of  the  India  Act, 
removing  the  bill  out  of  the  sphere  of  party  politics  and  proceeding  by 
resolutions  on  which  a  bill  was  ultimately  to  be  based.  The  plan  failed. 
The  central  idea  of  Disraeli's  scheme  was  to  admit  working-men  to  the 
franchise,  but  to  check  the  power  given  them  through  their  numerical 
preponderance  by  multiplying  the  votes  of  the  educated  and  propertied 
classes.  The  last  bill  had  been  defeated  on  an  adverse  motion  substituting 
rating  for  rental  as  the  basis  of  qualification  for  the  franchise,  a  difference 
of  which  the  main  effect  was  to  exclude  the  "compound  householder,"  the 
man  who  in  paying  his  rent  compounded  for  the  rates  which  were  paid  not 
by  him  but  by  the  landlord.  Accordingly  the  resolutions  for  the  new  bill 
set  £6  in  the  boroughs  and  -^20  in  the  counties,  on  the  rating  basis,  as  the 
qualification  ;  but  sundry  "  fancy  franchises  "  were  added  giving  a  separate 
vote  apart  from  property  qualification  to  ministers  of  religion,  university 
graduates,  and  any  one  who  had  ^30  in  the  savings  bank,  ^^50  in  the 
funds,  or  who  paid  20s.  or  more  of  income  tax.  The  reception  of  the 
resolutions   was    unfavourable ;    they    were   thereupon     withdrawn    under 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN    ERA  885 

promise  that  a  fresh  bill  should  be  formulated,  and  some  Conservative 
stalwarts  retired  from  the  ministry,  most  notable  among  whom  was  Lord 
Cranborne,  who  was  destined  at  a  later  day,  as  Marquess  of  Salisbury,  to 
lead  the  Conservative  party. 

The  new  bill  when  introduced  proved  to  be  more  democratic  than 
the  resolutions.  It  proposed  to  give  the  franchise  in  the  boroughs  to  all 
householders  who  paid  their  own  rates,  with  a  fifteen  pound  rating  franchise 
in  the  counties.  But  the  fancy  franchises  remained,  with  the  further 
proviso  that  they  conferred  an  extra  vote  on  those  persons  possessing  them 
who  were  otherwise  qualified  to  vote  as  householders.  The  bill  as  it  stood 
was  acceptable  neither  to  the  advanced  Liberals  nor  to  the  cautious 
Conservatives.  Lord  Derby  himself  described  it  as  a  "  leap  in  the  dark." 
To  Disraeli  it  was  a  party  bid  for  popular  favour,  intended,  as  Derby 
phrased  it,  to  '*  dish  the  Whigs "  ;  but  at  the  same  time  it  expressed  his 
own  genuine  convictions  first  that  the  people  ought  to  be  admitted  to  a 
larger  share  of  political  power,  and,  secondly,  that  education  and  intelligence 
should  be  called  in  to  counterbalance  the  mere  counting  of  heads.  In  the 
eyes  of  Liberals  the  fancy  franchises  were  of  course  a  mere  party  move 
to  increase  the  influence  of  Conservative  voters.  The  one  unmistakable 
fact  about  the  bill  was  that  it  would  not  go  through  unless  it  was  made 
acceptable  to  the  Opposition,  and  the  Opposition  was  by  no  means  at  one. 
A  number  of  Liberals  voted  against  Gladstone's  amendment  that  there  should 
be  a  five  pound  rating  limit,  and  that  above  that  limit  the  compound  house- 
holder should  have  the  vote.  Gladstone  however  recovered  his  mastery  of 
the  party,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  whether  the  Act  which  was 
finally  passed  was  more  his  or  Disraeli's.  Double  votes  and  the  fancy 
franchises  disappeared.  In  boroughs  the  householder  and  the  ^^'lo  lodger 
were  qualified  after  a  year's  residence.  In  the  counties  the  qualification 
was  lowered  to  £12.  The  compound  householder  difficulty  was  solved  by 
an  amendment  which  abolished  compounding  in  parliamentary  boroughs. 
No  borough  with  a  population  of  less  than  ten  thousand  was  to  have  two 
members.  The  members  thus  removed  were  in  part  added  to  the  county 
representation,  nine  new  boroughs  were  created,  and  six  large  towns 
acquired  an  additional  member.  Corresponding  but  not  identical  Acts 
were  afterwards  passed  for  Scotland  and  Ireland.  The  grand  practical 
effect  of  the  whole  was  that  the  urban  working-man  acquired  a  vote  but 
the  agricultural  labourer  did  not.  The  latter  remained  without  the  franchise 
till  seventeen  years  later. 

The  Liberal  Government  had  not  succeeded  in  getting  rid  of  the 
Fenian  problem.  The  Derby  administration  found  it  necessary  to  main- 
tain and  to  renew  the  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  and  at  first 
that  policy  seemed  to  be  sufficiently  effective.  Nevertheless,  early  in  1867 
a  series  of  sporadic  insurrections  took  place  in  Ireland,  apparently  with 
the  simple  intention  of  keeping  up  a  continual  and  ubiquitous  disturbance ; 
for    the    armed    bands    were    always    easily    dispersed,    nor    was    popular 


886  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE     ' 

sympathy  expressed  by  the  usual  method,  the  refusal  of  juries  to  convict. 
The  Fenians,  however,  were  not  content  with  their  efforts  in  Ireland. 
Early  in  the  year  a  plot  for  capturing  the  castle  and  military  stores  at 
Chester  was  frustrated,  and  in  September  a  desperate  attempt  was  made 
at  Manchester  to  release  by  force  a  couple  of  Fenians  who  had  been 
arrested  actually  on  a  charge  of  burglary.  A  poHce  oittcer  was  killed,  and 
consequently  three  of  the  men  concerned  were  hanged,  somewhat  un- 
fortunately, since  it  led  to  their  glorification  as  the  "  Manchester  Martyrs." 
Then  came  a  desperate  attempt  to  blow  up  a  part  of  Clerkenwell  gaol, 
resulting  in  the  death  of  twelve  persons  and  in  injuries  to  some  hundred 
more.  Fenianism  altogether  failed  to  accomplish  anything,  and  after  the 
Clerkenwell  affair  it  died  out.  But  it  was  itself  merely  a  symptom  of  the 
disaffection  which  had  taken  root  not  in  Ireland  itself  but  among  the  Irish 
in  America,  a  disaffection  which  was  still  to  play  a  serious  part  in  the  Irish 
problem. 

At  the  beginning  of  1868  Lord  Derby,  whose  health  was  failing,  retired. 
However  uneasy  the  Conservatives  might  feel  under  the  audacious  guidance 
of  Disraeli,  there  was  no  man  in  either  House  whose  claims  to  the  party 
leadership  could  for  a  moment  be  compared  to  his,  and  he  now  became 
Prime  Minister.  He  had  already  achieved  the  passage  of  a  democratic  re- 
form bill  by  a  Conservative  ministry,  but  only  through  repeated  concessions 
to  the  Liberals.  The  Government  held  office  under  a  tenure  too  precarious 
to  last.  It  was  perhaps  the  Fenian  movement  which  established  in  the 
mind  of  Gladstone,  the  leader  of  the  Opposition,  the  conviction  that  Irish 
unrest  was  to  be  removed  by  attacking  its  root  causes,  which  in  his  view 
were  the  religious  and  agrarian  difficulties.  If  these  were  removed  it  was 
still  his  conviction  that  the  political  grievance  would  be  found  to  have  no 
independent  life.  Ireland,  therefore,  was  selected  as  the  point  of  attack. 
Always  a  fervent  Churchman,  Gladstone  until  recently  had  been  a  strong 
upholder  of  all  ecclesiastical  claims.  Latterly,  however,  he  had  spoken 
ominously  concerning  the  position  of  the  Church  in  Ireland,  and  he  now 
brought  forward  resolutions  in  favour  of  Irish  Disestablishment.  The 
Government  was  defeated,  but  Disraeli's  proposal,  that  the  Scottish  and 
Irish  Acts  consequent  upon  the  English  Reform  Act  should  be  passed  in  the 
summer  and  that  there  should  be  an  autumn  dissolution,  was  accepted. 
The  appeal  was  made  to  the  new  constituencies  in  November,  and  the 
new  constituencies  returned  the  Liberals  with  a  decisive  majority  of  one 
hundred  and  twelve. 

Since  the  death  of  Palmerston  the  policy  of  non-intervention  in  Europe 
had  been  followed  on  the  same  principles  as  before  by  both  Governments, 
though  with  an  avoidance  of  the  indiscretions  which  had  occasionally 
given  it  such  an  unfortunate  colour.  Austria  and  Prussia  were  left  to 
fight  out  their  struggle  for  supremacy  in  Germany  in  the  brief  but  decisive 
Seven  Weeks  War  of  1866  ;  while  the  diplomacy  of  Lord  Stanley  at  the 
Foreign  Office  was  of  material  influence  in  averting  the  immediate  danger 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN   ERA 

of  a  war  between  France  and  Prussia.  Outside  Europe  tiie  conduct  of 
Theodore,  the  ''  Negus "  of  Abyssinia,  in  imprisoning  sundry  British 
officials  and  other  residents,  necessitated  the  despatch  of  an  expedition  to 
that  country  at  the  beginning  of  1868.  The  command  was  given  to  Sir 
Robert  Napier.  The  campaign  was  conducted  with  entire  success.  It 
was  inglorious  because  the  resistance  offered  by  the  enemy  was  merely 
futile,  but  the  highest  praise  was  due  to  the  commander  because  it  was 
conducted  in  an  extremely  difficult  country,  while  the  utmost  rapidity  of 
movement  was  essential  in  order  to  ensure  the  withdrawal  of  the  forces 
before  the  summer.  Napier's  army  was  drawn  from  India,  but  it  is  not 
easy  to  perceive  how  the  British  Government  justified  itself  in  charging 
India  with  the  cost  of  the  expedition. 

The  reorganisation  in  India,  in  the  years  following  the  Mutiny,  under 
Canning,  Elgin,  and  Lawrence,  cannot  be  adequately  described  without 
entering  upon  technicalities  more  fully  than  is  possible  in  these  pages. 
Certain  points  however  may  be  noted.  Dalhousie's  policy  of  refusing  to 
recognise  adoptions  was  explicitly  set  aside.  The  Oudh  talukdars  found 
that  the  government  was  ready  to  make  full  allowance  for  the  misappre- 
hensions under  which  they  had  at  the  last  revolted ;  their  treatment  was 
acknowledged  by  themselves  as  generous,  and  they  became  once  more 
thoroughly  loyal.  All  the  princes  who  had  remained  faithful  found  their 
services  amply  recognised  ;  and  beyond  the  border  Lord  Lawrence  laid 
down  those  principles  of  non-intervention  and  ''  masterly  inactivity "  in 
Afghanistan  which  were  presently  to  be  challenged  by  the  advocates  of  what 
is  called  the  Forward  Pohcy.  On  the  death  of  Dost  Mohammed  the 
various  claimants- to  the  succession  were  left  to  light  out  their  own  quarrels, 
and  it  was  not  until  all  rivals  had  been  crushed  or  expelled  that  the  British 
Government  definitely  recognised  the  Amir  Sher  Ali  as  the  friendly  ruler 
of  an  independent  state. 

In  the  colonies  the  close  of  1865  witnessed  an  unhappy  episode  in 
Jamaica.  An  insurrection  of  the  black  population  was  attributed  largely 
to  the  inflammatory  language  used  by  a  native  proprietor  and  preacher, 
George  William  Gordon.  The  insurrection  was  sharply  suppressed  by 
Governor  Eyre,  whose  previous  record  proved  his  natural  inclination  to 
deal  sympathetically  with  native  populations.  Martial  law  was  proclaimed 
and  Gordon  was  arrested,  sentenced  by  a  court-martial,  and  put  to  death. 
The  severity  however  with  which  the  insurrection  was  suppressed,  the  numer- 
ous executions,  and  the  floggings  to  which  women  as  well  as  men  were  sub- 
jected, created  intense  indignation  in  England ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  was  a  powerful  party  which  insisted  that  the  principles  of  govern- 
ment applicable  to  white  races  are  not  applicable  to  black  populations,  with 
whom  severities  are  necessary  which  would  be  wantonly  brutal  if  employed 
in  a  European  community.  On  the  whole,  in  spite  of  many  great  names 
in  the  list  of  those  who  headed  the  attack  on  the  governor,  public  opinion 
condoned  if  it  did  not  entirely  endorse  his  action.     All  parties,  it  may  be 


THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

said,  agreed  in  principle  that  the  rights  of  coloured  races  must  be  protected, 
while  the  supremacy  of  the  white  race  must  be  maintained  ;  but  there  is  an 
eternal  antagonism  over  individual  cases  in  which  the  two  principles  come 
into  conflict. 

One  event  of  supreme  importance  in  the  history  of  the  British  Empire 
remains  to  be  recorded  here.  By  an  Act  in  1867,  the  British  North 
America  Act,  the  colonies  were  authorised  to  unite  under  a  federal  govern- 
ment. All  the  North  American  colonies  with  the  exception  of  Newfound- 
land came  into  the  new  arrangement  and  formed  the  great  Dominion  of 
Canada,  the  separate  colonies  or  states  having  their  own  governments  for 
the  control  of  their  own  affairs,  while  those  which  are  the  common  concern 
of  all  were  in  the  hands  of  the  single  central  government.  Thus  began 
that  system  of  associating  the  colonies  into  federated  groups  in  which 
present-day  Imperialism  is  finding  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  combin- 
ing self-government  with  imperial  unity. 


VI 

MID-VICTORIAN 

In  the  years  which  passed  between  1852  and  1869  great  events 
occupied  public  attention — the  establishment  of  the  Second  Empire  in 
France,  the  Crimean  War,  the  Indian  Mutiny,  the  Unification  of  Italy,  the 
American  Civil  War,  and  the  decisive  contest  between  Austria  and  Prussia. 
They  ended  with  the  Act  which  transformed  the  British  House  of  Commons, 
at  the  instance  of  a  Conservative  ministry,  into  a  body  representing  a 
democratic  instead  of  a  bourgeois  electorate.  But  they  were  years  in 
which  domestic  progress  flowed  on  and  the  tide  of  material  prosperity  rose 
higher  and  higher,  undisturbed  and  unaided  by  any  heroic  legislation  or 
startling  innovations.  No  sweeping  changes  came  over  the  face  of  the 
land  ;  no  mechanical  inventions  broke  in  upon  the  consistent  development 
of  the  established  system  of  manufacture,  of  traffic  and  of  commerce. 

The  great  names  which  had  come  to  the  front  in  literature  in  the 
previous  twenty  years  were  still  the  leading  names,  though  in  poetry  they 
were  most  notably  reinforced  by  Matthew  Arnold,  Swinburne,  and  Rossetti, 
and  among  novelists  by  George  Eliot  and  Charles  Reade.  Still  more 
characteristic  of  the  period,  however,  as  finished  expressions  of  its  placid 
conventions,  were  the  by  no  means  profound  works  of  Anthony  Trollope 
and  Charlotte  Yonge.  While  poets  and  novelists  accomplished  work  of 
the  highest  rank,  and  in  work  sometimes  of  a  much  lower  order  produced 
photographic  pictures  of  the  life  and  manners  and  customs  of  mid-Victorian 
upper  middle-class  life ;  while  Carlyle  and  Ruskin,  each  after  his  own 
inspiring,  if  occasionally  erratic,  fashion,  upheld  moral  ideals  to  an  age 
which  presented  itself  to  their  eyes  as  drearily  materialistic  and  hidebound 


WINNIPEG    IN     iSjU 

In  the  background  is  Fort  Garry.     On  this  site  now  stands  the  Union  Station  of  tlie  Grand  Trunk 
Railway.     From  a  painting  of  1870  in  the  possession  of  the  Canadian  Government. 


WINNIPEG    IN     1 91 2 
The  building  in  foreground  is  the  Bank  of  Montreal. 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN    ERA  889 

by  conventions — the  most  distinctive  intellectual  work  of  the  day  was 
being  accomplished  in  another  field.  At  the  beginning  and  at  the  end  of 
the  seventeenth  century  the  achievements  of  Francis  Bacon  and  Isaac 
Newton  had  marked  epochs,  turning  points,  in  the  history  of  human 
thought.  Another  such  epoch  was  now  marked  by  the  publication  in 
1859  of  the  Origin  of  Species  by  Charles  Darwin.  Already  the  geologists 
had  alarmed  religious  orthodoxy  by  their  demonstrations  of  the  world's 
antiquity,  proofs  that  it  had  not 

been  created  precisely  in  the  first  ^^  ^ 

week  of  the  year  4004  B.C.  The 
exact  and  literal  interpretation  of 
Scripture  as  an  inspired  record 
not  only  of  spiritual  truths  but  of 
material  historical  facts,  a  record 
of  which  no  single  word  might 
be  gainsaid,  now  suffered  an  in- 
finitely more  damaging  blow  from 
the  biologists.  An  investigator  of 
infinite  patience,  a  whole-hearted 
seeker  after  truth,  was  able  to 
place  before  the  world  a  pro- 
visional demonstration  that  the  ^^ 
infinitely  varied  forms  of  life  in  ^f 
the  world  were  not  the  outcome 
of  a  single  creative  act,  but  had 
been  evolved  through  countless 
years  from  one  infinitesimal  pri- 
mordial type.  Man  himself  was 
but  the  most  perfect  type  to 
which  evolution  had  attained. 
Species  had  become  differentiated 

by  the  transmission  of  inherited  characteristics.  If  those  characteristics 
rendered  them  better  adapted  to  their  environment  they  survived  ;  if  not, 
they  perished.  It  appeared  at  first  sight  that  if  this  theory  were  true  the 
formulae  of  orthodoxy  must  be  false  fundamentally.  It  was  only  by  slow 
degrees  that  men  realised  the  true  significance  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
and  the  moral  and  spiritual  insignificance  of  the  conventional  beliefs  which 
it  displaced,  just  as  they  had  taken  a  very  long  time  to  realise  that  the  truth 
of  Christianity  was  compatible  with  the  truths  of  astronomy.  Orthodoxy 
had  to  readjust  its  formulae  to  the  newly  ascertained  facts,  though  it  pre- 
sently discovered  that  the  readjustment  touched  nothing  fundamental. 
But  the  misapprehensions  were  not  confined  to  the  orthodox,  and  a 
sceptical  philosophy  was  generated,  based  upon  biology,  of  which  the 
most  brilliant  popular  exponent  was  Professor  Huxley,  while  Herbert 
Spencer  was  its  high  priest. 


Charles  Darwin, 
iiedallion  by  Alphonse  Legros.  ] 


890  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

If  the  principle  of  laissez  /aire  in  commerce  was  thoroughly  established 
by  Peel  and  carried  to  completion  by  Gladstone,  its  rejection  in  the 
relations  between  capital  and  labour  was  hardly  less  definite.  The  Factory 
Acts,  that  is  to  say,  reasserted  the  old  doctrine  that  the  state  was  warranted 
in  intervening  for  the  sake  of  the  public  good  even  at  a  certain  economic 
risk.  The  advocates  of  intervention,  indeed,  generally  denied  the  economic 
risk,  claiming  that  profits  would  not  be  diminished  by  the  restrictions 
imposed;  but  at  the  bottom  of  the  public  support  lay  the  conviction  that 
the  intervention  would  still  be  morally  justified  even  if  the  profits  of  trade 
were  reduced.  The  restrictions,  however,,  on  unqualified  competition  were 
applied  with  definite  limitations  which  emphasised  their  origin  as  moral,  not 
economic.  They  were  employed  exclusively  for  the  protection  first  of 
children  and  then  of  women  from  excessive  labour  tending  to  the  physical 
and  moral  deterioration  of  the  race.  Grown  men  must  take  care  of 
themselves,  and  must  be  left  to  unqualified  competition  so  far  as  the 
state  was  concerned. 

The  whole  process  of  restriction,  moreover,  was  tentative  and  experi- 
mental. It  was  at  first  brought  to  bear  only  on  specific  employments 
in  which  experimentation  was  comparatively  easy,  or  where,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  collieries,  the  evils  born  of  non-intervention  were  particularly 
flagrant.  But  it  followed  that  during  the  succeeding  years  the  experiment 
was  extended  to  other  trades  and  was  carried  further  in  the  trades  to  which 
it  applied.  Thus  textile  factories  were  at  first  alone  subject  to  its  opera- 
tion, but  in  the  fifties  and  sixties  other  allied  trades  were  brought 
within  the  compass  of  the  Factory  Acts,  then  trades  such  as  pottery, 
which  were  not  allied  to  them  ;  and,  finally,  in  1867  the  Factories  and 
Workshops  Act  defined  the  factories  where  the  regulations  were  ap- 
plicable as  covering  all  premises  where  more  than  fifty  persons  were 
employed  on  any  manufacturing  process.  Also  during  these  years  there 
was  an  increasing  disposition  to  impose  regulations  of  a  definitely  sanitary 
character,  and  requiring  the  employers  to  fence  their  machinery  and 
to  take  other  precautions  for  protection  against  accidents.  There  were, 
no  doubt,  always  employers  who  declared  that  every  fresh  restriction 
placed  them  at  a  disadvantage  with  the  foreign  competitor,  but  there 
was  never  any  appearance  that  the  British  manufacturer  failed  to  obtain 
adequate  profits. 

The  men  were  left  to  themselves,  and  there  was  a  steady  advance 
of  the  new  trade  unionism  exemplified  by  the  Engineers'  Society.  The 
new  unionism  was  not  bellicose  ;  nevertheless  in  1859  there  was  another 
great  contest  between  masters  and  men  in  the  building  trade.  The 
strength  of  the  men's  organisation  led  the  masters  to  resolve  not  merely 
to  refuse  to  recognise  the  unions  but  to  break  them  up  at  least  as  militant 
organisations.  A  local  strike  was  met  by  a  general  lock-out.  The  struggle 
lasted  for  a  long  time  ;  finally  the  men  did  not  obtain  the  concessions  for 
which  they  had  originally  struck,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  masters  were 


THE    PALMERSTONIAN    ERA  891 

obliged  to  withdraw  their  demand  that  the  men  should  separate  themselves 
from  the  unions. 

Now  the  new  unionism  represented  by  the  great  societies  may  be 
said  to  have  had  a  double  aim — to  enforce  all  round  conditions  which 
the  most  liberal  masters  were  willing  to  concede,  and  to  procure  legisla- 
tion which  would  strengthen  their  own  hands.  They  did  not  want  state 
regulation,  but  they  wanted  a  legal  status  which  would  enable  them  to 
bargain  more  effectively.  It  was  therefore  in  their  interest  to  be  recognised 
as  law-abiding  bodies.  But  there  were  many  among  the  workmen  who 
were  not  satisfied  with  what  may  be  called  constitutional  methods.  The 
prominently  violent  action  of  some  of  these  minor  unions,  wholly  opposed 
though  it  was  to  the  spirit  of  the  principal  bodies,  was  naturally  looked 
upon  by  the  public  as  characteristic  of  the  whole  trade  union  movement. 
The  result  w^as  that  in  1867  there  was  a  commission  of  enquiry  which  was 
eagerly  courted  by  the  leading  unions.  While  the  enquiry  resulted  in 
a  report  of  a  character  immensely  more  favourable  to  the  unions  than  had 
been  generally  anticipated,  a  judicial  decision  in  the  same  year  stamped 
them  as  illegal  associations,  which  consequently  had  no  power  at  law  to 
protect  their  own  funds  from  malversation.  It  thus  became  decisively 
clear  that  trade  unions  would  in  future  be  practically  powerless  until  they 
acquired  a  recognised  legal  status.  That  was  the  work  of  the  next  period, 
when  the  Reform  Bill  had  given  the  working  man  a  parliamentary  vote. 

The  year  however  also  witnessed  an  Act  which  removed  a  serious 
inequality.  Theoretically  the  law  applied  the  same  treatment  to  employers 
and  employed,  but  in  actual  fact  it  did  not.  In  the  case  of  a  contract 
between  "  master  and  servant,"  which  covered  contracts  of  service  generally, 
the  master  who  broke  the  contract  could  only  be  sued  for  damages,  but 
the  servant  who  did  so  committed  not  a  civil  but  a  criminal  offence, 
consequently  the  latter  could  not  give  evidence  in  his  own  defence  ;  he 
v/as  liable  to  imprisonment,  and  might  be  tried  before  a  justice  of  the  peace, 
who,  on  such  questions,  could  hardly  be  regarded  as  an  unbiassed  judge. 
The  Masters  and  Servants  Act,  procured  in  eft'ect  by  the  action  of  certain 
northern  trade  unions,  and  passed  by  the  Derby  Government,  remedied 
the  worst  features  of  the  existing  law  in  this  respect. 


CHAPTER   XXXVI 

DEMOCRACY 

I 

EUROPE 

The  years  of  the  last  Russell  and  Derby  administrations  and  the  early 
years  of  the  first  Gladstone  administration  were  marked  by  events  on  the 
Continent  which  almost  amounted  to  a  revolution  of  the  European  system, 
through  Prussia's  two  great  contests  first  with  Austria  and  then  with 
France.  Those  contests  incidentally  secured  the  completion  of  United 
Italy.  To  any  one  born  within  the  last  fifty  years  "  Germany  "  means  a 
consolidated  German  Em.pire  wielding  the  most  highly  organised  army  in 
Europe,  a  military  power  v^hich  it  is  assumed  that  no  other  nation  could 
defeat  single-handed.  In  the  popular  mind  Austria,  however  closely  allied 
with  the  German  Empire,  is  as  completely  distinct  from  it  as  Russia  or 
France  or  Italy.  The  unity  of  Italy  is  taken  for  granted  no  less  than  the 
unity  of  Germany.  Nevertheless,  in  1865  a  great  section  of  Northern  Italy 
was  still  a  province  of  the  Austrian  Empire,  while  Germany  was  at  best 
a  confederation  of  independent  states,  among  which  Austria  rather  than 
Prussia  still  exercised  a  sort  of  presidency.  To  Austria,  in  fact,  still  clung 
the  tradition  of  the  so-called  Holy  Roman  Empire,  which  had  in  effect  been 
essentially  Germanic  ever  since  it  was  created  by  Charlemagne.  Not  till 
the  days  of  Frederick  the  Great  had  the  King  of  Prussia  acquired  among 
the  German  princes  a  position  which  made  it  possible  to  challenge  the 
Austrian  ascendency.  Never  at  all  had  there  been  a  consolidated  German 
Empire,  a  Germany  standing  as  a  united  nation  among  the  other  nations  of 
Europe.  The  creation  of  a  united  Germany  was  the  work  of  Otto  Von 
Bismarck,  the  great  minister  of  William,  King  of  Prussia,  in  association 
with  the  great  soldier  Moltke. 

The  name  of  Germany,  then,  like  the  name  of  Italy,  was  little  more 
than  a  geographical  expression  covering  a  number  of  loosely  associated 
Teutonic  kingdoms  and  principalities,  two  of  which  ranked  among  the  first- 
class  Powers  ;  while  to  one  of  these  two,  Austria,  tradition  assigned  a  sort 
of  leadership.  But  of  the  Austrian  Empire  only  a  portion  was  Teutonic, 
the  greater  part  of  the  dominion  being  either  Slav  or  Magyar.  Bismarck's 
great  aim  was  to  transform  this  loose  association  of  German  states  into  a 
solid  unity  ;  but  in  a  United  Germany  there  would  be  no  room  for  Austria. 


DEMOCRACY  893 

Prussia  must  be  supreme,  and  she  could  not  be  supreme  unless  Austria 
were  entirely  excluded. 

The  first  business,  therefore,  was  to  secure  the  ejection  of  Austria  and 
the  acceptance  of  Prussian  ascendency.  There  would  have  to  be  a  war 
between  Prussia  and  Austria,  and  Austria  would  have  to  be  decisively 
beaten.  The  war,  then,  must  be  procured  at  the  moment  and  under  con- 
ditions which  would  eusure  victory.  No  one  outside  Prussia  knew  the 
perfection  with  which  the  military  machine  was  being  organised.  Bismarck 
timed  his  arrangements  with  consummate  precision.  The  neutrality  of  the 
British  and  the  Russians  could  be  reckoned  upon  ;  that  of  France  was 
secured  through  Napoleon's  complete  miscalculation  of  the  odds.  He 
anticipated  that  Prussia  would  be  soundly  beaten,  that  he  would  be  able  to 
intervene  at  the  right  moment  to  shield  her  from  destruction,  and  that  he 
would  reap  his  reward  on  the  Rhine.  Italy  was  drawn  into  active  partici- 
pation, with  Venetia — the  completion  of  a  united  Italy — as  her  reward.  In 
1866  Austria  was  manoeuvred  into  a  quarrel  at  the  right  moment,  with  a 
sufficient  appearance  of  her  being  the  aggressor,  and  war  was  declared.  In 
Italy  the  Italians  were  defeated  ;  but  in  Austria  the  brief  Prussian  campaign 
was  absokitely  decisive.  The  victory  of  Sadowa  or  Koniggratz  wrecked 
the  Austrian  army,  and  Bismarck  was  able  to  dictate  his  terms,  which  were 
not  vindictive.  Italy  was  rewarded  with  Venetia,  Prussia  annexed  Hanover 
and  some  other  minor  principalities ;  the  general  German  confederation 
was  dissolved,  and  a  new  North  German  confederation  was  established 
practically  under  Prussian  direction.  South  Germany  was  as  yet  excluded. 
The  complete  unification  of  Germany  was  still  to  wait  for  a  very  little 
while,  until  the  South  German  states  should  learn  to  realise  that  their  own 
interest  was  engaged  in  it. 

The  outcome  of  the  "  Seven  Weeks  War  "  was  not  at  all  what  Napoleon 
had  desired.  Bismarck  had  got  what  he  wanted  without  French  help,  and 
what  the  Emperor  had  wanted  he  entirely  failed  to  obtain.  The  danger 
now  to  the  completion  of  Bismarck's  plans  lay  not  in  Austria  but  in  France. 
It  was  his  object  therefore  to  crush  that  danger,  but  not  to  fight  till  he 
could  strike  with  certainty  of  victory.  Four  years  after  Sadowa  he  was 
ready  for  a  decisive  struggle.  The  proposal  for  placing  a  Hohenzollern 
prince  on  the  vacant  throne  of  Spain  gave  him  his  opportunity  of  forcing 
a  war  upon  France  for  which  public  opinion  in  France  was  at  the  moment 
more  than  willing.  As  with  Austria,  so  now,  Prussia  had  a  plausible  case 
for  maintaining  that  France  was  the  aggressor — that  it  was  France  which 
forced  the  war.  Again,  as  in  the  case  of  Austria,  the  perfection  of  the 
Prussian  military  organisation,  now  extended  over  the  North  German  con- 
federation, coupled  with  the  support  of  South  Germany,  gave  the  Prussians 
or  Germans  decisive  victory.  When  peace  was  made  after  the  fall  of  Paris 
Alsace  and  Lorraine  were  surrendered  to  Prussia,  and  a  terrific  war  indemnity 
was  imposed  upon  the  French  nation. 

But  the  cession  of  territory  and  the  indemnity  were  not  the  only  results. 


894  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

The  French  Empire  collapsed  when  the  Emperor  himself  surrendered  at 
Sedan.  For  the  third  time  France  became  a  republic,  with  a  government 
which  for  many  years  was  necessarily  unstable.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
while  the  besieging  armies  lay  before  Paris,  the  King  of  Prussia  was  pro- 
claimed German  Emperor,  the  Southern  States  uniting  with  those  of  the 
North  German  confederation  to  form  a  single  union  with  the  King  of 
Prussia  at  its  head.  Germany  had  become  the  greatest  military  power  in 
the  European  system.  The  new  German  Empire  was  born,  like  the  fully 
armed  Pallas  Athene  of  Greek  mythology. 

Incidentally  Italy  had  seized  her  opportunity,  when  the  French  Emperor 
was  no  longer  in  a  position  to  shield  the  Papacy,  to  crown  her  unity  by 
taking  possession  of  Rome  and  making  it  the  capital  of  United  Italy. 


II 

THE   GLADSTONE   ADMINISTRATION 

Lord  Russell's  public  activities  had  ceased  on  his  retirement  from  office 
in  1866,  when  he  was  already  seventy-four  years  of  age  ;  Gladstone  was 
marked  out  as  the  leader  of  the  Liberal  party,  as  emphatically  as  Disraeli 
was  distinguished  among  the  Conservatives.  For  twelve  years  to  come 
those  two  personalities  entirely  overshadowed  all  others  in  parliament,  and 
the  rivalry  only  ended  with  Lord  Beaconsfield's  death  in  1881. 

Gladstone,  as  we  have  noted,  had  already  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  endless  troubles  in  Ireland  must  be  met  by  dealing  with  two  questions 
in  which  he  found  a  legitimate  cause  of  grievance,  the  Established  Church 
and  the  land  system.  The  Irish  Church  question  he  brought  definitely  to 
the  forefront  while  Disraeli  was  in  office  in  1868,  and  he  had  united  the 
Liberals  in  determining  upon  disestablishment.  In  Ireland,  as  in  England, 
the  technical  continuity  of  the  Church  as  a  religious  corporation  had  been 
preserved  in  Tudor  times.  Apart  from  confiscations,  the  Reformed  Church 
retained  the  wealth  which  had  belonged  to  the  Church  before  the  Reforma- 
tion. But  the  Reformed  Church  was  never  at  any  time  the  Church  of 
more  than  one-fourth  of  the  Irish  people.  It  was  a  National  Church  only 
in  the  sense  that  it  was  recognised  as  such  by  the  state.  Obviously  it 
could  be  argued  with  equal  plausibility  that  the  Church  in  the  nineteenth 
century  was  one  and  the  same  with  the  Church  a  thousand  years  before, 
and  was  entitled  to  all  that  it  had  then  possessed  or  that  had  subsequently 
been  bestowed  upon  it — or,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  Church  was  not 
one  and  the  same,  that  the  Romanist  priesthood,  not  the  Anglicans,  were 
the  real  successors  of  the  Church,  and  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  all  property 
bestowed  upon  it  was  merely  held  by  it  in  trust,  by  the  sanction  of  the 
state,   upon   condition   of   its   fulfilling  the   office   of   a    National   Church. 


895 

legitimate  for 


DEMOCRACY 

Since  in  the  Liberal  view  it  did  not  fulfil  that  office,  it  was 
the  state  to  appropriate  that  wealth  to  national  purposes. 

Next,  the  two  arguments  stood  opposed — on  one  side  that  the  state  in 
a  Christian  country  ought  to  make  profession  of  its  Christianity,  which  it 
could  only  do  by  supporting  and  recognising  a  National  Christian  Church, 
and,  on  the  other,  that  while  Christianity  w-as  divided  into  sects  the  state  as 
such  ought  not  to  recognise  one  sect  in  preference  to  the  rest;  to  which 
was  added  the  contention  that  endowments  and  connection  with  the  state 
in  fact  tend  to  weaken  the  activities  of 
the  Church  and  to  destroy  its  spiritual 
independence,  an  argument  which  in- 
volved the  rejection  of  counter-pro- 
posals for  the  concurrent  endowment 
of  other  religious  bodies.  Apart  from 
such  abstract  questions  there  was  the 
concrete  difficulty  that  institutions  and 
individuals  derived  their  stipends  from 
these  endowments,  which  the  usage  of 
centuries  had  entitled  them  to  count 
upon,  and  of  which  they  could  not  be 
deprived  without  flagrant  injustice. 

The  measure  proposed  by  Glad- 
stone took  full  account  of  this  last 
consideration.  All  life  interests  were 
secured,  ^10,000,000  out  of  the 
;^i6,ooo,ooo  at  which  the  wealth  of 
the  Church  was  valued  being  restored 
to  it.  At  one  stage  it  seemed  likely 
that  there  would  be  a  sharp  conflict 
between  the  Commons  and  the  Lords, 
since  the  Lords  sent  down  amend- 
ments which  were  for  the  most  part  rejected  by  Gladstone.  They  were 
satisfied  however  W'ith  a  show  of  compromise,  practically  arranged  between 
Lord  Granville  and  Lord  Cairns  for  the  Liberals  and  Conservatives  respec- 
tively, and  the  bill  became  law.  In  its  final  form  the  uses  to  which  the 
surplus  was  to  be  put  were  not  specified,  but  were  left  to  the  pleasure  of 
parliament. 

With  his  next  measure  Gladstone  embarked  upon  that  troubled  sea  of 
Irish  legislation  which  provided  abundant  occupation  for  Liberal  and  Con- 
servative governments  until  after  the  twentieth  century  had  opened.  Theo- 
retically in  Ireland,  as  in  England,  the  occupation  of  the  land  was  for  the 
most  part  a  matter  of  contract  between  landlord  and  tenant  ;  the  terms  were 
settled  by  simple  bargaining,  modified  in  practice  by  local  customs  which 
however  had  not  the  force  of  law.  But  in  fact  the  conditions  in  Ireland 
and  in  England  were  entirely  different.      In  England  the  contract  was  com- 


Mr.  Gladstone  in  1869. 

[From  a  photograph.] 


896  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

paratively  at  least  a  free  one  ;  the  diversity  of  employments  open  to  the 
small  capitalists  who  occupied  the  soil  compelled  the  landlords  to  lease 
their  farms  upon  reasonable  terms,  and  improvements  were  for  the  most 
part  carried  out  either  wholly  or  partly  at  the  landlord's  expense.  In 
Ireland,  on  the  other  hand,  the  occupier  of  the  soil  was  a  poor  man  who, 
if  he  left  his  holding,  would  find  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  get  any  other  em- 
ployment. In  effect  he  had  to  accept  the  terms  that  were  offered  him. 
And  the  Irish  landlords,  though  of  course  with  notable  exceptions,  were 
either  unable  or  unwilling  to  sink  their  money  on  improvements.  Conse- 
quently, if  improvements  w'ere  made  at  all,  the  tenant  was  apt  to  find 
that  he  paid  for  making  them  and  that  the  landlord  then  pocketed  the 
profits  by  increasing  the  rent. 

Gladstone's  Land  Bill,  then,  proposed  to  provide  by  law  two  of  the 
three  conditions  of  a  healthy  and  progressive  occupancy  which  in  England 
were  practically  secured  without  any  direct  application  of  law — fair  rents, 
fixity  of  tenure,  and  free  transfer,  involving  the  tenant's  right  to  have  his 
property  in  improvements  which  he  had  effected  recognised.  But  this 
could  only  be  done  by  interfering  with  freedom  of  contract,  which  was  held 
to  be  justified  by  the  argument  that  the  contracts  interfered  with  were  not 
in  fact  free.  In  Ireland  the  tenant  was  usually  a  tenant  at  will,  occupying 
only  under  an  agreement  without  any  written  lease,  and  liable  to  be  simply 
evicted  on  six  months  notice.  But  the  "  Ulster  custom  "  habitually  observed 
by  Ulster  landlords,  though  it  could  not  be  enforced  in  law  courts,  forbade 
the  eviction  of  a  tenant  who  paid  his  rent,  and  allowed  him  to  sell  the 
goodwill  of  his  tenancy — in  other  words,  the  value  of  such  improvements 
as  he  had  made — to  some  one  else  if  he  wished  to  part  from  his  holding. 
The  Ulster  custom  in  effect  recognised  fixity  of  tenure  and  freedom  of  sale. 
The  bill  proposed  to  give  this  custom  the  force  of  law,  thereby  in  effect 
establishing  a  joint  proprietary.  Land  however  could  under  this  bill  be 
granted  on  long  leases,  free  from  these  restrictions  ;  on  the  other  hand,  the 
tenant  at  will  who  was  evicted  for  other  reasons  than  the  non-payment  of 
rent  could  claim  compensation  for  disturbance  as  well  as  for  improvements. 
Also  public  loans  were  authorised  in  order  to  enable  tenants  who  so  desired 
to  purchase  their  holdings ;  that  is,  it  was  attempted  to  provide  means  for 
establishing  a  peasant  proprietary  by  the  side  of  the  dual  proprietary. 
There  was  no  machinery  however  for  securing  fair  rents.  The  bill  became 
law  in  1870,  the  year  after  the  Disestablishment  Act. 

Still  the  introduction,  with  a  pacificatory  intent,  of  these  two  measures 
failed  to  produce  pacification.  Though  the  Fenian  movement  had  not 
been  agrarian,  it  had  revived  the  spirit  of  hostility  to  the  law  among  the 
agrarian  population  ;  and  the  disturbed  state  of  the  country  caused  a 
second  bill  to  be  accompanied  by  the  Peace  Preservation  Act,  forbidding 
the  carrying  of  arms  in  proclaimed  districts,  and  increasing  the  powers  of 
the  police  and  the  summary  jurisdiction  of  the  magistracy.  Irish  Nationalist 
sentiment  began    to    take   shape  as  a  demand   for   an   undefined  ''  Home 


DEMOCRACY  897 

Rule"  professedly  differing  both  from  the  unqualified  separatism  of  the 
Fenians  and  from  O'Connell's  old  demand  for  the  repeal  of  the  Act  of 
Union. 

If  Ireland  occupied  the  first  place  in  Gladstone's  programme,  the  first 
democratic  parliament  was  also  necessarily  zealous  for  the  amelioration  of 
popular  conditions  in  England.  The  lack  of  education  and  of  educational 
possibilities  among  the  poorer  classes  attracted,  as  we  saw,  periodical  atten- 
tion after  the  passing  of  the  great  Reform  Bill  ;  but  the  result  had  been 
little  more  than  the  application  of  a 
slowly  increased  government  grant  in 
aid  of  schools  maintained  for  the 
most  part  by  voluntary  support,  under 
the  control  commonly  of  the  Church 
of  England,  but  in  some  cases  of 
other  religious  bodies.  The  admission 
of  the  working-man  to  the  franchise 
had  extracted  from  a  prominent 
Adullamite,  Robert  Lowe,  the  remark 
that  we  "  must  educate  our  masters," 
and  at  last  the  education  of  the 
children  of  the  poor  was  recognised 
as  a  matter  which  must  be  taken  in 
hand  directly  by  the  government. 

The  result  v.-as  W.  E.  Forster's 
great  Education  Act  of  1870.  The 
voluntary  schools  were  wholly  unable 
to  cope  with  the  vast  amount  of 
work  that  had  to  be  done,  and  hosts 
of  children  got  no  teaching  at  all 
because  there  was  no  accommodation, 
and  no  superfluous  zeal   on  the  part 

of  parents  in  seeking  to  obtain  it.  The  essential  principle  of  the  scheme 
was  to  provide  sufficient  accommodation  for  all  children,  to  make  school 
attendance  compulsory  and  contributory — that  is,  to  require  the  parents  to 
pay  something  towards  the  cost — but  to  throw  the  bulk  of  the  expense 
upon  the  public  at  large,  the  provision  being  made  not  by  the  central 
government  but  locally  through  the  rates.  The  new  schools  were  to 
subsist  side  by  side  with  the  voluntary  schools. 

But  the  difficulty  of  religious  instruction  at  once  presented  itself.  The 
great  consensus  of  public  opinion  demanded  unmistakably  that  there  should 
be  religious  instruction  ;  but  it  seemed  equally  clear  that  in  schools  main- 
tained by  public  funds  drawn  from  the  pockets  of  persons  of  every  kind  of 
religious  denomination,  the  teaching  should  not  be  that  of  any  one  denomi- 
nation. The  difficulty  of  applying  a  government  grant  to  Church  schools 
had   been  surmounted  by  a  conscience  clause,  which  permitted  parents  to 

^  L 


W.  E.  Forster. 

[From  a  photograph.] 


THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

withdraw  their  children  from  the  rehgious  instruction ;  but  if  the  same 
principle  were  applied  in  the  new  state-supported  schools,  the  children  of 
Nonconformists  would  be  shut  out  from  religious  instruction  altogether  ; 
while  it  did  not  appear  practicable  to  adopt  the  alternative  of  providing  special 
religious  instruction  for  each  denomination.  The  solution  was  found  in 
the  ''  Cowper-Temple  Clause,"  which  required  that  no  formularies  of  any 
religious  denomination  should  be  employed,  but  that  undenominational 
Biblical  instruction  should  be  given  ;  a  compromise  with  which  the 
majority  of  the  public  were  satisfied,  since  the  position  of  the  definite 
Church  and  other  denominational  schools  remained  unaltered.  All  the 
schools  were  to  be  under  government  inspection,  and  the  general  control 
in  each  district  was  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  locally  elected  School 
Board. 

Another  question  was  necessarily  brought  into  prominence  in  a  parlia- 
ment representing  an  electorate  largely  composed  of  the  working-classes. 
This  was  the  regulation  of  the  position  of  trade  unions.  As  matters  stood 
in  1868  the  trade  union  was  an  illegal  association.  It  could  not  protect 
its  own  funds,  even  although  those  funds  might  be  mainly  used  not  for 
militant  purposes,  but  for  sick  pay  and  other  benefits.  The  law  of  Con- 
spiracy had  proved  to  be  so  elastic  as  to  make  practically  any  action  in 
furtherance  of  a  strike  a  punishable  offence.  To  make  combination  an 
effective  method  by  which  the  men  could  bargain  collectively  with  the 
masters,  it  was  necessary  that  the  existence  of  the  unions  should  be 
legalised,  but  that  they  should  not  be  liable  to  be  sued  as  corporate  bodies, 
since  they  would  then  be  open  to  ceaseless  attacks  involving  a  perpetual 
and  paralysing  litigation.  Further,  it  was  necessary  that  it  should  be  legal 
for  men  to  do  jointly  what  it  was  legal  for  an  individual  to  do  ;  that  is,  that 
an  action  should  not  be  rendered  criminal  because  it  was  committed  by 
persons  acting  in  concert  instead  of  singly,  or,  again,  because  the  person 
who  committed  it  was  what  the  law  called  a  "  servant." 

The  Government  however  was  by  no  means  eager  to  move.  Under 
pressure  it  at  last  brought  in  a  bill  which  was  subsequently  divided  into 
two.  By  the  one,  the  unions  were  allowed  to  register  themselves  as  legally 
constituted  societies,  while,  as  was  universally  understood,  they  were  pro- 
tected from  being  sued  as  corporations.  The  second,  called  the  Criminal 
Law  Amendment  Act,  sought  to  summarise  and  define  the  coercive  acts 
which  might  be  penalised.  It  did  not  introduce  new  penalties,  but  it  so 
defined  the  law  that,  while  it  declared  the  strike  or  joint  withdrawal  from 
work  to  be  legal,  it  declared  every  action  by  which  the  strike  could  be 
rendered  effective  to  be  illegal,  including  the  mere  publication  or  com- 
munication of  the  fact  that  a  strike  had  been  declared.  Violence  or  threats 
were  unnecessary.  Any  kind  of  persuasion  to  abstain  from  working  in  a 
place  where  a  strike  had  been  declared  was  "  molestation "  within  the 
meaning  of  the  law.  To  this  position  the  Government  held  resolutely, 
with  the  result  that  employers  fastened  upon  the  first  bill  as  having  made 


DEMOCRACY  899 

trade  unions  dangerously  powerful,  while  the  union  men  fastened  upon  the 
second  bill  as  having  completely  paralysed  them. 

The  Government  then  very  emphatically  lost  favour  with  the  working 
classes,  and  they  did  little  to  recover  it  by  the  introduction  of  the  ballot, 
one  of  the  old  demands  of  the  Chartists.  The  ballot  enabled  the  voter  to 
cast  his  vote  without  any  one  knowing  on  which  side  he  had  voted  unless 
he  chose  himself  to  give  the  information,  and  was  intended  to  secure  him 
against  giving  it  under  virtual  intimidation,  though  it  was  only  to  a  limited 
extent  that  it  actually  served  the  purpose  intended. 

The  Franco-Prussian  War,  with  its  startling  demonstration  of  the 
military  power  of  Germany,  led  to  a  much  needed  reorganisation  of  the 
British  Army.  One  of  the  proposed  changes  encountered  the  most 
vehement  opposition.  This  was  the  abolition  of  the  purchase  system, 
by  which  oi^cers  were  able  to  buy  promotion.  That  system  had  been 
established  by  royal  warrant,  and,  in  the  face  of  the  determined  opposition 
to  the  bill  on  the  part  of  the  House  of  Lords,  Gladstone  took  the  un- 
expected course  of  abolishing  it  by  royal  warrant,  a  step  which  was 
vigorously  condemned  as  unconstitutional. 

If  the  domestic  methods  of  the  Government  tended  to  diminish  its 
popularity,  this  was  still  more  the  case  with  its  conduct  of  foreign  affairs. 
It  successfully  maintained  the  attitude  of  neutrality  throughout  the 
European  war,  and  in  some  degree  reduced  the  severity  of  the  terms 
imposed  by  the  Germans  upon  the  French.  Nevertheless,  there  was  a 
good  deal  of  popular  feeling  that  British  intervention  ought  to  have  been 
carried  further,  and  that  the  dignity  and  power  of  the  nation  should  have 
been  emphasised  more  vigorously  and  decisively.  The  impression  that 
ministers  allowed  themselves  to  be  brow-beaten  by  foreign  Powers  was 
intensified  by  two  grave  diplomatic  defeats.  Russia  seized  the  opportunity 
of  Napoleon's  fall  to  announce  her  repudiation  of  the  Black  Sea  Treaty. 
Britain  was  able  to  insist  upon  the  position  that  no  single  Power  had  a 
right  to  withdrawal,  and  that  grievances  must  be  referred  to  a  conference 
of  the  signatory  Powers.  To  this  Russia  acceded  ;  but  at  the  conference 
held  in  London  her  diplomacy  procured  everything  she  demanded. 
Britain  in  effect  found  herself  isolated,  and  the  clauses  neutralising  the 
Black  Sea  were  cancelled. 

The  second  defeat  was  suffered  over  the  United  States  claim  for 
compensation  in  connection  w-ith  the  Alabama.  In  1871  the  British,  who 
refused  to  admit  any  liability  for  the  injuries  done  by  the  cruisers,  agreed 
to  the  appointment  of  a  joint  commission  to  settle  the  question.  The 
American  commissioners  proposed  that  a  lump  sum  should  be  paid  to 
cover  all  claims.  The  British  suggested  arbitration.  The  Americans 
agreed,  on  condition  that  certain  views  of  their  own  upon  international 
law  should  be  accepted  as  a  preliminary.  The  British  allowed  their 
acceptance,  while  denying  that  they  had  as  a  matter  of  fact  been  valid 
heretofore.     British  counter-claims  in  respect  of  damage  done  by  Fenian 


900  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

raids  were  withdrawn  from  the  arbitration,  which  was  referred  to  a  court 
whose  members  were  nominated  by  various  European  sovereigns.  The 
court  awarded  damages,  chiefly  in  respect  of  the  Alabarjia,  amounting  to 
15,500,000  dollars,  to  the  intense  disgust  of  the  British  people,  who 
jumped  to  the  somewhat  hasty  conclusion  that  any  court  composed  of 
foreign  arbitrators  might  be  relied  upon  to  give  an  anti-British  verdict. 
The  mere  fact  that  such  an  arbitration  had  been  attempted  at  all  was  a 
great  step  towards  finding  peaceful  solutions  for  differences  of  a  certain 
type  ;  but  it  did  not  add  to  the  prestige  of  the  Government  at  the  time. 

The  Prime  Minister  appears  to  have  been  unconscious  of  the  extent  to 
which  the  Government  was  losing  popularity  in  the  country.  Nevertheless, 
when  in  1873  a  bill  dealing  with  the  Irish  Universities  was  defeated  and 
Gladstone  resigned,  Disraeli  refused  to  take  office,  which  was  resumed  by 
Gladstone.  In  this  last  year  of  the  administration  there  was  another 
Ashanti  expedition,  in  which  the  actual  operations  were  skilfully  conducted 
by  Sir  Garnet  Wolseley.  But  before  this  necessarily  inglorious  war  was 
finished  a  general  election  at  the  beginning  of  1874  returned  the  Conser- 
vatives to  power.  The  Liberal  ministry  was  weakened  by  dissensions,  but 
Gladstone  expected  that  an  appeal  to  the  country  would  give  him  a  fresh 
lease  of  power.  He  had  a  large  surplus,  and  believed  that  the  long  desired 
time  had  come  when  the  income  tax  could  once  more  be  taken  off,  a  con- 
summation which  he  had  always  desired.  His  intention  was  to  substitute 
for  it  an  increase  of  the  succession  duties,  the  charges  payable  when 
property  passed  by  inheritance.  The  announcement  of  his  intention  was 
denounced  as  a  trick  for  catching  votes.  The  government  measures  had 
aroused  the  indignation  of  one  section  of  the  community  after  another — 
Churchmen  and  Dissenters,  the  Army,  the  landowners,  the  licensed  victuallers 
(a  particularly  dangerous  body  when  their  hostility  was  aroused),  the 
manufacturers,  and  the  working-men.  This  last  group,  who  at  the  previous 
general  election  had  voted  for  the  Liberals,  now  in  their  irritation  at  the 
Criminal  Law  Amendment  Act  ran  several  independent  candidates  of  their 
own,  with  the  almost  unfailing  result  that  the  Conservatives  headed  the 
poll  ;  and  that  party  returned  to  power  with  a  solid  majority. 


Ill 

BEACONSFIELD 

According  to  the  Conservative  theory  the  country  did  not  want  heroic 
legislation  and  reconstruction  such  as  the  Liberals  had  attempted,  but 
minor  reforms  which  would  make  life  work  more  smoothly  for  the  working 
classes.  In  the  philanthropic  legislation  of  the  past  the  Conservatives  had 
been  quite  as  active  as  the  Liberals,  since  orthodox  Liberalism  was  closely 
associated  with  the  manufacturing  class,  and  had  been  largely  dominated 


DEMOCRACY  901 

by  the  economic  theories  of  what  was  called  the  Manchester  School,  the 
doctrines  of  unqualified  competition.  Though  it  was  true  that  there  had 
always  been  a  Radical  wing  with  sympathies  very  much  more  democratic 
and  humanitarian  than  those  of  the  official  Liberals,  it  was  not  particularly 
difficult  for  the  Conservatives  to  claim  that  they  were  the  true  friends  of 
the  working-man.  It  was  therefore  the  Conservatives  not  the  Liberals  who 
now  threw  over  the  Criminal  Law  Amendment  Act,  and  did  actually  give 
to  the  trade  unions  all  that  they  had  demanded.  The  application  of  the 
Conspiracy  Law  to  trade  disputes  was  limited.  The  terms  "employer" 
and  "  workman  "  were  substituted  for  those  of  "  master  "  and  "  servant  "  in 
a  new  Act  which  made  the  agreements  between  them  a  simple  civil  contract, 
in  which  the  two  parties  stood  on  the  same  legal  footing.  The  ''  coercion  " 
and  "molestation"  of  the  Criminal  Law  Amendment  Act  disappeared; 
persuasion  which  stopped  short  of  violence  or  actual  intimidation  ceased  to 
be  punishable,  and  peaceful  picketing  was  expressly  sanctioned.  Also  a 
Nine  Hours'  Bill,  limiting  the  work  of  women  and  children  to  nine  hours, 
was  now  obtained  by  the  Lancashire  cotton  spinners,  though  the  Liberal 
Government  had  stubbornly  refused  it.  Again,  as  the  friends  of  the  people, 
the  Conservatives  passed  a  series  of  Acts — an  Agricultural  Holdings  Act,  a 
Labourers'  Dwellings  Act,  and  others — which  would  have  been  extremely 
useful  to  the  working  classes  if  they  had  been  compulsory.  As  they  were 
merely  permissive,  the  practical  benefits  derived  from  them  were  open  to 
question,  since  in  one  group  of  cases  local  authorities  made  little  use  of  the 
powers  conveyed  to  them,  while  in  others  one  party  could  practically  insist 
upon  the  other  agreeing  to  "  contract  out."  In  fact,  among  Liberals  as  well 
as  among  Conservatives  there  was  still  a  strong  feeling  against  interfering 
with  freedom  of  contract.  It  remained  for  later  parliaments  to  apply 
the  principle  that  in  actual  fact  such  contracts  very  rarely  are  fi  ^e  and 
the  desired  end  can  only  be  secured  by  compulsion.  For  Ireland,  aiter  the 
sweeping  measures  of  1869  and  1870,  the  Government  had  no  legislation 
to  offer  except  the  renewal  of  the  Peace  Preservation  Act,  which  appeared 
to  have  been  attended  by  entirely  satisfactory  results. 

The  real  interest,  however,  of  the  Beaconsfield  administration — so  called 
because  during  1876  Disraeli  withdrew  from  the  Commons  to  the  Lords, 
with  the  title  of  Earl  of  Beaconsfield — lies  in  the  revival  of  British  activity 
in  the  field  of  foreign  politics.  The  policy  of  non-intervention  had  been 
professed  theoretically  by  every  British  minister  from  Castlereagh  and 
Canning  down  to  Palmerston  and  Gladstone  ;  but  the  interpretations  and 
applications  of  the  policy  had  followed  exceedingly  diverse  lines.  With 
Canning  and  Palmerston  it  had  at  least  been  a  first  principle  to  insist  that 
their  voices  should  be  heard  in  the  councils  of  Europe  ;  that  Britain  was 
not  to  be  treated  as  a  negligible  quantity.  On  the  other  hand,  another 
school,  at  this  time  dominant  in  the  Liberal  party,  was  disposed  to  be 
somewhat  ostentatiously  pacific  ;  and  the  results  of  their  diplomacy  during 
the  late  administration  had  undoubtedly  been  viewed  with  extreme  dissatis- 


902  THE   MODERN    BRITISH   EMPIRE 

faction  by  the  country.  It  was  to  the  Conservatives  not  to  the  Liberals 
that  the  Palmerstonian  tradition  had  passed.  Disraeli,  the  most  imaginative 
of  English  statesmen,  adopted  as  his  own  the  magnificent  view  of  the  high 
destinies  of  the  British  Empire  and  its  moral  supremacy  among  the  nations  ; 
also  he  was  of  opinion  that  the  other  nations  should  understand  that  it 
would  in  no  way  suffer  its  own  interests  to  be  ignored. 

To  those  principles  he  added  a  predilection  for  startling  and  theatrical 
effects.  Thus  in  1875  he  took  the  world  by  surprise  with  an  exceedingly 
ingenious  stroke  which  gave  the  British  Government  a  dominant  control 
over  the  Suez  Canal,  the  new  waterway  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Red 
Sea  and  the  Indian  Ocean.  The  canal  itself  had  been  constructed  mainly 
by  French  enterprise  and  practically  without  British  support.  It  was  the 
property  of  a  commercial  company  in  which  the  dominant  influence  was 
French,  while  the  Khedive  of  Egypt  was  by  far  the  largest  shareholder.  But 
the  Khedive  was  very  much  in  want  of  cash,  and  contemplated  the  sale  of 
his  shares  ;  Disraeli  was  no  sooner  made  aware  of  the  fact  than  he  fore- 
stalled all  other  buyers  by  purchasing  shares  for  the  British  Government  at 
a  cost  of  ^^'4,000,000.  It  was  obvious  that  circumstances  might  arise  when 
British  control  would  be  of  the  utmost  importance,  but  from  a  merely 
commercial  point  of  view  it  was  a  sound  investment  for  the  nation.  At 
the  same  time  the  entire  unexpectedness  of  the  step  created  an  uneasy 
feeling  in  the  minds  of  that  very  large  portion  of  the  British  public  which 
particularly  dislikes  being  taken  by  surprise.  The  capture  of  the  Canal 
shares  emphasised  the  interest  to  Britain  of  Egypt,  the  Eastern  Mediter- 
ranean, and,  by  consequence,  the  Turkish  Empire.  Disraeli  inherited  from 
Palmerston  that  statesman's  views  upon  Russian  aggression,  and  his  policy 
towards  Russia  is  the  dominant  feature  of  his  administration  both  in  its 
Europe  in  and  in  its  Indian  aspects. 

Thj  root  of  the  troubles  in  the  Near  East  is  always  to  be  found  in  the 
Turkish  government's  treatment  of  its  Christian  subjects.  A  united  Europe 
in  Vv'hich  the  great  Powers  trusted  each  other  and  each  one  might  be  counted 
upon  to  act  with  pure  disinterestedness  could  always  have  brought  the  Turk 
to  reason.  But  the  Turk  enjoyed  a  deep-seated  conviction  that  the  Powers 
distrusted  each  other,  would  never  be  roused  into  taking  active  steps  in 
unison,  and  yet  would  never  permit  any  one  Power  to  take  action  inde- 
pendently. He  had  no  objection  to  making  the  most  satisfactory  promises, 
but  the  promises  never  materialised  in  action.  British  statesmanship 
generally  regarded  the  preservation  of  the  Turkish  Empire  as  necessary  to 
British  interests,  and  was  equally  convinced  that  Russia  in  her  own  interest 
desired  Turkey's  disintegration.  Therefore  while  Britain  might  view  favour- 
ably the  application  of  a  strictly  joint  pressure  by  the  Powers  upon  Turkey, 
she  was  emphatically  opposed  to  permitting  the  independent  intervention 
of  Russia.  Germany  regarded  the  whole  question  as  secondary ;  and 
Austria  had  no  inclination  to  active  intervention  unless  she  could  reap  her 
reward  in  the  Balkan  States. 


DEMOCRACY  903 

In  these  circumstances  the  Porte  suavely  ignored  the  European  concert, 
and  continued  its  misrule  in  the  mainly  Slavonic  and  Christian  provinces 
of  the  Balkans  and  of  the  Danube.  Consequently  in  1875,  just  before  the 
purchase  of  the  Suez  Canal  shares,  the  Western  Provinces  of  Bosnia  and 
Herzegovina  revolted.  In  the  following  January  the  Powers,  at  the  instance 
of  Austria,  addressed  a  note  to  the  Porte  without  any  tangible  result.  In 
the  summer  a  series  of  palace  revolutions  ended  by  placing  Abdul  Hamid 
on  the  Turkish  throne.  Meanwhile  the  insurrections  had  spread  to 
Montenegro,  Servia,  and  Bulgaria,  and  England  was  startled  and  horrified 
by  the  appalling  reports  sent  home  by  newspaper  correspondents  of  the 
atrocities  committed  by  Turkish  troops  in  Bulgaria.  A  strong  anti-Turkish 
agitation  was  set  on  foot.  The  continued  failure  of  the  Powers  to  influence 
the  action  of  Turkey,  which  merely  amused  itself  by  promulgating  empty 
projects  of  reforms,  gave  Russia  excuse  or  justification  for  implying  that 
if  the  Powers  would  not  take  effective  action  in  concert,  she  would  do  so 
independently  ;  and  in  the  spring  of  1877  war  was  declared  between  Russia 
and  Turkey. 

In  England  the  anti-Turkish  agitation  had  risen  high,  but  it  sank  as  the 
anti-Russian  agitation  rose.  All  the  old  suspicions  of  Russian  intentions 
and  Russian  methods  were  excited  to  the  highest  pitch,  and  the  magnificent 
defence  of  Plevna  and  of  the  Schipka  Pass  by  the  Turks  against  tremendous 
odds  appealed  powerfully  to  British  sentiment.  At  the  turn  of  the  year 
the  Russians  had  forced  the  Balkan  passes  and  were  moving  towards 
Constantinople.  The  British  Government  made  it  clear  that  they  regarded 
war  with  Russia  as  something  more  than  a  possibility,  and  their  attitude 
in  making  active  preparations  was  indubitably  popular.  Every  barrel- 
organ  in  the  country  was  grinding  out  the  strains  of  the  popular  ditty, 
"We  don't  want  to  fight  but  by  jingo  if  we  do,"  which  introduced  the  new 
term  Jingoism,  which  has  ever  since  held  its  own  in  political  slang.  The 
British  fleet  was  despatched  to  the  Sea  of  Marmora  to  protect  British 
interests.  But  a  few  days  later,  on  March  3rd,  it  w^as  announced  that  Russia 
and  Turkey  had  agreed  upon  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano. 

The  terms  of  the  treaty  were  less  alarming  than  had  been  anticipated  ; 
but  in  Lord  Beaconsfield's  view  Russia  and  Turkey  were  not  to  be  permitted 
to  settle  matters  on  their  own  account.  The  Treaty  of  San  Stefano  must 
be  referred  to  the  Powers,  in  accordance  with  the  Treaty  of  Paris.  Russia 
declared  her  willingness  to  refer  the  treaty  to  the  Powers,  but  reserved  to 
herself  the  right  of  accepting  or  rejecting  their  proposals.  Britain  refused 
to  attend  the  congress  on  such  terms  ;  war  appeared  to  be  almost  inevitable, 
and  the  Foreign  Minister,  Lord  Derby,  who  was  opposed  to  war,  resigned. 
His  place  was  taken  by  Lord  Salisbury.  Active  preparations  continued, 
and  the  country  was  again  startled  by  the  announcement  that  the  Crown, 
without  reference  to  Parliament,  h?d  ordered  a  contingent  of  Indian  troops 
to  be  despatched  to  Malta. 

Nevertheless  war  was  averted.     Russia  agreed  to  submit  the  treaty  to 


904  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

a  European  congress  to  be  held  at  Berlin.  That  change  of  attitude  was 
due  to  a  secret  agreement  negotiated  by  Lord  Salisbury.  Another  secret 
agreement  had  been  made  with  Turkey.  The  terms  did  not,  in  fact,  insist 
upon  all  the  objections  which  had  been  raised  to  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano. 
Lord  Beaconsfield,  accompanied  by  Lord  Salisbury,  attended  the  Berlin 
Congress,  and  the  practical  outcome  was  a  triumph  for  his  diplomacy. 
Roumania,  Servia,  Montenegro,  and  Bulgaria  north  of  the  Balkans,  were 
made  independent  principalities.  Austria  was  to  control  the  administration 
of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina.  The  reservation  of  Southern  Bulgaria  secured 
the  Turkish  frontier.  This  was  the  sum  of  the  Russo-British  bargain. 
But  the  Berlin  Treaty  did  not  touch  the  separate  British  treaty  with  Turkey, 
by  which  Britain  gave  an  independent  guarantee  to  defend  the  Turkish 
dominion  in  Asia  by  force  of  arms,  and  herself  occupied  the  island  of 
Cyprus.  Turkey,  of  course,  gave  the  usual  promises  with  regard  to  the 
treatment  of  her  Christian  subjects  and  the  introduction  of  necessary  reforms. 
Lord  Beaconsfield  returned  to  England,  having  achieved  the  proverbial 
"Peace  with  honour."  Thus  in  the  summer  of  1878  his  government  was 
at  the  high  tide  of  its  popularity  ;  yet  in  less  than  two  years  it  had  fallen. 

Of  the  troubles  in  India  and  Africa  which  contributed  to  this  end  we 
shall  speak  in  the  next  sections.  But  apart  from  these,  though  submerged 
for  the  time  by  the  popular  excitement  over  the  restored  European  prestige 
of  Britain,  was  a  latent  sense  of  uneasiness  caused  by  Lord  Beaconsfield's  de- 
votion to  a  policy  of  surprises,  his  habit  of  announcing  decisive  steps  taken 
before  the  nation  had  any  inkling  of  what  was  coming.  That  feeling  sprang 
into  renewed  life  as  soon  as  the  Government  met  with  failures  instead  of 
successes.  And  at  home  nothing  was  done  to  attract  popular  favour.  Lord 
Beaconsfield's  programme  had  been  expensive ;  there  was  no  relief  of  taxa- 
tion, and  the  country  was  passing  through  a  period  of  depression  for  which 
the  Government  was  held  responsible.  Beaconsfield's  withdrawal  to  the 
House  of  Lords  had  left  the  Commons  without  a  strong  leader,  and  there 
Charles  Stewart  Parnell  had  organised  the  band  of  "  Home  Rule"  Irishmen 
into  an  instrument  for  the  prevention  of  all  government.  Every  available 
form  of  the  House  was  systematically  employed  to  make  the  efficient  con- 
duct of  business  impossible.  In  Ireland  also  he  created  the  Land  League, 
a  body  whose  primary  object  was  to  insist  upon  fair  rents  and,  if  fair  rents 
were  refused,  refusal  to  pay  any  rent  at  all,  with  the  secondary  intention 
of  ultimately  converting  tenancies  into  ownership.  At  the  same  time  he 
made  it  apparent  that  his  own  ultimate  intention  was  at  least  to  destroy  the 
English  ascendency,  if  not  to  sever  Ireland  from  the  British  Empire. 

The  inability  of  the  leaders  to  control  the  House  of  Commons  detracted 
from  the  dignity  of  the  Government.  In  Afghanistan  and  Zululand  there 
were  disasters.  At  the  end  of  1879  Gladstone,  who  had  retired  from 
the  active  leadership  of  the  Liberals,  emerged  from  his  comparative  seclu- 
sion to  denounce  the  ministry  in  his  famous  Mid-Lothian  campaign.  A 
bill  was  introduced  by  ministers  to  transfer  the  property   and  powers  of 


DEMOCRACY  905 

the  London  water-companies  to  a  single  central  body.  It  seemed  likely 
to  prove  that  the  bargain  proposed  was  a  very  bad  one  ;  and  the  bill  was 
unpopular.  The  Government  had  now  held  office  for  six  years  ;  Lord 
Beaconsfield  appealed  to  the  country,  and  discovered  too  late  that  the 
country  had  turned  against  his  policy.  Of  the  652  members  returned  to 
the  House  of  Commons  349  were  Liberals,  and  of  the  rest  60  were  Irish 
Home  Rulers.  Beaconsfield  resigned  ;  the  Liberal  party  recognised,  and 
its  chiefs  impressed  upon  the  queen,  that  the  electorate  demanded  a  govern- 
ment with  Gladstone  at  its  head. 


IV 

INDIA 

One  of  the  last  acts  of  the  previous  Conservative  administration  had 
been  the  appointment  of  Lord  Mayo  to  the  Indian  viceroyalty  in  succession 
to  Lord  Lawrence.  Lord  Mayo  was  assassinated  after  achieving  an  un- 
expectedly high  reputation,  and  the  Liberals  appointed  Lord  Northbrook 
in  his  place.  Both  Mayo  and  Northbrook  maintained  their  predecessors' 
attitude  towards  Afghanistan,  but  a  strong  school  of  politicians  was  growing 
up  in  India  who  were  dissatisfied  with  "masterly  inactivity."  In  their 
view  the  persistent  advance  of  Russia  in  Central  Asia  made  it  of  extreme 
importance  that  there  should  be  a  rectification  of  the  whole  north-west 
frontier  which  should  not  only  render  it  impregnable  but  should  make 
it  also  an  effective  basis  for  military  operations  in  and  beyond  Afghanistan. 
They  held  also  that,  however  excellent  the  intentions  of  the  particular 
ruler  in  Afghanistan  might  be,  it  was  necessary  to  exercise  a  certain  super- 
vision over  that  country  in  order  to  prevent  Russia  from  planting  her 
influence  there,  and  to  keep  the  British  government  in  India  supplied 
with  really  trustworthy  information.  These  ideas  were  adopted  by  the 
Beaconsfield  administration  ;  Lord  Northbrook  was  not  prepared  to  fall 
in  with  them  ;  and  in  1876  he  resigned,  to  be  succeeded  by  Lord  Lytton. 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  Disraeli  had  resolved  upon  another  of  his 
picturesque  effects.  It  was  one  of  Lord  Lytton's  earliest  duties  to  hold 
a  great  Durbar  or  assembly  of  native  princes  in  order  to  proclaim,  on  the 
first  day  of  1877,  that  the  Queen  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  had  resolved 
to  add  to  her  titles  that  of  Empress  of  India,  Kaisar-i-Hind.  The  step 
was  viewed  with  considerable  disapprobation  at  home,  but  Disraeli  was 
probably  right  in  believing  that  it  would  appeal  to  the  imagination  of  the 
Indian  peoples  with  whom  pomp  and  ceremonial  magnificence  is  a  visible 
testimony  to  power. 

Whether  the  effects  were  great  or  small  they  were  of  an  intangible 
order  ;  not  so  was  it  with  the  Afghan  policy  of  Lord  Lytton.  There  could 
be  no  doubt  in  the  mind  of  any  one  at  all  as  to  the  real  advantages  which 


9o6  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

would  be  derived  from  the  presence  of  a  British  Resident  at  Kabul,  on 
one  condition — that  his  presence  should  be  acceptable  to  the  Amir  and 
to  the  people  of  Afghanistan.  The  difficulty  lay  precisely  in  the  fact 
that  it  was  not  acceptable.  But  Lord  Lytton  had  made  up  his  mind  that 
it  was  necessary  whether  acceptable  or  not.  Pressure  was  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  Amir  to  receive  a  British  mission,  and  the  Amir  at  once  scented 
an  intention  on  the  part  of  the  British  to  establish  control  over  him 
through  a  Resident.  He  explained  that  a  mission  could  not  possibly  be 
admitted.  Relations  became  very  much  strained  ;  but  active  measures  were 
postponed  in  view  of  the  then  imminent  danger  of  a  European  war.  The 
war  was  averted,  but  the  Berlin  Treaty  was  followed  by  increased  activity 
on  the  part  of  Russian  agents  in  Asia.     Lord  Lytton  learnt  that  a  Russian 


The  British  Residency,  Kabul,  after  the  rising  of  1S79. 


mission  had  been  received  at  Kabul.  There  could  be  no  excuse  then  for 
refusing  a  British  mission.  He  again  announced  that  a  British  mission 
would  be  sent  to  Kabul  with  Sir  Neville  Chamberlain  at  its  head. 

Sher  Ali  protested,  declaring  that  the  Russians  had  not  come  by  his 
good-will.  Nevertheless  the  mission  was  despatched,  but  was  turned  back 
on  the  Afghan  boundary.  The  result  was  inevitably  an  ultimatum  demand- 
ing the  acceptance  of  a  permanent  mission.  The  demand  was  ignored, 
and  Lord  Lytton  proceeded  to  invade  Afghanistan.  Only  one  of  the  three 
invading  columns,  that  commanded  by  Sir  Frederick  Roberts,  had  any  hard 
fighting  to  do.  Sher  Ali  recognised  the  futility  of  resistance  ;  the  Russians, 
who  had  no  intention  whatever  of  helping  him,  departed  from  Kabul,  and 
he  himself  fled,  to  die  very  shortly  afterwards,  leaving  the  Kabul  govern- 
ment in  the  hands  of  his  son  Yakub  Khan.     Yakub  accepted  a  treaty.     A 


DEMOCRACY  907 

"  scientific  frontier,"  that  is,  tlie  military  control  of  the  passes,  was  ceded,  and 
a  British  Resident,  Sir  Louis  Cavagnari,  was  accepted.  In  July  (1879)  he 
arrived  at  Kabul  with  a  small  escort.  The  third  column  under  Sir  Donald 
Stewart,  of  which  the  objective  had  been  Kandahar,  where  it  was  now 
stationed,  was  to  remain  there  till  the  cold  weather.  The  rest  of  the  British 
troops  were  withdrawn. 

Then  the  old  story  was  repeated — up  to  a  certain  point.  There  was  a 
rising  in  Kabul ;  the  Resident  and  his  escort  were  cut  to  pieces  after  a 
gallant  defence.  But  within  four 
weeks  of  the  massacre  Roberts, 
with  a  force  of  six  thousand  men, 
was  back  within  fifty  miles  of  the 
capital.  Ten  days  later  he  had 
entered  it.  Yakub  Khan,  who, 
with  questionable  truth,  declared 
his  own  entire  innocence  of  the 
recent  outrage,  was  penmitted  to 
resign  ;  and  the  temporary  ad- 
ministration was  placed  in  the 
hands  of  Roberts. 

This  was  at  the  end  of  October  ; 
but  by  December  it  had  become 
clear  enough  that  Roberts  with 
his  small  force  could  do  nothing 
more  than  remain  on  the  defensive 
in  his  position  at  Sherpur.  Here, 
however,  a  prolonged  attack  was 
finally  and  decisively  repulsed  at 
the  end  of  the  year,  and  Roberts 
was  master  of  the  Kabul  district. 
In  the  spring  (1880)  Stewart  to  a  considerable  extent  cleared  the  country 
by  his  march  up  from  Kandahar  to  Kabul,  in  the  course  of  which  there 
was  one  exceedingly  hot  but  brief  engagement  at  Ahmed  Khe!. 

From  this  time  policy  was  dictated  by  the  newly  inaugurated  Gladstone 
Government ;  Lytton  was  recalled,  and  his  place  was  taken  by  Lord  Ripon. 
The  intention  was  to  revert  to  the  Lawrence  policy.  The  restoration  of 
Yakub  Khan  was  impossible,  as  also  was  the  recognition  of  his  brother 
Ayub  at  Herat.  The  Amir  chosen  was  one  of  the  claimants  whom  Sher 
Ali  had  succeeded  in  expelling,  Abdur  Rahman.  But  Kandahar  was  to  be 
retained  by  the  British  under  British  control  with  another  Afghan  governor, 
a  second  Sher  Ali.  Between  Abdur  Rahman  at  Kabul,  Yakub  at  Herat, 
and  this  Sher  Ali  at  Kandahar,  the  preservation  of  peace  was  most  im- 
probable. Yakub  opened  the  attack  by  marching  from  Herat  towards 
Kandahar,  raising  the  tribes  as  he  went  ;  Sher  All's  troops  mutinied,  and  a 
part  of  the  small  British  force  which  had  been  left  at  Kandahar,  marching 


Sir  Frederick  (Lord)  l-'oherts  in  l88o. 
[From  a  photograph.] 


9o8  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

out  to  face  Yakub,  met  with  a  disaster  at  Maiwand.  Kandahar  was  rapidly 
placed  in  a  state  of  defence,  and  Stewart  and  Roberts  at  Kabul  resolved 
that  the  latter  should  at  once  march  to  the  relief  of  Kandahar  with  a  force 
of  ten  thousand  men.  Speed  was  essential.  For  three  weeks  Roberts 
vanished  into  the  unknown.  At  the  end  of  three  weeks  he  had  successfully 
accomplished  his  march  of  three  hundred  miles,  entered  Kandahar,  and  on 
September  ist  entirely  shattered  Ayub's  forces. 

Again  there  was  a  modification  of  the  political  programme.  The 
Government  was  convinced  that  the  sound  principle  for  dealing  with 
Afghanistan  was  that  which  had  been  ultimately  adopted  towards  Dost 
Mohammed.  The  Amir  was  to  be  left  to  establish  his  own  authority. 
He  was  not  to  have  a  Resident  forced  upon  him,  but  he  was  to  be  pledged 
to  have  no  diplomatic  relations  with  any  foreign  Power,  while  the  British 
were  pledged  to  defend  him  against  aggressive  action.  The  retention  of 
the  ceded  frontier  outposts  was  a  necessity,  but  it  was  decided  that  the 
occupation  of  Kandahar  would  involve  more  risk  than  benefit,  since  the 
way  to  it  from  India  was  secured  by  the  occupation  of  Quetta  at  the  head 
of  the  Bolan  Pass  on  the  Baluchistan  frontier.  The  retirement  from 
Kandahar  was  strongly  disapproved  by  military  advocates  of  the  forward 
policy,  but  it  may  be  said  that  the  best  military  opinion  was  divided  on  the 
question.  The  evacuation  of  Afghanistan  was  completed  early  in  1881, 
and  Abdur  Rahman  proved  himself  entirely  capable  of  establishing  his  own 
authority.  Also  he  was  shrewd  enough  to  distrust  Russia  more  than  the 
British.  On  the  whole,  it  may  be  claimed  that  the  policy  of  evacuation, 
in  spite  of  the  risks  involved,  was  justified  by  the  event. 


SOUTH   AFRICA 

Events  in  the  distant  regions  of  the  Empire  are  apt  to  escape  much 
public  attention  at  home  unless  they  happen  to  involve  military  operations. 
This  was  the  case  with  South  Africa  until  the  outbreak  of  the  Zulu  War 
during  Lord  Beaconsfield's  administration.  Nevertheless,  events  of  grave 
import  had  taken  place  at  an  earlier  date. 

We  have  seen  that,  by  the  direct  action  of  the  British  Government 
during  the  fifties,  two  Boer  repubhcs  had  been  recognised  on  the  west 
of  the  Drakcnsberg  mountains,  the  Orange  Free  State  between  the  Orange 
River  and  the  Vaal,  and  the  South  African  or  Transvaal  Republic  beyond  the 
Vaal.  The  ill-defined  boundaries  on  the  west  of  these  two  states  left  open 
a  line  of  expansion  northward  from  Cape  Colony  which  was,  for  the  time 
being,  ignored.  Some  years  later,  however,  the  discovery  of  diamond 
mines  changed  the  situation.  The  lands  were  claimed  by  a  Griqua  or 
semi- Hottentot  chief,  but  also  by  the  two   Boer  states.     An  arbitration  on 


DEMOCRACY  909 

the  question  decided  in  favour  of  the  Griqua,  from  whom  they  were 
purchased  by  the  British  Government  in  187 1.  When  it  was  subsequently 
proved  that  the  award  had  been  wrong,  the  Government  declared  that,  as 
the  paramount  and  responsible  power  in  South  Africa,  it  could  not 
surrender  the  diamond  fields  to  the  Free  State,  to  which  it  gave  not  over 
generous  compensation  in  cash.  The  westward  expansion  of  the  Boer 
states  was  blocked,  and  the  way  to  the  interior  was  held  open  to  the 
British. 

The  Orange  Free  State  under  President  Brand  was  a  model  of  orderly 
and  progressive  government.  The  same  thing  could  not  be  said  of  the 
community  beyond  the  Vaal,  where  there  was  nolirm  central  administration. 
There  were  troubles  with  the  neighbouring  Bantu  tribes,  and  behind  those 
tribes  on  the  south-east  lay  the  highly  organised  military  state  of  the  Zulus, 
under  their  exceedingly  vigorous  monarch,  Cetewayo.  The  exchequer  of 
the  South  African  Republic  was  exhausted,  and  there  appeared  to  be  a  very 
serious  danger  of  a  collision  with  the  Zulus,  in  which  there  was  a  painful 
presumption  that  the  Boers  would  be  wiped  out.  The  wiping  out  of  the 
Boers  was  likely  to  be  followed  by  a  huge  general  rising  of  the  black  races 
against  the  white.  Sir  Theophilus  Shepstone,  a  commissioner  sent  up  from 
Natal  to  investigate  the  position,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  there  was 
only  one  way  of  averting  the  danger — the  annexation  of  the  South  African 
Republic,  and  the  termination  by  British  rule  of  the  anarchy  there  pre- 
vailing. There  were  by  this  time  considerable  numbers  of  British  and 
German  settlers  in  the  Transvaal  district  who  were  in  favour  of  the  annexa- 
tion, and  Shepstone  persuaded  himself  that  only  a  minority  of  the  white 
population  was  opposed  to  it.  Consequently  in  April  1877  ^^^  annexation 
of  the  Transvaal  was  proclaimed. 

Lord  Beaconsfield's  Colonial  Secretary  at  this  time  was  Lord  Carnarvon, 
the  pioneer  of  the  conception  of  a  federation  of  South  Africa  on  Canadian 
lines.  South  Africa,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  not  at  this  time  ripe  for  the 
development  of  that  conception,  but  it  was  with  this  aim  in  view  that  Sir 
Bartle  Frere,  an  Indian  official  of  great  experience  and  ability,  was  at  this 
moment  appointed  Governor  of  Cape  Colony  and  High  Commissioner  for 
South  Africa.  The  annexation  of  the  Transvaal  was  not  his  doing  ;  it 
merely  fell  to  him  in  the  course  of  official  routine  to  confirm  Shepstone's 
action.  A  much  more  pressing  question  was  the  exceedingly  menacing 
conduct  of  Cetewayo. 

The  Zulu  state  was  organised  with  a  single  eye  to  military  effectiveness. 
Between  the  death  of  Dingan  some  thirty  years  earlier  and  the  accession  of 
Cetewayo  in  1873,  Zululand  had  remained  comparatively  quiet  ;  but  now 
it  had  become  evident  that  the  Zulu  king  was  contemplating  a  revival  of 
the  military  glories  of  his  earlier  predecessors.  The  protests  of  the  British 
Government  against  his  revival  of  certain  sanguinary  practices  were 
answered  with  something  perilously  like  defiance.  To  Frere  it  appeared 
imperative  that  the  principles  applied  in  the  government  of  India,  where 


9IO  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

most  of  his  experience  had  lain,  must  be  applied  also  in  Africa.  He  pro- 
posed to  place  a  Resident  in  Zululand  who  should  discharge  the  functions 
of  the  Residents  at  the  courts  of  the  native  princes  in  India,  and  should 
impose  limits  on  the  barbarism  of  the  Zulu  government.  This,  with  other 
demands,  was  formulated  in  an  ultimatum  delivered  to  Cetewayo  in 
December  1878.  In  plain  terms,  Frere  was  convinced  that,  unless  the 
Zulu  military  organisation  were  broken  up,  there  would  be  a  war  sooner 
or  later  which  might  very  well  assume  terrific  proportions.  Cetewayo 
would  certainly  yield  to  nothing  short  of  a  convincing  display  of  force. 
At  whatever  risk  there  must  be  no  symptom  of  a  hesitation  which  could 
be  construed  as  a  sign  of  conscious  weakness. 

Carnarvon  was  now  no  longer  at  the  Colonial 
Office,  and  the  home  Government,  with  its  eyes 
fixed  upon  Afghanistan,  could  not  be  induced  to 
realise  the  gravity  of  the  situation.  Cetewayo 
ignored  the  ultimatum.  Under  the  general  direc- 
tion of  the  Commander-in-Chief,  Lord  Chelmsford, 
three  British  columns  entered  Zululand,  the  move- 
ments beginning  in  the  second  week  of  January 
1879,  when  the  date  fixed  by  the  ultimatum  had 
passed.  The  advance  of  two  of  the  columns  was 
stopped  by  the  news  of  a  great  disaster  to  the 
third  column  under  Lord  Chelmsford  himself.  A 
Cetewayo.  portion  of  his  forcc  was  encamped  at  Isandlwana, 

while  the  Commander-in-Chief  advanced  with  the 
rest  to  attack  a  Zulu  military  post  at  some  distance.  But  the  Zulus 
were  not  waiting  there.  The  900  men  left  in  camp  at  Isandlwana  became 
suddenly  aware  that  they  were  being  enveloped  by  a  force  of  20,000 
Zulus.  In  the  desperate  struggle  which  ensued  the  British  camp  was 
wiped  out,  though  in  some  degree  the  blow  was  counterbalanced  by  the 
magnificent  defence  of  Rorke's  Drift  at  the  passage  of  the  Buffalo  River, 
where  a  handful  of  men  had  been  left  to  keep  the  communications  with 
Natal  open. 

The  advance  into  Zululand  was  paralysed.  It  was  not  till  April,  three 
months  after  Isandlwana,  that  the  arrival  of  reinforcements  enabled  Lord 
Chelmsford  again  to  take  the  offensive.  The  issue  then  could  hardly  be 
in  doubt,  and  the  Zulu  army  was  completely  shattered  at  the  battle  of 
Ulundi  in  July.  Cetewayo  became  a  fugitive  ;  his  hiding-place  was 
subsequently  betrayed  and  he  himself  was  deported  to  Cape  Colony.  Lord 
Wolseley,  who  had  arrived  to  supersede  Lord  Chelmsford,  was  left  with  the 
task  of  providing  a  system  of  government  for  Zululand,  which  was  divided 
into  districts,  still  under  a  dozen  native  chiefs  with  a  single  British 
Resident  exercising  a  general  control.  The  system,  however,  did  not  work 
satisfactorily,  and  Zululand  was  actually  annexed  in  1887. 

The  affairs  in  South  Africa  and  in  Afghanistan  were  very  serious  blows 


DEMOCRACY  911 

to  the  Beaconsfield  administration  at  home.  But  the  destruction  of  the 
Zulu  power  had  destroyed  also  the  principal  justification  for  the  recent 
annexation  of  the  Transvaal.  While  the  Zulu  menace  was  present,  it 
would  have  been  vain  for  the  Boers  to  attempt  any  active  protest.  But 
the  Dutch  dislike  to  the  British  domination  was  as  strong  as  ever,  and 
when  there  was  nothing  more  to  be  feared  from  the  Zulus  it  bore  fruit. 


VI 

THE   EIGHTY   PARLIAMENT 

The  new  Gladstone  administration  rested  at  the  outset  mainly  upon 
what  was  called  the  Whig  element ;  its  most  prominent  members  were 
Lord  Hartington,  Lord  Granville,  and  the  Duke  of  Argyle.  There  were 
members  of  the  extreme  Radical  wing  who  had  strong  claims  to  office,  but 
the  avowed  or  suspected  republicanism  of  such  men  as  Sir  Charles  Dilke 
and  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain  made  it  difBcult  to  find  a  place  for  them  in 
the  ministry.  Sir  Charles  withdrew  his  own  claims  in  favour  of  the 
member  for  Birmingham,  who  was  for  some  time  regarded  by  the  Opposi- 
tion, or  at  least  by  their  organs  in  the  Press,  as  the  scarcely  veiled  influence 
which  was  hurrying  the  Prime  Minister  along  the  paths  of  destruction.  In 
later  years  he  was  destined  to  assume  a  curiously  different  character  in 
their  eyes. 

For  four  years  domestic  interests  and  domestic  legislation  were  almost 
confined  to  Irish  questions.  Outside  these  islands  public  attention  was 
engaged  for  the  first  eighteen  months  upon  Afghanistan  and  South  Africa, 
while  from  the  summer  of  1882  Egyptian  affairs  became  absorbing, 
almost  at  the  moment  when  Irish  affairs  had  reached  a  startling  climax. 
How  the  Afghan  affair  was  settled  we  have  already  narrated,  but  we  have 
only  hinted  at  the  next  scene  in  the  South  African  drama. 

The  burghers,  as  the  citizens  of  the  Transvaal  called  themselves,  expected 
that  a  Liberal  Government  would  be  prompt  to  reverse  the  annexation 
carried  out  by  its  predecessors,  and  to  restore  the  independence  which  a 
previous  Liberal  Government  had  granted  without  any  reluctance.  They 
were  disappointed  by  emphatic  pronouncements  that  there  was  to  be  no 
reversal  of  policy.  Before  the  end  of  the  year  the  Government  was  in  fact 
reconsidering  the  question  ;  but  this  was  not  known  to  the  burghers. 
Shepstone  had  been  mistaken  in  his  belief  that  the  majority  of  the  white 
men  had  been  in  favour  of  his  action  ;  the  majority  resented  the  annexation, 
and  when  they  understood  that  it  was  definitive  they  preferred  defiance  to 
submission.  In  December,  on  the  anniversary  of  their  great  victory  over 
the  Zulu  king  Dingan,  they  proclaimed  the  Republic  and  successfully 
attacked  two  small  British  detachments  at  Potchefstroom  and  Bronkhorst 
Spruit.     While   Sir   Hercules  Robinson  at  the  Cape  was  endeavouring  to 


912  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

obtain  a  solution  of  the  dispute  through  the  mediation  of  President  Brand 
of  the  Orange  Free  State,  Sir  George  Colley,  who  had  taken  Sir  Garnet 
Wolseley's  place,  advanced  to  the  Transvaal  border  with  a  British  column 
to  suppress  what  was  unquestionably  in  a  technical  sense  the  rebelHon  of 
the  burghers.  On  January  28th,  1 881,  he  met  with  a  reverse  at  Laing's  Nek, 
and  a  month  later  his  force  was  routed  by  a  handful  of  the  farmers  at 
Majuba  Hill,  where  he  himself  fell. 

Before  this  event  the  home  Government  had  made  up  its  mind  that  the 
annexation  had  been  a  blunder,  not,  as  represented  by  Shepstone,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  will  of  the  people  of  the  Transvaal.  Retrocession  was  re- 
solved upon  and  despatches  to  that  effect  had  reached  South  Africa.  On 
the  face  of  it,  it  appeared  that  the  disaster  at  Majuba  made  another  change 
of  front  imperative.      The  authority  and  power  of   the   Empire   must   be 


'^ 


The  Monument  at  Paardekraal,  Knigeisdorp,  wliere  the  Boers  proclaimed  the  independence  of 
the  Transvaal  in  l8So. 


vindicated  before  any  concession  could  be  made.  Nevertheless,  the  Govern- 
ment resolved  to  set  aside  expediency  in  favour  of  the  most  elevated  ethical 
principles.  On  these  principles  the  burghers  ought  not  to  be  penalised  for 
their  success  in  fighting  for  a  cause  which  the  Cabinet  had  already  recognised 
as  a  just  one.  What  would  have  been  granted  without  their  victory  at 
Majuba  should  not  be  denied  them  because  of  that  victory.  HostiHties 
were  suspended,  and  t&rms  for  the  retrocession  of  the  Transvaal  were 
arranged. 

The  Republic  was  to  be  reinstated,  endowed  with  complete  self-govern- 
ment within  a  territory  of  which  the  boundaries  were  definitely  delimited. 
The  suzerainty  of  Great  Britain  was  to  be  recognised,  which  precluded  the 
Boer  government  from  making  treaties  on  their  own  account,  and  a  British 
Resident  was  to  be  established  at  the  capital,  Pretoria.  Two  years  later  it 
must  be  remarked  the  arrangement  was  modified  by  a  new  "  Convention 
of  London,"  under  which  the  Resident  was  withdrawn,  and  it  became  a 


DEMOCRACY  913 

disputable  question  whether  the  British  could  thereafter  legally  claim  any 
control  over  anything  except  the  foreign  relations  of  the  Transvaal  Republic. 
It  was  not  perhaps  surprising  that  the  lofty  morality  by  which  the  Govern- 
ment claimed  to  have  been  guided  was  not  recognised  either  by  the  Opposi- 
tion in  England,  the  bulk  of  the  Transvaal  Boers  themselves,  or  a  large 
proportion  of  the  white  population  of  South  Africa.  The  magnanimity  of 
the  mighty  power  which  abstained  from  demonstrating  its  overwhelming 
strength  was  regarded  as  mere  pusillanimity  and  weakness,  at  the  best 
dictated  by  a  paltry  economy  ;  out  of  which  conviction  a  brood  of  troubles 
was  to  be  born  in  the  future. 

Gladstone  assumed  office  in  1880  under  the  belief  that  Ireland  was 
pacified  by  what  he  had  done  before,  and  by  the  expectation  of  what  he 
would  do  in  the  future.      It  was  immediately  announced  that  the   Peace 


Majuba  Hill. 


Preservation  Act  would  not  be  renewed.  The  Irish  members,  led  by 
Parnell,  clamoured  for  an  immediate  extension  of  remedial  measures,  while 
the  Opposition  clamoured  against  the  withdrawal  of  the  exceptional  powers 
of  the  Executive.  The  Government  introduced  two  bills,  one  a  measure 
for  the  relief  of  distress,  the  other  to  provide  compensation  for  evictions 
following  upon  the  non-payment  of  rent,  where  the  failure  had  been  due  to 
a  bona  fide  inability  to  pay.  In  the  Lords  this  bill  was  mercilessly  criticised 
and  decisively  rejected.  At  the  same  time  the  Peace  Preservation  Act 
ceased  to  operate.  Immediately  there  broke  out  a  fresh  crop  of  agrarian 
outrages,  and  the  new  weapon  was  brought  into  action  which  has  taken  its 
name  from  its  first  victim.  Captain  Boycott. 

In  the  face  of  this  new  departure,  commonly  attributed  to  the  influence 
of  the  Land  League,  it  was  impossible  to  rely  merely  upon  the  ordinary 
law.     A    fresh    coercion   bill  was  brought  in    by  the  Chief  Secretary  for 

3  M 


914  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

Ireland,  W.  E.  Forster,  the  parent  of  the  Education  Act  of  1870.  It  was 
passed  after  fierce  and  stormy  opposition  by  the  Irish  members,  but  was 
followed  by  a  new  Land  Bill  of  which  the  primary  purpose  was  to  secure 
fair  rents.  A  new  principle  was  introduced.  Land  courts  were  to  be 
established  for  the  assessment  of  fair  rents  on  the  application  of  tenants 
or  of  landlords  and  tenants  acting  in  concert.  The  Irish  members  de- 
nounced the  bill  as  wholly  inefficient,  the  Opposition  denounced  it  as  a 
flagrant  invasion  of  the  rights  of  property,  and  the  Duke  of  Argyle  retired 
from  the  ministry  which  had  repudiated  the  principle  of  freedom  of  con- 
tract. The  bill  was  greatly  mutilated  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  a  dead- 
lock was  only  averted  by  a  compromise  which 
satisfied  no  one. 

Some  months  earlier  Gladstone's  great  anta- 
gonist had  passed  away.  His  strange  and  mysteri- 
ous personality  had  fascinated  first  his  party  and 
then  the  country  in  spite  of  themselves,  and  the 
most  audacious  innovator  among  modern  British 
statesmen  was  conceived  as  the  ideal  Conservative. 
He  was  a  brilliant  statesman  who  had  inspired  the 
nation  with  a  new  spirit  of  imperialism,  a  diploma- 
tist who  had  triumphantly  vindicated  the  position 
of  the  country  in  the  councils  of  Europe,  a  parlia- 
^^"^'^       '  mentarian  who  had  fought  his  way  to  an  unqualified 

■    ^'""  '  leadership   against  apparently  overwhelming  odds. 

[From  a  photograph.]  „^,  ^        ^     .  ,^^  \       ■,  ,  l.i 

But  he  was  a  smgular  person  to  have  been  selected 
as  the  great  representative  of  Conservatism,  a  title  which  was  absolutely 
appropriate  to  his  successor  in  the  leadership  of  the  party.  Lord  Salisbury. 

The  Parnellites  made  no  pretence  of  being  satisfied  with  the  Land  Bill; 
outrages  continued  ;  and  since  English  opinion  held  that  Parnell  and 
the  Land  League  were  responsible  for  them,  several  of  the  Irish  leaders 
were  arrested  and  imprisoned  at  Kilmainham.  They  replied  by  issuing  a 
manifesto  calling  upon  the  tenants  to  pay  no  rent  until  they  were  released. 
The  response  was  the  condemnation  and  suppression  of  the  Land  League 
as  an  illegal  organisation,  though,  according  to  the  unfailing  rule,  it  was 
presently  revived  under  a  new  name. 

In  the  spring  of  1882  the  Peers,  on  a  resolution  of  Lord  Salisbury, 
appointed  a  committee  to  enquire  into  the  working  of  the  Land  Act, 
Gladstone  replied  by  a  resolution  in  the  Commons  virtually  censuring  the 
action  of  the  House  of  Lords.  Neither  resolution  could  have  any  imme- 
diate material  effect ;  but  that  of  Lord  Salisbury  marked  a  definite 
political  purpose  on  the  part  of  the  great  Conservative  leader.  Unlike  Lord 
Beaconsfield,  Salisbury,  who  as  Lord  Cranborne  had  withdrawn  from  the 
last  Derby  administration  on  account  of  the  Reform  Bill,  feared  the  new 
democracy  and  the  power  of  the  democratic  House  of  Commons,  and  hoped 
to  use  the  House  of   Lords   as   a  counterpoise.      It  may  be  said  that  the 


DEMOCRACY  915 

increased  activity  of  the  House  of  Lords  was  initiated  by  their  treatment 

in  the  previous  year, 


but    it   was    Lord 


of    the   Irish  Compensation    Bill 

Salisbury  who  systematically  developed  the  policy. 

Immediately  after  this,  the  Irish  leaders  were  released  from  Kilmainham 
and  Forster  resigned  the  Irish  Secretaryship.  There  was  undoubtedly  an 
understanding  that  they  would  use  their  influence  to  stop  outrages,  which 
was  developed  in  the  mind  of  the  Opposition  into  a  corrupt  compact  for 
their  support  of  the  Liberal  Government  in  parliament ;  and  the  whole 
transaction  was  vehemently  stigmatised  as  the  "  Kilmainham  Treaty." 
But  it  is  equally  certain  that  the  Parnellites  were 
not  conspicuously  transformed  into  allies  of  the 
Liberals. 

The  leaders  had  hardly  been  released  when 
Lord  Frederick  Cavendish,  who  succeeded  Forster 
as  Irish  Secretary,  was  assassinated  in  the  Phoenix 
Park  in  Dublin.  Consequently  a  bill  promised  for 
the  relief  of  tenants  whose  rent  was  in  arrear  was 
preceded  by  a  very  stringent  "  Prevention  of 
Crimes "  Bill  to  be  enforced  for  three  years, 
giving  to  the  Irish  Executive  abnormal  powers 
of  search,  arrest,  and  summary  jurisdiction.  The 
murder  in  Phoenix  Park  to  some  extent  silenced 
the  Irish  leaders  ;  but  in  spite  of  the  Crimes 
Bill  there  was  no  cessation  of  the  outrages  and 
murders,  and  the  new  organisation  called  the  National  League,  avowedly 
political  as  well  as  agrarian,  took  the  place  of  the  suppressed  Land  League. 

Two  months  after  the  Phoenix  Park  murder  England  was  awakened  to 
the  existence  of  complications  in  another  region  by  the  bombardment  of 
Alexandria.  During  the  last  decade  the  debts  of  the  Khedive  of  Egypt, 
Ismail,  had  compelled  him  to  subject  the  Egyptian  finances  to  the  joint 
control  of  British  and  French.  As  a  practical  consequence  the  dual 
control  was  inevitably  extended  to  the  Egyptian  administration.  A 
nationalist  group  in  Egypt  was  consequently  formed,  which  aimed  at 
overthrowing  the  European  ascendency  through  the  instrumentality  of  the 
Egyptian  army  controlled  by  Arabi  Pasha.  The  group  dominated  the 
Khedive  Tewfik,  Ismail's  successor,  and  captured  the  ministry.  Counter- 
pressure  from  Britain  and  France  aggravated  the  antagonism,  and  Arabi  with 
the  army  assumed  an  attitude  so  aggressive  that  the  British  Admiral  Seymour, 
after  inviting  the  co-operation  of  the  French,  which  was  refused,  considered  it 
necessary  to  open  a  bombardment  and  then  to  occupy  Alexandria.  But 
while  Arabi  remained  in  arms  nothing  more  could  be  done.  An  expedition 
was  despatched  to  suppress  him,  and  in  September  his  forces  were  shattered 
by  Sir  Garnet  Wolseley  at  the  battle  of  Tel-el-Kebir.  Arabi  was  taken 
prisoner  and  Cairo  was  occupied.^ 

^  For  map  of  Egypt  and  the  Sudan,  see  page  942. 


Arabi  Pasha. 


9i6  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

The  British  action  had  destroyed  not  only  the  army  but  the  whole 
system  of  Egyptian  government.  Except  perhaps  in  France  it  was  gener- 
ally recognised  that  this  action  had  been  fully  justified.  France,  by  refusing 
to  co-operate,  had  put  herself  out  of  court,  and  there  was  no  escaping  the 
necessity  that  Britain  should  on  her  own  account  reorganise  the  shattered 
government.  Annexation  would  have  been  warranted ;  a  protectorate 
would  have  been  warranted  ;  but  the  British  Government  wanted  neither, 

and  chose  instead  to  claim  a  complete 
immediate  control  of  affairs,  in  the  illusory 
expectation  that  it  would  be  merely  tem- 
porary. The  Khedive's  government  was 
restored,  but  Lord  Cromer — at  that  time 
Major  Evelyn  Baring  —  was  appointed 
Agent  and  Consul-General,  which  meant 
in  effect  Dictator,  and  a  British  controller 
was  appointed  over  each  department  of 
state — Finance,  Public  Works,  Judiciary, 
and  Army. 

The  work  of  reorganisation  went  on 
steadily  and  efficiently.  But  far  to  the 
south  in  the  Egyptian  Sudan  there  arose 
in  18S3  a  fanatic  calling  himself  the 
Mahdi,  the  appointed  successor  of  Moham- 
med, who  gathered  to  his  standard  the 
wild  Mohammedan  tribes  of  the  interior. 
The  British  refused  to  attempt  bringing 
the  interior  under  control  ;  the  organisa- 
tion of  effi-cient  government  in  Egypt 
proper  was  work  enough.  But  the 
Egyptian  government  despatched  an  ex- 
pedition under  an  English  officer,  Hicks 
Pasha,  to  overthrow  the  Mahdi,  and  the  expedition  was  annihilated  instead. 
The  British  insisted  that  the  Sudan  must  be  left  to  take  care  of  itself 
and  that  the  garrisons  there  must  be  withdrawn.  The  withdrawal  of  the 
garrisons  was  a  task  of  extreme  difficulty.  To  carry  it  out  the  British 
Government  appointed  the  one  man  who  might  be  able  to  accomplish  it  suc- 
cessfully, General  Charles  George  Gordon.  Gordon,  a  Puritan  and  a  mystic, 
was  one  of  those  men  who  seemed  to  accomplish  impossible  ends  by  methods 
impossible  to  any  one  else.  The  one  way  of  dealing  with  such  a  man  is  to 
accept  the  whole  enormous  risk  of  leaving  him  an  absolutely  free  hand. 
Gordon  went  to  the  Sudan  knowing  that  he  had  not  an  absolutely  free 
hand  ;  that  he  would  be  supported  up  to  a  certain  point,  but  not  beyond. 
When  he  got  to  the  Sudan  he  acted  on  the  assumption  tliat  he  would  be 
supported  at  all  costs,  and  proceeded  to  carry  out  plans  which  to  the 
authorities  appeared  to  be  madness.     They  refused  the  support  which  he 


Osman  Digna,  leader  uf  the  MahJi's  forces. 
[From  a  photograph.] 


DEMOCRACY  917 

demanded.  The  result  was  that  in  March  1884  he  found  himself  shut 
up  in  Khartum,  although  a  threatened  invasion  of  Egypt  proper  by  the 
Mahdi  was  broken  by  a  force  under  General  Graham  at  El-teb. 

But  it  was  not  possible  to  leave  Gordon  to  his  fate  at  Khartum, 
although  it  had  been  definitely  understood  that  no  military  expedition  was 
to  be  sent  to  the  Sudan.  An  expedition  to  rescue  Gordon  was  necessary. 
Yet  the  home  authorities  failed  to  realise  the  urgency  of  the  situation. 
Valuable  time  was  lost  over  differences  as  to  the  form  which  the  expedition 
should  take.  It  was  not  till  September,  when  Gordon  had  already  been 
locked  up  for  six  months,  that  Lord  Wolseley  sailed  for  Egypt.  Then  the 
arrangements  for  an  advance  up  the  Nile 
were  proceeded  with  vigorously.  Even  until 
the  last  moment  it  was  believed  that  the  relief 
would  be  effected.  But  in  fact  Khartum 
was  hardly  defensible.  When  the  Mahdi 
appreciated  that  the  British  force  was  actually 
close  at  hand  he  rushed  the  place,  and 
Gordon  was  killed  two  days  before  the 
arrival  of  the  British  on  January  28th,  So 
perished  the  heroic  soldier  whose  marvellous 
personality  had  at  last,  at  the  very  end  of 
his  career,  suddenly  impressed  the  imagina- 
tions of  the  British  people  with  an  enthusi- 
astic admiration  rarely  paralleled.  His  death 
dealt  an  irremediable  blow  to  the  Govern- 
ment whose  blundering  failure  to  rescue 
him  was  felt  as  a  shameful  betrayal.  But 
there  was  nothing  more  to  be  done.     The 

re-conquest  of  the  Sudan  was  not  to  be  thought  of.  The  expedition  fell 
back.  Years  of  patient  and  persistent  organisation  were  needed  before 
the  times  were  ripe  for   a  conquering  advance  upon  Khartum. 

In  the  years  between  1881  and  1884,  during  the  period  of  the  Egyptian 
troubles,  attention  was  temporarily  attracted  to  India  by  a  somewhat  ill- 
advised  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  Viceroy  Lord  Ripon  to  carry  out  an 
administrative  reform  extending  the  jurisdiction  of  native  magistrates  over 
European  residents.  A  storm  of  indignation  was  raised  amongst  the  British 
in  India,  easily  understood  by  any  one  who  grasped  the  conditions  of 
European  rule  there,  but  unintelligible  on  the  hypothesis  that  there  is 
no  reason  for  recognising  any  distinction  between  the  white  and  the  brown 
races.  The  affair  was  unfortunate,  because  although  the  measure  in  the 
form  in  which  it  was  finally  promulgated  did  not  give  rise  to  grievances, 
it  intensified  instead  of  diminishing  the  racial  antagonism  which  is  always 
latent  in  the  great  dependency.  In  relation  to  the  colonies,  the  growth, 
in  the  minds  of  a  few  leading  men,  of  a  new  conception  of  the  united 
British  Empire,  was  marked  by  the  birth  of  the  Federation  League  ;  but 


General  Gordon. 
[From  a  photograph.] 


9i8  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

the  idea  had  not  as  yet  taken  any  general  hold  of  the  public.  While  Lord 
Rosebery  was  a  lively  advocate  of  the  new  movement,  the  official  attitude 
was  more  nearly  akin  to  that  of  the  Colonial  Secretary,  Lord  Derby,  who 
had  joined  the  Liberal  ranks  ;  it  seemed  to  be  governed  by  the  assumption 
that  separation  was  the  natural  and  desirable  goal  to  which  all  colonies 
were  tending  and  should  be  encouraged  to  tend. 

At  home  Ireland  continued  to  be  disturbed,  and  in  England  a  good 
deal  of  alarm  was  created  by  sundry  ineffective  dynamite  outrages  originat- 
ing with  the  extremists  among  the  Irish  in  America.  But  there  was  little 
opportunity  for  legislation  until,  in  1884,  a  bill  was  introduced  for  complet- 
ing the  democratic  system  by  extending  the  franchise  to  the  agricultural 
labourer  who  had  still  been  excluded  by  the  Reform  Bill  of  1867.  Offici- 
ally the  Conservatives  declared  themselves  in  favour  of  the  franchise  extension, 
but  it  was  obvious  that  the  step  would  necessitate  a  far-reaching  redistribu- 
tion of  seats  ;  and  the  Conservatives  claimed  that  the  two  measures  should 
be  combined.  The  Government  insisted  that  the  Franchise  Bill  should  come 
first,  though  it  was  to  be  followed  by  a  Redistribution  Bill.  The  Franchise 
Bill  was  carried  in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  the  House  of  Lords,  under 
Salisbury's  leadership,  passed  a  resolution  that  it  should  not  become  law 
except  as  a  part  of  a  complete  scheme.  This  attitude  was  taken  as  imply- 
ing an  attempt  to  compel  the  Government  to  dissolve,  and  Liberals  angrily 
denounced  the  claim  of  the  peers  to  force  a  dissolution.  The  bill  was 
withdrawn  with  the  announcement  that  it  would  be  reintroduced  in  an 
autumn  session.  There  was  every  prospect  of  a  fierce  struggle  between 
the  Houses.  The  Government  had  been  losing  credit  with  the  country  ; 
but  a  fiery  campaign  in  the  summer  appeared  to  revive  Liberal  enthusiasm, 
and  the  "mending  or  ending"  of  the  House  of  Lords  seemed  likely  to 
become  a  plank  of  the  Liberal  platform. 

Yet  the  strong  element  of  Conservatism  in  Gladstone  himself,  as  well 
as  in  the  Whig  wing  of  the  party,  made  him  anxious  to  avoid  a  constitutional 
crisis  of  such  gravity,  while  the  more  cautious  among  the  peers  viewed 
the  results  of  such  a  struggle  with  grave  apprehension.  A  compromise 
was  arrived  at  between  the  leaders  ;  when  the  autumn  session  was  opened, 
the  bill  went  through  the  Commons,  and  it  was  then  announced  that 
if  it  were  passed  the  Redistribution  Bill  should  be  brought  in  forthwith,  and 
that  in  effect  the  second  bill  should  not  be  made  a  party  measure  but 
should  be  shaped  so  far  as  possible  in  conformity  w^ith  Conservative  as 
well  as  Liberal  opinion.  The  second  bill  was  then  brought  in,  the  Lords 
passed  the  Franchise  Bill,  and  the  Redistribution  Bill  went  through  both 
Houses  with  the  minimum  of  controversy.  The  fundamental  principles 
of  the  measure  were  the  disfranchisement  of  boroughs  with  a  population  of 
less  than  15,000,  and  the  return  of  one  member  only  by  every  constituency 
with  only  a  very  few  exceptions. 

The  Liberals  had  gained  something  by  the  vigorous  campaign  of  the 
summer  ;  but  this  was  more  than  compensated  by  the  fall  of  Khartum  ;  and 


DEMOCRACY  919 

the  Penjdeh  incident  in  Afghanistan  in  March  1885  probably  weakened 
the  Government  again.  There  was  a  colHsion  between  Russian  and  Afghan 
troops  on  the  border  of  Afghanistan,  unmistakably  due  to  the  aggressive 
action  of  the  Turcoman  commander  AH  Khan,  whose  name  has  been  con- 
veniently Russianised  as  Alikanoff.  For  a  moment  it  appeared  that  there 
would  be  war  between  the  Amir  and  the  Tsar,  and  that  the  British  would 
be  bound  to  support  the  Amir  in  the  most  thorough-going  fashion.  Fortu- 
nately Abdur  Rhaman,  with  a  singular  shrewdness,  refused  to  make  much 
of  the  incident  which  was  judiciously  smoothed  over  ;  and  the  process  of 
delimiting  the  several  frontiers,  which  had  given  occasion  to  it,  was  con- 
tinued without  further  serious  friction.  At  the  same  time  there  was  a 
certain  feeling,  born  of  the  general  suspicion  of  timidity  attaching  to  the 
Gladstone  Government,  that  sufficient  vigour  and  firmness  had  not  been 
displayed ;  though  on  the  merits  of  the  particular  case  there  was  hardly 
sufficient  warrant  for  that  view. 

The  weakened  Government  was  defeated  on  the  Budget.  Gladstone 
resigned,  and  Lord  Salisbury  took  office.  Divergencies  in  the  ministry  as 
to  the  treatment  of  Ireland  had  contributed  to  its  fall.  But  the  Con- 
servatives, in  an  actual  minority,  were  not  inclined  to  throw  down  a  direct 
challenge  to  the  Irish  members.  They  did  not  find  it  necessary  to  renew 
the  Crim.es  Act,  and  they  brought  in  a  generous  measure,  known  as  Lord 
Ashbourne's  Act,  for  the  provision  of  public  funds  to  facilitate  the  purchase 
of  their  holdings  by  the  Irish  tenantry.  Coming  from  the  Conservative 
Government  the  measure  received  no  active  opposition.  In  the  circum- 
stances however  a  dissolution  was  inevitable,  and  the  results  of  the  general 
election  in  August  were  unexpected.  Gladstone  had  rejected  certain  over- 
tures from  Parnell,  declaring  that  a  definite  Irish  policy  could  not  be  laid 
down  until  Irish  opinion  had  been  clearly  expressed  by  the  now  enlarged 
electorate.  The  answer  as  far  as  Ireland  was  concerned  was  emphatic. 
No  Liberals  were  returned  for  that  country,  but  there  were  eighty-five 
Home  Rulers.  The  Liberals  in  the  House  of  Commons  numbered  precisely 
one-half  of  that  assembly,  and  it  was  obvious  that  the  Parnellites  were  in 
a  position  to  paralyse  any  government  whatever.  Lord  Salisbury  had  no 
disposition  to  attempt  carrying  on  government  by  Parnellite  aid.  When 
parliament  met  in  January  1886,  it  was  announced  that  a  new  Coercion 
Bill  would  be  brought  in.  Ministers  were  defeated  on  an  amendment 
to  the  address.  Lord  Salisbury  resigned,  and  the  queen  sent  once  more 
for  Gladstone. 


CHAPTER   XXXVII 

LORD   SALISBURY 

I 

THE   HOME   RULE   STRUGGLE 

The  brief  Gladstone  administration  of  1886  may  be  taken  as  marking  the 
moment  after  which  it  becomes  no  longer  possible  to  view  party  politics 
with  the  impersonal  detachment  proper  to  a  historian.  From  that  date 
one  of  the  two  great  political  parties  has  been  definitely  committed  to  the 
doctrine  that  Ireland  ought  to  have  a  separate  legislature  of  her  own  to 
deal  with  Irish  affairs.  To  the  other  party  that  doctrine  has  seemed  to  be 
fraught  with  such  danger  to  imperial  unity  that  resistance  to  it  must  be 
the  paramount  consideration  to  which  all  other  questions  must  give  way. 
Whatever  other  complications  there  may  be,  whether  Liberal  leaders  have 
actually  made  Home  Rule  a  definite  part  of  their  programme  or  not,  they 
have  always  affirmed  their  adherence  to  the  doctrine.  Only  at  one  general 
election  has  the  party  received  substantial  support  from  Unionists,  because 
on  that  one  occasion  it  was  clearly  understood  that  they  w'ould  not  intro- 
duce a  bill  for  Home  Rule.  The  Gladstone  administration  introduced  a 
new  line  of  cleavage  which  has  continued  until  the  present  year,  191 2, 
when  a  Home  Rule  Bill  is  before  parliament.  If  that  bill  becomes  law 
that  line  of  cleavage  will  disappear,  and  it  appears  almost  certain  that 
economic  policy  will  take  its  place,  as  it  did  in  the  case  of  the  one  general 
election  referred  to,  that  at  the  close  of  1905. 

When,  in  February  1886,  Mr.  Gladstone  undertook  to  form  a  Cabinet 
on  the  defeat  and  resignation  of  the  Salisbury  Government,  it  immediately 
became  clear  that  he  intended  to  introduce  a  measure  of  Home  Rule. 
Hitherto  the  overwhelming  majority  of  Liberals  as  well  as  of  Conservatives 
had  regarded  the  idea  of  establishing  a  parliament  at  Dublin  as  entirely 
outside  the  sphere  of  practical  politics.  Advanced  Radicals  had  indeed 
been  suspected  of  leanings  in  that  direction  ;  but  their  minds  were  very 
much  more  set  upon  democratic  reforms  in  England,  while  the  Whig  wing 
at  least  had  absolutely  no  sympathy  with  the  Irish  demand.  Mr.  Gladstone 
succeeded  in  carrying  the  bulk  of  his  party  with  him,  but  some  of  the  most 
prominent  of  his  former  colleagues  refused  to  join  the  Cabinet  or  left  it  as 
soon  as  his  proposals  were  formulated,  and  formed  a  separate  Liberal 
Unionist  party  in  parliament.     This  group  included  on  the  one  side  Whigs 

920 


LORD    SALISBURY  921 

such  as  Lord  Hartington  and  Mr.  Goschen,  and  On  the  other  the  personal 
followers  of  the  then  recognised  champion  of  Radicalism,  Mr.  Joseph 
Chamberlain. 

The  features  of  the  new  policy  were  presented  in  two  measures,  a 
Home  Rule  Bill  and  a  Land  Bill.  The  purpose  of  the  first  was  to  provide 
Ireland  with  a  legislature  of  her  own  for  the  control  of  Irish  affairs.  While 
to  the  bulk  of  the  Unionists,  Conservative  or  Liberal,  any  conceivable 
scheme  of  Home  Rule  would  have  been  obnoxious,  opposition  concentrated 
upon  the  point  that  Ireland  was  to  cease  altogether  to  be  represented  at 
Westminster.  While  the  tactics  of  Parnell  seemed  to  make  the  exclusion 
of  Irish  members  eminently  desirable  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  conduct 
of  public  business,  it  carried  with  it  the  separation  of  Ireland  from  all  interest 
in  imperial  concerns,  and  it  was  therefore  denounced  as  being  emphatically 
separatist  in  its  effects — an  encouragement,  that  is,  to  the  Irish  people  to 
sever  their  slender  surviving  link  with  the  Empire.  The  Land  Bill  was 
opposed  no  less  heartily.  The  intention  was  to  remove  the  land  question 
from  the  scope  of  action  of  the  proposed  Irish  parliament  by  a  huge  scheme 
of  land  purchase  on  the  part  of  the  British  Government  which  would  have 
established  a  peasant  proprietary.  The  real  intensity  of  the  opposition  to 
the  whole  scheme  lay  in  the  rooted  belief  that  the  leaders  of  the  Irish 
people  were  separatists  who  would  merely  use  the  new  machine  as  an 
instrument  for  breaking  down  the  British  connection  altogether,  coupled 
with  the  anticipation  that  "  Home  Rule  means  Rome  Rule."  The  Home 
Rule  Bill  was  defeated  on  its  second  reading. 

Mr.  Gladstone  appealed  to  the  country  ;  the  Conservatives  did  not 
contest  the  seats  of  Liberal  Unionist  candidates  ;  seventy-eight  members  of 
that  party  were  returned  ;  and  the  Conservatives  outnumbered  the  British 
and  Irish  Home  Rulers  together  by  thirty-five.  Mr.  Gladstone  resigned, 
and  Lord  Salisbury  took  office  with  an  administration  formed  entirely  from 
the  Conservative  party,  since  his  own  proposal  for  a  Coalition  Government 
with  Lord  Hartington  at  its  head  w-as  rejected  by  the  Liberal  Unionist 
leader. 

The  measures  for  Ireland  had  effected  little  towards  the  relief  of  agri- 
cultural distress.  Tenants  were  in  arrears  with  their  rent,  and  evictions 
multiplied.  Mr.  Parnell  introduced  a  Tenants'  Relief  Bill,  which,  among 
its  provisions,  authorised  the  land  courts  to  stay  evictions  if  half  the  rent 
was  paid.  The  bill  was  thrown  out  and  the  Irish  leaders  instituted  the  in- 
genious device  known  as  the  Plan  of  Campaign.  The  tenants  were  to  com- 
bine and  offer  the  landlords  a  fair  rent,  or  what  they  considered  a  fair  one. 
If  the  landlords  refused  it  the  tenants  were  to  pay  over  that  fair  rent  not 
to  the  landlords  but  to  a  committee  charged  with  carrying  on  the  struggle. 
When  parliament  reassembled  at  the  beginning  of  1887  new  rules  of  pro- 
cedure were  adopted  in  the  House  for  the  repression  of  obstructive  tactics. 
The  application  of  the  "  closure  "  and  its  subsequent  developments  were  in- 
variably condemned  by  the  Opposition  of  the  day  as  shameless  interference 


922  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

with  the  right  of  free  speech,  and  were  defended  by  the  Government  of  the 
day  as  necessitated  by  the  gross  abuse  of  free  discussion  by  the  Opposition. 
After  setthng  procedure  the  Government  went  on  to  introduce  a  new 
Crimes  Bill  for  Ireland,  conferring  upon  the  Lord  Lieutenant  new  powers  of 
condemning  leagues  or  combinations  as  illegal,  and  of  proclaiming  dis- 
turbed districts,  which  were  thereupon  subjected  to  a  practically  arbitrary 
government.     The   long  and    angry  debates   were    brought  to   an    abrupt 


Mr.  A.J.  Balfour. 
[An  early  partrait  by  Lafayi;Ue,  Dublin.] 


conclusion  by  the  application  of  the  closure.  The  Act,  however,  was  ac- 
companied by  a  new  Land  Bill,  in  which  the  most  important  concessions 
gave  some  facilities  for  a  revision  of  rents,  and  authorised  the  county 
courts  to  grant  time  for  the  payment  of  arrears.  The  bill  was  considerably 
modified  in  favour  of  the  tenants,  at  the  instance  of  the  Liberal  Unionists. 
Still  Ireland  continued  to  be  the  scene  of  violent  disorders,  of  constant 
collisions  between  the  peasantry  and  the  police,  who  were  employed  to 
assist  at  evictions  or  to  suppress  illegal  meetings,  and  of  much  excitement 


LORD    SALISBURY  923 

over  the  arrests  of  leaders  who  encouraged  the  populace  to  defy  the 
**  tyranny "  of  the  law.  The  language  of  partisanship  was  at  this  time 
peculiarly  acrimonious,  and  was  perhaps  made  the  more  so  by  the  placid 
persistence  with  which  the  Chief  Secretary,  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour,  treated 
offenders  in  Ireland  precisely  as  if  they  had  been  ordinary  law-breakers, 
while  he  remained  calmly  impervious  to  the  most  virulent  personal  attacks. 

In  the  course  of  a  controversy  so  bitter  as  was  then  raging  no  accusa- 
tions were  too  gross  to  be  readily  believed.  An  exceedingly  comprehensive 
attack  upon  the  Land  League  in  general,  upon  all  the  Irish  leaders,  and 
most  uncompromisingly  upon  Mr.  Parnell,  in  the  Times  newspaper,  led  to 
one  of  the  Irish  members  bringing  a  libel  action  against  that  paper.  The 
action  failed  on  the  ground  that  Mr.  O'Donnell,  the  plaintiff,  had  not  been 
singled  out ;  but  the  republication  in  evidence  of  certain  letters  purporting 
to  have  been  written  by  the  Irish  leader  roused  Mr.  Parnell  to  action.  He 
repeated  his  previous  contemptuous  condemnation  of  the  incriminating 
documents  as  forgeries,  and  he  demanded  the  appointment  of  a  select 
committee  of  enquiry  upon  the  specific  question  of  the  letters.  The 
Government  rejected  his  demand,  but  they  passed  an  Act  to  appoint  a 
commission  virtually  to  investigate  all  the  charges  which  had  been  pubhcly 
brought  against  the  Land  League  and  the  Irish  leaders  in  general.  In 
effect  sixty-five  prominent  Irish  leaders  were  put  on  their  trial  on  a  series 
of  definitely  formulated  charges. 

The  Parnell  Commission,  as  it  is  always  called,  met  in  September  1888. 
Hitherto  it  may  be  said  that  almost  the  entire  British  public,  whatever  its 
political  creed,  had  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  Parnellites  had  habitually 
incited  resistance  to  the  government,  that  they  had  been  enabled  to  carry 
on  their  operations  by  means  of  financial  assistance  from  the  American 
Irish,  that  they  had  not  repudiated  connection  with  the  most  extreme 
section  of  that  body,  and  that  they  had  rather  encouraged  than  attempted 
to  restrain  agrarian  crime.  When,  after  a  year  had  passed,  the  report  of 
the  judges  confirmed  these  ideas,  but  with  distinct  modifications  in  favour 
of  the  Irish  members,  some  of  whom  were  proved  to  have  actively  en- 
deavoured to  check  outrages,  the  verdict  was  taken  by  most  Unionists  to 
be  a  decisive  condemnation  of  the  Home  Rule  movement,  and  by  most  of 
the  other  party  to  prove  that  the  most  serious  objection  to  Home  Rule  was 
less  serious  than  they  had  previously  supposed.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
public  interest  in  the  trial  was  only  in  a  very  minor  degree  concerned 
with  the  political  question  at  issue  ;  it  was  almost  confined  to  the  personal 
charges  against  individuals,  and,  above  all,  Mr.  Parnell.  The  worst  of  those 
charges  rested  upon  the  evidence  of  letters,  and,  most  conspicuously  of  all, 
one  particular  letter  which,  if  genuine,  would  have  proved  Mr.  Parnell's 
condonation  of  the  Phoenix  Park  murder.  But  when  it  was  proved  in  the 
course  of  the  trial  that  this  letter  with  others  had  quite  certainly  been 
forged  and  sold  to  the  Times  by  a  man  named  Pigott,  there  was  a  strong 
revulsion  of  public  sentiment.     The  Times  had  permitted  itself  to  be  deceived 


924  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

quite  honestly  ;  but  it  would  never  have  done  so  if  the  virulence  of  political 
feeling  had  not  made  it  incapable  of  testing  evidence.  The  recklessness 
with  which  the  forgery  had  been  accepted  recoiled  upon  the  heads  of  Mr. 
Parnell's  accusers  at  large,  and  from  that  time  there  was  no  longer  the  old 
readiness  to  assume  as  a  matter  of  course  the  worst  possible  interpretation 
of  everything  said  or  done  by  any  Irish  member.  Mr.  Parnell  almost  became 
popular. 

Yet  in  the  year  following,  1890,  the  Irish  parliamentary  party  suffered 
a  grievous  blow  from  a  scandal  in  which  the  leader  was  the  most  prominent 
figure.  The  Nonconformist  conscience  came  into  play,  and  the  Irish  party 
was  split  between  those  who  stood  by  their  old  chief  and  those  who  declared 
that  he  could  no  longer  be  parliamentary  leader.  His  death  shortly  after- 
wards did  not  for  a  long  time  suffice  to  heal  the  animosities  which  had 
arisen  in  this  connection,  and  the  affair  went  far  to  paralyse  the  activities 
of  the  disunited  Irish  parliamentary  party. 

Meanwhile,  Mr.  Balfour's  drastic  application  of  the  Crimes  Act  in  Ireland 
was  accompanied  not  unsuccessfully  by  further  remedial  measures,  an  ex- 
tension of  Lord  Ashbourne's  Land  Purchase  Act,  the  reclamation  of  waste 
lands,  and  the  development  of  light  railways.  By  189 1  the  Government 
found  itself  in  a  position  not  only  to  introduce  still  another  Land  Purchase 
Act,  but  at  the  same  time  to  suspend  the  Crimes  Act  over  almost  the  whole 
country.  In  the  next  year,  however,  a  general  election  gave  the  Gladstonian 
Liberals  in  conjunction  with  eighty  Irish  Nationalists  a  majority  of  forty  in 
the  House  of  Commons  ;  the  defeat  of  the  Government  was  followed  by 
Lord  Salisbury's  resignation,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  formed  his  last  adminis- 
tration. 

Again  the  old  leader  returned  to  the  one  object  which  he  had  now  set 
before  himself,  and  introduced  a  new  Home  Rule  Bill.  The  fundamental 
difference  between  this  bill  and  its  predecessor  was  that  the  Irish  members 
were  to  be  retained  at  Westminster,  but  with  their  numbers  reduced  to 
eighty.  The  proposal  which  it  had  first  embodied  for  limiting  the  subjects 
on  which  they  might  vote  was  subsequently  dropped.  The  bill  was  fought 
stubbornly  line  by  line,  and  was  ultimately  forced  through  the  House  of 
Commons  by  the  use  of  the  closure,  now  vehemently  denounced  by  its 
original  authors.  But  the  House  of  Lords  declined  to  recognise  that  the 
authority  by  which  the  bill  had  been  carried  was  that  of  the  nation.  They 
rejected  the  bill.  Very  shortly  afterwards  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  was  now 
eighty-four  years  of  age,  retired,  and  was  succeeded  in  the  leadership  by 
Lord  Rosebery.  When,  in  1895,  the  Government  resigned,  when  defeated 
by  a  snap  vote  on  a  side  issue,  the  electorate  at  the  general  election  which 
immediately  followed  emphatically  endorsed  the  action  of  the  House  of 
Lords  by  returning  the  combined  Conservatives  and  Liberal  Unionists  with 
a  majority  exceeding  one  hundred  and  fifty.  Not  for  seventeen  years  was 
another  Home  Rule  Bill  to  be  introduced  in  parliament. 


LORD    SALISBURY 


925 


II 


LORD   SALISBURY  AND   THE   UNIONISTS 

Though  Irish  affairs  were  exceedingly  prominent  during  the  ten  years 
which  followed  the  last  extension  of  the  franchise,  they  did  not  occupy 
public  attention  exclusively. 
Although  the  Liberal  Unionists 
refused  to  take  direct  part  in 
the  administration  after  the  fall 
of  the  first  Gladstone  ministry 
the  Salisbury  Government  was 
dependent  upon  their  support. 
Few  as  they  were  a  very  large 
proportion  of  them  were  men 
of  ability  and  weight,  respected 
on  both  sides  of  the  House, 
though  the  most  brilliant  of 
their  number  was  more  feared 
than  respected  by  his  political 
opponents.  Some  consider- 
able time  elapsed  before  hopes 
of  a  reconciliation  between 
Mr.  Chamberlain  and  his 
former  colleagues  were  en- 
tirely given  up,  and  a  reconcilia- 
tion would  have  jeopardised 
the  ministerial  majority.  Thus 
the  Liberal  Unionists  held  a 
strong  position,  and  the  Con- 
servatives,    willingly     or     un- 


Lord  Salisbur}'. 
[From  a  photograph  l)y  Russell  &  Sons.] 


willingly,  found  it  necessary  to 
defer  largely  to   their  wishes. 

The  position  became  perhaps  more  marked  when  Lord  Salisbury's  brilliant 
but  erratic  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  Lord  Randolph  Churchill,  resigned 
at  the  end  of  1886.  Lord  Randolph  was  the  champion  of  what  was  called 
Tory  democracy,  the  doctrine  that  it  was  the  business  of  the  Conservatives 
to  carry  out  democratic  measures.  He  resigned  in  order  to  force  upon 
his  colleagues  economies  which  they  were  not  inclined  to  sanction^ 
believing  himself  to  be  indispensable  to  the  Cabinet,  since  there  was  no 
member  of  the  Conservative  party  in  the  House  of  Commons  to  whom  the 
olTice  which  he  held  could  be  assigned  with  confidence.  In  this  crisis  the 
Liberal  Unionists  came  to  the  rescue  of  the  Government ;   Lord  Randolph 


926  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

had  *<  forgotten  Goschen,"  who,  with  the  assent  of  his  own  party,  accepted 
the  vacant  office,  and  thereby  sealed  the  adherence  of  the  Whig  section  to 
the  Government.  Mr.  Chamberlain's  section,  however,  was  to  a  consider- 
able extent  in  sympathy  with  Lord  Randolph  ;  his  support  of  the  Govern- 
ment became  for  the  moment  more  dubious,  and  the  efforts  for  a  Liberal 
reconciliation  were  renewed.  They  failed  completely,  since  the  diver- 
gencies were  such  as  could  not  be  bridged  over,  and  Mr.  Chamberlain 
ultimately  developed  into  the  most  uncompromisingly  hostile  of  Mr. 
Gladstone's  opponents.  But  the  necessity  for  conciliating  him  until  the 
later  stage  of  actual  coalition  between  Conservatives  and  Liberal  Unionists 
was  a  constant  factor  in  the  Conservative  legislation. 

This  influence  made  itself  felt  not  only  in  the  Irish  Land  Bills.  In 
1888  the  ministers  brought  in  a  Local  Government  Bill,  which  caused  Mr. 
Ritchie,  the  minister  in  charge  of  it,  to  be  dubbed  "  Ritchie  the  Radical." 
Hitherto  local  administration  had  been  very  largely  in  the  hands  of  the 
local  justices.  The  bill  established  elected  county  councils  on  the  same 
basis  as  the  elective  corporations  which  controlled  local  affairs  in  the 
boroughs,  the  elected  councils  themselves  electing  a  number  of  coadjutors 
known  as  aldermen.  The  large  areas  were  further  divided  up  into  districts 
with  an  elective  district  council.  Boroughs  with  over  fifty  thousand 
inhabitants  were  constituted  as  separate  counties,  while  separate  arrange- 
ments were  made  for  the  metropolis. 

The  Local  Government  Bill  of  1888  and  the  Free  Education  Act  of 
1891  were  the  two  leading  pieces  of  domestic  legislation  for  which  the 
Salisbury  Government  was  responsible.  Mr.  Forster's  Act  of  1870  had 
made  education  compulsory  ;  that  it  should  be  made  free  was  the 
apparently  inevitable  corollary.  The  proposal,  introduced  by  a  Con- 
servative Government,  found  comparatively  little  opposition ;  although 
there  were  not  wanting  some  stout-hearted  individualists  who  denounced 
the  measure  as  destructive  of  the  sense  of  parental  responsibility,  declaring 
that  free  meals  would  follow  free  education,  and  that  in  the  long  run  the 
state  would  find  itself  called  upon  to  make  entire  provision  for  the  rising 
generation.  But  when  a  measure  seems  generally  desirable  to  both  parties 
in  the  state  it  is  vain  to  call  it  Socialistic  ;  that  term  in  ordinary  parlance 
is  merely  a  phrase  expressing  disapprobation,  which  is  somewhat  unfor- 
tunate for  persons  who  prefer  the  pursuit  of  accuracy  in  political  termin- 
ology. Free  education  was  in  fact  a  measure  typical  of  the  "  Socialism  " 
which  is  based  upon  no  abstract  theory,  but  calls  for  state  intervention  and 
state  action  where  immediate  beneficial  results  are  anticipated  from  action  in 
the  particular  case. 

The  Conservatives  then  gave  free  education,  and  therein  they  had  the 
support  of  the  Opposition.  Neither  party  perhaps  realised  at  the  time  one 
unfortunate  but  inevitable  result.  Hitherto  the  voluntary  schools  had  com- 
peted on  comparatively  even  terms  with  the  board  schools.  But  if  they 
were  to  provide  free  education  they  must  have  equivalent  support  from  the 


LORD    SALISBURY  927 

state.  How  far  was  the  provision  of  additional  support  from  the  state 
compatible  with  the  preservation  of  their  denominational  atmosphere  ? 
This  question  was  presently  to  become  acute,  and  the  controversies  on  the 
subject  embittered  religious  antagonisms,  carried  them  into  party  warfare, 
and  gave  sectarian  disputes  a  prominence  painfully  injurious  to  the 
efficiency  of  the  educational  system. 

Before  the  close  of  the  administration  three  other  measures  were  passed 
with  the  general  approval  of  the  Opposition  as  well  as  of  the  Government. 
A  modification  of  the  Factory  Acts  extended  the  protection  of  women,  and 
raised  the  age  at  which  the  employment  of  children  was  permitted.  An 
Agricultural  Holdings  Act  enabled  county  councils  to  advance  three-fourths 
of  the  money  required  for  the  purchase  of  small  holdings,  and  a  Tithes 
Act  made  the  tithe  payable  by  the  landlord  instead  of  by  the  tenant. 
Nothing  was  thereby  affected  except  the  method  of  collecting  the  charge. 
Since  1835  the -tenant  had  paid  the  tithe,  and  had  paid  the  landlord  his 
rent  less  the  amount  of  the  tithe  ;  now  he  paid  the  landlord  the  full  rent 
and  the  landlord  paid  the  tithe.  But  the  Nonconformist  tenant  was  relieved 
from  the  feeling  that  he  was  being  compelled  personally  to  contribute  to 
the  maintenance  of  a  Church  to  which  he  did  not  belong,  a  fiction  which 
had  been  kept  in  being  by  the  old  method. 

When  Mr.  Gladstone  formed  his  last  administration,  the  new  Home 
Rule  Bill  held  the  stage  until  its  rejection  by  the  House  of  Lords.  The 
Government,  however,  declined  to  admit  the  right  of  the  House  of  Lords 
to  dictate  a  dissolution  of  parliament.  They  proceeded  with  the  process 
which  was  called  ''filling  up  the  cup,"  introducing  measures  which  the 
Lords  amended  past  recognition.  An  Employers'  Liability  Bill  made  em- 
ployers in  certain  cases  responsible  for  injuries  suffered  by  their  employees, 
and  abolished  the  doctrine  of  *'  common  employment."  The  meaning  of  this 
doctrine  was  that  the  employer  was  not  responsible  for  injuries  suffered  by 
a  workman  in  consequence  of  the  negligence  of  a  fellow-employee.  But 
the  bill  was  made  nugatory  by  an  amendment  of  the  Peers,  which  permitted 
contracting  out ;  consequently  it  was  withdrawn.  A  new  Local  Govern- 
ment Bill  establishing  parish  councils  was  carried,  though  at  the  cost  of 
accepting  two  amendments  which  appear  to  have  convinced  Mr.  Gladstone 
that  the  time  was  close  at  hand  when  the  constitutional  position  of  the 
House  of  Lords  would  become  a  question  too  critical  to  be  deferred.  At 
the  age  of  eighty-four,  with  eyesight  and  hearing  impaired,  he  felt  himself 
no  longer  fitted  to  enter  upon  so  grave  a  contest.  The  aged  statesman 
resigned,  and  the  leadership  of  the  Liberal  party  passed  to  Lord  Rosebery. 

The  new  administration  which  endured  for  fifteen  months,  ending  in 
June  1895,  was  signalised  by  only  one  domestic  measure  of  first-rate  im. 
portance.  This  was  Sir  William  Harcourt's  budget,  which  provided  a 
lucrative  source  of  revenue  by  the  new  imposts  called  the  ''  Death  Duties," 
whereby  the  state  appropriated  a  substantial  proportion  of  property  left  on 
decease.     The  principle  was  old  enough,  since  in  feudal  times  the  heir  had 


928  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

to  pay  fees  to  his  feudal  superior  on  entering  upon  his  inheritance  ;  but  it 
remained  for  Sir  WiUiam  Harcourt  to  apply  it  so  as  to  add  materially  to 
the  revenue,  though  the  abstract  justice  of  doing  so  had  long  been  main- 
tained by  theorists.  This  was  the  one  measure  in  which  the  Government 
got  its  own  way,  since  the  Lords  considered  themselves  warranted  in  re- 
fusing to  recognise  the  composite  majority  in  the  Commons  as  representing 
the  national  will.  The  futility  of  the  situation  had  become  obvious  ;  and 
when  Ministers  were  defeated  on  a  snap  vote  concerning  the  supplies  of 
ammunition,  they  took  the  opportunity  of  resigning.  The  Opposition  took 
office,  at  once  appealed  to  the  country,  and  were  returned  to  power  with 
an  overwhelming  majority,  which  was  maintained  without  being  greatly 
impaired  for  ten  years. 

In  India  the  close  of  1895  had  witnessed  a  further  extension  of  dominion, 
though  not  within  the  limits  of  the  peninsula,  by  the  final  annexation  of  Burmah 
in  consequence  of  the  persistently  impracticable  attitude  of  the  Burmese 
government.  Mandelay  was  occupied  in  November  1885,  and  the  formal 
annexation  was  carried  out  in  the  following  year.  Relations  with  the 
Amir  of  Kabul  continued  to  be  satisfactory,  and  the  completion  of  the 
delimitation  of  the  Afghan,  Russian,  and  British  frontiers  removed  that 
question  from  the  danger  sphere.  Perhaps  the  most  important  feature  of 
the  period  now  under  review  was  the  appearance  and  development  within 
the  British  dominion  of  the  body  which  named  itself  the  Indian  National 
Congress.  Representing  almost  exclusively  one  particular  class,  it  claimed 
to  represent  the  voice  of  India.  The  persistent  view  of  the  Indian  Govern- 
ment that  the  National  Congress  is  not  representative  of  real  native  opinion 
is  difficult  of  acceptance  in  the  British  Isles,  because  it  is  the  only  articulate 
voice  that  conies  from  the  natives  of  India  ;  and  the  action  of  Government 
has  been  considerably  complicated  in  consequence. 

Lord  Beaconsfield's  attitude  of  emphatic  self-assertion  on  the  part  of 
the  British  Empire  was  not  maintained  by  Lord  Salisbury  in  his  relations 
with  foreign  Powers.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  his  guiding  principle  to 
avoid  participation  in  the  complications  of  European  continental  politics 
and  to  attend  strictly  to  British  interests.  His  ascendency  over  his  own 
party  was  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  adopt  a  policy  of  "graceful  conces- 
sions "  which  would  have  been  extremely  difficult  for  a  Liberal  Govern- 
ment. Lord  Salisbury  stood  without  a  rival  in  his  knowledge  of  foreign 
affairs,  and  it  was  not  easy  to  charge  the  diplomatist  who  had  shared  with 
Lord  Beaconsfield  the  honours  of  the  Berlin  Treaty  with  readiness  to  pay 
an  excessive  price  for  peace.  In  fact  at  this  period  the  European  power 
whose  interests  were  most  difficult  to  reconcile  with  our  own  was  France, 
and  the  source  of  friction  lay  in  Egypt,  from  which  France  iiad  been 
ousted  by  the  events  leading  up  to  the  British  occupation.  The  preser- 
vation of  a  free  hand  in  the  control  of  Egyptian  affairs  was  of  first-rate 
importance,  and  Lord  Salisbury  was  denounced  chiefly  by  the  organs  of 
his   own    party    for    yielding    to   the    demands    both    of    France    and    of 


LORD    SALISBURY  929 

Germany  in  other  regions,  virtually  as  the  price  for  the  free  hand  in 
Egypt. 

In  most  cases  there  was  justification  for  the  concessions.  The  European 
Powers  had  awakened  to  the  fact  that  Africa  was  the  only  quarter  of  the 
globe  which  was  not  under  the  dominion  of  highly  organised  states,  and  a 
scramble  had  set  in  for  the  partition  of  the  Dark  Continent.  The  partition 
into  spheres  of  influence  was  carried  out  between  1885  and  1892,  and  it 
was  freely  declared  that  Lord  Salisbury  surrendered  to  Germany  much 
which  ought  to  have  been  claimed  for  the  British  Empire.  In  the  view, 
however,  of  German  expansionists,  Germany  came  very  badly  out  of  the 
bargaining.  The  only  plausible  ground  for  condemning  the  African  bargain 
from  the  British  point  of  view  was  the  failure  to  obtain  complete  territorial 
continuity  from  North  to  South  of  the  Continent.  Canada,  however,  and 
Newfoundland,  had  warrant  for  declaring  that  their  interests  were  neglected 
by  the  Imperial  Government  in  the  settlement  with  France  of  the  long- 
standing disputes  as  the  Newfoundland  Fishery  rights.  Canada  also  was 
ill-pleased  over  another  Fisheries  Treaty  with  the  United  States.  The 
treaty,  however,  collapsed,  because  both  the  great  American  parties  sought 
popularity  by  denouncing  it  in  view  of  an  approaching  presidential  election. 
More  satisfactory  was  the  settlement  through  arbitration  of  a  seal-fishery 
quarrel  with  the  United  States,  which  had  twenty  years  before  acquired 
Alaska  from  Russia,  and  now  sought  to  impose  limitations  against  which 
they  had  protested  vigorously  at  an  earlier  stage ;  the  arbitration  was 
decisively  in  favour  of  the  British  claims,  although  concessions  were  made 
outside  the  award  of  the  arbitrators,  with  the  intention  only  of  preventing 
practices  which  threatened  to  exterminate  the  seals  altogether. 

But  while  specific  questions  were  creating  some  degree  of  friction 
between  mother  country  and  colonies,  the  conception  of  imperial  unity  had 
been  gaining  ground  considerably,  and  an  epoch  was  marked  in  the  rela- 
tions of  the  different  parts  of  the  Empire  v.hen  the  celebration  of  Queen 
Victoria's  Jubilee  in  1887  gave  occasion  for  a  conference  in  London  for  the 
first  time  between  the  chiefs  of  the  imperial  government  and  representa- 
tives of  the  colonies.  There  was  no  premature  attempt  to  bring  forward 
schemes  of  federation,  or  indeed  to  formulate  schemes  at  all  ;  but  an 
immense  impulse  was  given  to  the  conception  of  imperial  unity  by  the 
mere  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  whole  Empire  has  common  interests 
and  common  burdens  in  which  the  whole  Empire  should  be  consulted,  and 
in  which  the  whole  Empire  should  share.  Between  1885  and  1895  events 
were  taking  place  in  one  portion  of  that  Empire  which  were  about  to  issue 
in  startling  developments.  During  the  decade  Ireland  had  been  the 
absorbing  topic  ;  in  the  next  period  the  primary  interest  was  to  be  trans- 
ferred to  South  Africa. 


3  N 


93^ 


THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 


III 


THE   STORM   CLOUD   IN   SOUTH  AFRICA 


When  Lord  Salisbury  took  office  for  the  second  time  the  Liberal 
Unionists  no  longer  declined  a  coalition.  They  were  powerfully  re- 
presented in  the  new 
Cabinet.  Lord  Harting- 
ton  had  some  time  pre- 
viously succeeded  to  the 
dukedom  of  Devonshire, 
and  the  leadership  of  the 
party  in  the  Commons 
had  passed  to  Mr. 
Chamberlain,  whose 
former  militant  Radical- 
ism was  being  rapidly 
^^=^  merged  into  an  equally 
militant  Imperialism, 
which  caused  his  ap- 
pointment to  the  Colonial 
Office  to  be  hailed  with 
satisfaction  by  all  those 
who  were  inclined  to 
condemn  the  indifferen- 
tism  of  colonial  policy 
in  the  past.  The  now 
unqualified  alliance  of 
Lord  Salisbury  and  the 
Duke  of  Devonshire  in 
the  Lords  and  Mr.  Bal- 
four and  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain in  the  Commons  formed  an  exceedingly  powerful  combination,  which 
was  the  more  effective  as  there  were  dissensions  among  the  Liberal 
leaders  and  Mr.  Gladstone  had  now  completely  withdrawn  from  parlia- 
ment. 

Colonial  affairs  were  no  longer  to  permit  of  indifferentism.  Before  the 
ministers  met  parliament  in  January  1896  came  news  from  South  Africa 
that  Dr.  Jameson  had  entered  the  Transvaal  at  the  head  of  an  armed  force, 
and  that  after  a  short  engagement  he  and  all  his  men  had  become  the 
prisoners  of  the  Boer  government.  Since  the  retrocession  in  1881  the 
British  public  had  very  nearly  forgotten  South  Africa  ;  but  this  unexpected 
incident,  coupled  with  an  impassioned  war  song  from  the  pen  of  the  poet 


Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain. 
[From  a  drawing  by  W.  Hodgson,  1895.] 


LORD   SALISBURY  931 

laureate,  startled  it  into  a  renewed  interest  which  was  rapidly  intensified  as 
the  situation  developed. 

The  retrocession  had  been  followed  by  the  London  Convention  in  1884, 
which,  while  unfortunately  indefinite  on  certain  points,  expressly  precluded 
the  Transvaal  government  from  forming  relations  of  its  own  with  any 
foreign  Powers,  or  from  territorial  expansion.  In  the  old  days  any  deter- 
mined disposition  on  the  part  of  the  Boers  to  extend  their  borders  in  the 
interior  would  have  probably  been  allowed  entirely  free  play.  But  a  new 
spirit  was  abroad,  incarnate  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Cecil  Rhodes,  an  English- 
man who  had  gone  to  South  Africa  in  search  of  health  and  remained  there 
in  pursuit  of  empire.  Mr.  Rhodes  dreamed  of  a  vast  African  dominion 
under  the  British  flag  stretching  from  the  Cape  to  Cairo.  His  energy 
created  a  chartered  company  which  acquired  territorial  rights,  overthrew 
the  Matabele  king  Lobengula,  and  cut  off  the  Boer  state  from  all  expansion 
northwards.  When  the  republic  endeavoured  to  find  an  outlet  to  the  sea, 
its  enterprise  was  again  checked,  when  the  intervening  territory  was  brought 
under  direct  British  administration. 

Now  the  Transvaal  Republic  might,  like  the  Orange  Free  State,  have 
simply  remained  as  a  small  shut-in  self-governing  state  without  creating 
any  disturbance.  But  the  Transvaalers  were  the  sons  of  the  stalwarts  who 
fifty  years  before  had  sought  to  escape  from  all  British  control.  They 
looked  upon  South  Africa  as  a  Dutch  not  a  British  inheritance  ;  they 
resented  the  limitations  imposed  on  them  by  the  British,  and  their  experi- 
ence had  not  taught  them  any  respect  for  the  British  Empire.  Their 
president,  Paul  Kruger,  had  himself  gone  on  the  great  trek  in  his  boyhood. 
It  is  not  possible  to  doubt  that  President  Kruger  dreamed  his  own  dreams 
of  a  United  South  Africa,  but  a  South  Africa  under  a  Dutch  flag,  not 
under  the  Union  Jack ;  though  how  far  those  dreams  were  shared  by 
others  is  not  equally  clear.  But  whatever  his  ambitions  outside  the 
Transvaal,  within  the  borders  of  the  repubHc  he  intended  to  go  his 
own  way. 

In  1885,  however,  the  discovery  was  made  of  valuable  goldfields  within 
the  territories  of  the  republic  ;  aliens,  Uitlanders  as  they  were  called,  for 
the  most  part  British  subjects,  whatever  their  actual  nationality  might  be, 
poured  into  the  Transvaal  to  exploit  the  mines.  The  Boer  government 
had  no  objection  to  the  exploitation  of  the  mines  on  its  own  terms,  which 
did  not  include  the  concession  of  citizenship  to  the  Uitlanders  till  after  a 
very  prolonged  residence.  All  the  burdens  of  citizenship  were  laid  on  the 
Uitlanders  without  its  privileges.  The  Uitlanders  began  to  feel  that  they 
had  no  security  for  justice,  and  to  demand  approximately  the  opportunities 
for  acquiring  citizenship  in  the  Transvaal  which  were  readily  accorded  to 
the  Transvaaler  who  migrated  into  British  territory.  The  objection  of 
the  Boer  to  admitting  the  Uitlander  to  political  power  was  natural  for 
obvious  reasons.  The  Boer  population  was  small ;  if  residence  there  was 
made  too  attractive  to  the  aliens  they  would  soon  outnumber  the  legitimate 


932  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

inhabitants  and,  possessing  full  political  privileges,  would  come  to  control 
the  government.  But  there  was  an  obvious  retort  also,  that  the  Uitlanders' 
demand  for  political  rights  would  cease  to  be  active  if  in  other  respects  they 
received  fair  play.  The  strength  of  the  Uitlanders'  case  lay  in  the  unjust 
burdens  which  were  imposed  on  them. 

Superficially,  then,  the  attitude  of  the  two  sides  may  be  stated  thus. 
The  Uitlanders  complained  that  they  were  admitted  to  the  Transvaal  only 
under  grossly  oppressive  conditions,  which  could  be  remedied  only  by  the 
ready  concession  of  full  citizenship.  The  Boers  replied  that  the  Uitlanders 
came  unasked,  and  if  they  disliked  the  conditions  on  which  they  were 
admitted  they  might  stay  away  ;  to  which  the  only  possible  answer  was 
that  the  conditions  imposed  were  such  as  no  civilised  state  is  warranted  in 
imposing  upon  civilised  immi^'rants.  But  behind  the  direct  issue  between 
Boers  and  Uitlanders  events  demonstrated  that  other  motives  were  at  work. 
President  Kruger  was  aiming  at  consolidating  a  Boer  state  which  should 
take  the  lead  in  establishing  a  Dutch  ascendency  in  South  Africa,  while  Mr. 
Rhodes  and  his  associates  were  planning  to  utilise  the  trouble  in  the 
Transvaal  in  order  to  establish  a  British  ascendency  within  the  Transvaal 
itself.  The  rash  haste  of  Dr.  Jameson,  the  administrator  of  Mashonaland 
on  the  western  border  of  the  Transvaal,  brought  on  a  crisis  prematurely 
and,  in  the  historic  phrase  of  Mr.  Rhodes,  *'  upset  the  applecart."  Misled 
into  the  belief  that  the  Uitlanders  were  ready  to  rise  in  arms,  Dr.  Jameson 
made  his  dash  on  Johannesburg.  The  Uitlanders  were  not  ready  to  rise, 
the  invaders  were  enveloped  by  a  superior  force  of  Boers,  and  the  Jameson 
Raid  ended  in  a  complete  fiasco. 

The  first  news  of  the  raid  excited  enthusiasm  in  England,  for  there 
was  a  general  belief  that  the  raiders  had  nobly  taken  their  lives  in  their 
hands  and  rushed  upon  their  fate  in  the  desperate  hope  of  rescuing  their 
countrymen  and  countrywomen  in  Johannesburg  from  the  vindictive 
brutality  of  the  Boers.  The  excitement  was  increased  by  the  publication 
of  a  telegram  of  congratulation  from  the  German  Kaiser  to  the  President  of 
the  Transvaal.  But  the  gradual  realisation  of  the  character  of  the  blunder 
which  had  been  committed  created  in  place  of  the  first  sentiment  a  sense  of 
indignant  impotence.  A  very  strong  case  for  intervention  had  been  given 
away  by  sheer  recklessness,  and  Mr.  Kruger  took  full  advantage  of  the 
situation.  The  raid  was  a  piece  of  absolutely  lawless  aggression  on  the  part 
of  a  responsible  British  official,  for  which  it  was  quite  impossible  to  produce 
reasonable  justification.  The  Uitlanders'  lives  had  not  been  in  danger  ; 
the  raid  had  not  been  the  outcome  of  a  generous  impulse  ;  all  the  principles 
of  international  law  would  have  warranted  the  sternest  treatment  of  all  the 
participators.  But  the  politic  president  handed  over  the  raiders  to  be  tried 
by  the  British,  and  imposed  no  excessive  penalties  upon  the  Uitlanders 
who  were  concerned.  He  had  been  gratuitously  furnished  with  a  complete 
answer  to  all  appeals,  protests,  or  demands  ;  and  his  position  was  still 
further  strengthened  when  a  public  enquiry  was  held  in  England,  in  which 


LORD    SALISBURY  933 

it  appeared  impossible  to  question  that  the  chiefs  of  both  poUtical  parties 
connived  at  the  suppression  of  any  really  searching  investigation.  If  the 
British  pubHc  felt  dissatisfied,  the  Boers  only  saw  a  more  convincing  proof 
that  the  raid  had  been  the  abortive  outcome  of  a  great  conspiracy  against 
their  liberties,  with  the  British  Government  at  the  back  of  it.  That  con- 
viction, it  may  be  remarked,  was  generally  shared  on  the  European 
Continent. 

On  the  face  of  it,  if  Mr.  Kruger  wanted  nothing  more  than  to  secure 
himself  against  British  interference  in  the  administration  of  the  Transvaal, 
it  merely  remained  for  him  to  make  some  small  concessions  to  the 
Uitlanders  as  a  further  demonstration  of  magnanimity.  Instead  of  this, 
however,  he  apparently  resolved  to  use  the  raid  as  a  lever  for  obtaining 
complete  independence.  In  defiance  of  the  Convention,  he  despatched 
missions  to  Europe  and  made  treaties  with  Portugal,  Holland,  and  the 
Orange  Free  State.  By  so  doing  he  lost  the  advantage  he  had  hitherto 
possessed  of  claiming  that  the  British  had,  and  he  had  not,  overstepped 
the  limitations  imposed  upon  them  respectively  by  recognised  law.  His 
treatment  of  the  Uitlanders  became  more  high-handed  than  ever.  But 
even  the  raid  could  not  be  reckoned  as  a  permanent  counterpoise  to  all 
British  and  Uitlander  grounds  of  complaint.  Feeling,  moreover,  was 
running  high  in  South  Africa  between  the  races,  many  of  the  Dutch  in 
Cape  Colony  having  become  much  more  sympathetic  towards  the  Transvaal 
government  than  they  had  been  at  an  earlier  stage.  There  was,  therefore, 
very  general  satisfaction  when  the  British  Government  despatched  to  South 
Africa  a  new  High  Commissioner,  Sir  Alfred  Milner,  who  bore  the  universal 
reputation  of  an  experienced  and  exceptionally  capable  administrator,  clear- 
headed, liberal-minded,  sympathetic,  and  self-reliant. 

Sir  Alfred  set  about  his  task  of  investigation  without  haste  and  without 
prejudice.  Nevertheless,  it  took  him  no  very  long  time  to  form  certain 
definite  conclusions.  The  grievances  of  the  Uitlanders  were  intolerable, 
and  the  only  remedy  for  them  was  political  enfranchisement.  The  Boer 
government  was  arbitrary,  oppressive,  and  corrupt.  There  was  something 
in  the  nature  of  a  conspiracy  to  establish  a  Dutch  ascendency.  It  was 
time  for  the  British  Government  to  assert  itself  and  to  insist  upon  reforms. 
Any  hesitation  would  only  be  attributed  to  vv^eakness.  If  a  firm  front  were 
shown  it  was  not  likely  that  the  Boers  would  resort  to  arms  ;  if  they  did, 
they  would  very  promptly  be  taught  the  futility  of  resistance. 

These  views  were  adopted  by  the  home  Government  in  spite  of  urgent 
warnings  from  the  principal  military  authority  at  the  Cape,  Sir  William 
Butler,  that  immense  forces  would  be  required  to  make  compulsion  effective. 
Sir  William  had  on  other  occasions  advocated  unpopular  views,  and  bore 
in  official  circles  the  reputation  which  can  only  be  expressed  by  the  term 
"crank,"  and  his  advice  was  ignored.  At  the  close  of  May  1899,  then.  Sir 
Alfred  met  President  Kruger  at  the  Conference  of  Bloemfontein,  the  capital 
of  the  Orange  Free  State.     The  negotiations  failed.     In  effect  Sir  Alfred's 


934  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

demand  was  that  Uitlanders  should  be  entitled  to  the  franchise  after  five 
years'  residence  ;  President  Kruger  was  only  prepared  to  submit  to  the 
"  Volksraad  "  a  proposal  for  enfranchisement  after  seven  years'  residence  if, 
as  a  preliminary,  the  British  gave  an  unqualified  undertaking  to  abstain  en-^ 
tirely  from  further  intervention  in  the  future. 

In  England  the  belief  was  perhaps  general  that  the  Transvaal  would 
not  fight,  and  that  if  it  did  the  Orange  Free  State  would  stand  neutral.  In 
the  Transvaal  there  was  a  general  belief  that  the  British  would  give  way 
after  one  or  two  reverses,  and  that  even  if  they  did  not  Europe  would  in- 
tervene and  compel  them  to  submit.  On  October  9th  President  Kruger 
delivered  an  ultimatum  requiring  the  immediate  withdrawal  of  the  British 
troops  which  had  been  assembled  at  points  on  the  frontier.  On  the  12th 
the  Boers  crossed  the  Natal  border  in  force  and  the  great  South  African 
War  began. 


IV 

THE   SOUTH   AFRICAN   WAR 

The  British  Government  entered  on  the  struggle  upon  the  basis  of  a 
huge  miscalculation.  There  appears  to  have  been  a  general  impression 
that  the  Boers,  on  a  liberal  estimate,  could  not  put  as  many  as  thirty 
thousand  efficient  men  in  the  field,  and  that  thirty  thousand  farmers  armed 
with  rifles  would  by  no  means  be  a  match  for  fifty  thousand  British  regulars 
armed  with  superior  artillery.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  two  republics  could 
take  the  field  with  armies  numbering  not  far  short  of  eighty  thousand  ;  and 
for  years  past  the  Transvaal  had  been  utilising  the  wealth  extracted  from 
the  gold-mines  to  accumulate  war-stores  and  to  purchase  guns  which  com- 
pletely outranged  those  of  the  British.  Their  forces  were  exceedingly 
mobile,  being  almost  entirely  mounted  infantry,  amply  provided  with 
horses  which  were  accustomed  to  the  country,  while  they  themselves  were 
consummate  horse-masters  and  dead  shots.  Moreover,  the  strategical 
advantages  enjoyed  by  the  Boers  were  immense.  Their  frontier  was  an 
elongated  semicircle  guarded  by  mountain  ranges  exceedingly  difficult  for 
regular  troops  to  penetrate  ;  while  they  themselves,  holding  the  interior 
lines,  could  with  great  rapidity  transfer  large  masses  of  troops  from  point 
to  point  of  the  frontier,  an  operation  entirely  impossible  for  the  British. 
Also  at  the  moment  chosen  for  the  declaration  of  war  the  British  regular 
troops,  of  which  the  great  bulk  were  merely  infantry,  numbered  not  much 
more  than  twenty  thousand  men  ;  and,  for  political  reasons,  two-thirds  of 
these  had  been  massed  with  complete  disregard  of  strategical  considerations 
at  Ladysmith  and  Dundee  in  the  northern  angle  ^  •  Natal.  On  the  opposite 
side  of  the  Orange  Free  State  a  strong  garrison  held  Kimbcrley,  the  centre 
of  the  diamond  mines,  and  to  the  north  of  Kimberlcy,  on  the  Transvaal 


LORD    SALISBURY 


935 


frontier,  Colonel  Baden-Powell  was  at  Mafeking  with  some  nine  hundred 
combatants  under  his  command — volunteers  and  irregulars.  Other  points 
at  the  south  were  held  by  Generals  French  and  Gatacre,  but  co-operatioin 
between  these  various  forces  was  quite  impossible. 

Though  the  Boer  commanders  showed  no  little  ability  in  the  field,  their 
conceptions  of  strategy  were  happily  of  an  elementary  character.  The 
sound  policy  for  them  would  have  been  to  leave  containing  forces  sufficient 
to  check  active  operations  from  Ladysmith  and  Kimberley,  and  to  strike  at 
once  in  force  at  the  Cape  itself,  a  policy  which,  with  the  greatly  superior 
numbers  which  they  controlled  at  the  outset,  would  have  been  entirely 
practicable.  An  invasion  of  the  Cape  would  probably  have  brought  to 
their  standard  large 
numbers  of  the  dis- 
affected Cape  Dutch, 
and  the  British  would 
in  that  case  have  had 
to  reconquer  the  Cape 
itself.  Instead  of  this, 
however,  the  Boers 
concentrated  their  en- 
ergies upon  the  sieges 
of  Ladysmith,  of  Kim- 
berley, and  of  Mafe- 
king. 

At  the  very  outset 
it  became  obvious  that  the  British  position  at  Glencoe  near  Dundee  was 
untenable.  By  October  26th  the  force  there  had  effected  its  retreat  to 
Ladysmith,  where  the  army  remained  shut  up  for  four  months.  In 
November  reinforcements  arrived  at  the  Cape  under  command  of  General 
Buller.  The  fact  that  Mr.  Rhodes  was  at  Kimberley  had  been  extremely 
useful,  because  it  had  filled  the  Boers  with  an  intense  desire  to  capture 
that  post  and  the  person  of  the  man  whom  they  regarded  as  their  arch 
enemy  ;  so  that  Kimberley  for  them  acquired  a  wholly  fictitious  import- 
ance. General  Buller  decided  that  both  Ladysmith  and  Kimberley  must 
be  relieved  ;  he  himself  undertook  the  campaign  on  the  east,  while  that  on 
the  west  was  entrusted  to  Lord  Methuen.  The  Boers  contented  themselves 
with  occupying  the  ground  beyond  the  Tugela,  blocking  the  way  to  Lady- 
smith, while  advanced  forces  were  thrown  out  from  the  neighbourhood  of 
Kimberley  to  block  the  progress  of  Lord  Methuen. 

In  the  second  week  in  December  came  a  series  of  disasters.  After  a 
sharp  struggle,  Methuen  forced  the  passage  of  the  Modder  River,  and  on  the 
night  of  the  loth  he  attempted  to  surprise  the  Boer  General  Cronje  in  the 
strongly  entrenched  position  which  he  occupied  at  Magersfontein.  The 
task  was  entrusted  to  the  Highland  Brigade.  But  the  Highlanders  advanc- 
ing in  the  dark  in  close  order,  which  in  a  night  attack  must  be  preserved 


The  Terrace  Mountain  Ranges  of  South  Africa. 


936  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

till  the  last  moment,  reached  the  enemy's  lines  before  they  knew  they  had 
done  so.  Suddenly,  without  warning,  a  storm  of  fire  belched  forth  from 
the  Boer  entrenchments  ;  in  three  minutes  six  hundred  of  the  Highlanders 
had  fallen.  They  broke,  only  to  rally  the  moment  they  reached  cover,  but 
an  advance  was  impossible.  Though  reinforcements  presently  arrived,  to 
carry  the  entrenchments  by  a  frontal  attack  was  out  of  the  question.  The 
advance  to  the  relief  of  Kimberley  was  completely  blocked. 

On  the  previous  day  General  Gatacre  in  the  south  had  attempted  to 
strike  at  a  Boer  force  which  was  at  last  invading  Cape  Colony.  His  force 
was  cut  in  two  at  Stormberg,  and  six  hundred  British  soldiers  became 
prisoners  of  war.  In  the  east  on  the  15th  Buller  attempted  the  passage  of 
the  Tugela,  and  was  repulsed  with  heavy  loss  at  Colenso.  The  whole 
offensive  movement  was  entirely  paralysed. 

The  "  black  week "  aroused  the  nation  to  the  consciousness  of  the 
immensity  of  the  task  which  it  had  undertaken,  but  with  grim  determina- 
tion it  resolved  to  carry  it  through.  The  call  to  arms  met  with  an  eager 
response  not  only  in  the  British  Isles  but  from  Canada  and  from  Australasia. 
The  veteran  Lord  Roberts,  the  hero  of  the  Afghan  War,  was  despatched  to 
take  the  supreme  command,  having  as  his  Chief  of  Staff  Lord  Kitchener, 
who  had  achieved  the  highest  reputation  by  the  reconquest  of  the  Soudan, 
of  which  the  story  will  presently  be  told. 

It  was  not  till  the  second  week  in  February  that  Lord  Roberts  was 
ready  to  put  his  new  plan  of  campaign  in  operation.  In  the  meantime 
Ladysmith  had  been  subjected  to  a  fierce  attack,  beaten  off  with  dogged 
valour.  Again  General  Buller  had  carried  a  large  force  across  the  Tugela 
to  storm  and  carry  the  Boer  position  at  Spionkop — for  it  would  seem  that 
at  the  end  of  the  day  the  Boers  believed  that  the  British  were  established 
on  the  crest,  and  were  preparing  to  beat  a  retreat.  But  so  deadly  had  the 
struggle  been  that  the  exceptionally  gallant  officer,  who  had  taken  the 
command  when  General  Woodgate  fell  mortally  wounded,  believed  that 
the  position  was  wholly  untenable  ;  and  it  was  the  British,  not  the  Boers 
who  retreated.  Yet  Ladysmith  still  held  out  with  grim  resolution,  Kimberley 
defied  its  besiegers  in  the  west,  while  the  lively  and  resourceful  defence  of 
Mafeking  gave  even  a  flavour  of  comedy  to  the  great  tragedy. 

P>om  the  moment  of  the  opening  of  Roberts'  campaign  the  tide  turned 
completely.  Buller  was  left  to  fight  his  way  to  Ladysmith,  but  except  for 
this  the  whole  of  the  now  large  force  collected  in  South  Africa  was  to  be 
engaged  in  a  sweeping  movement  of  invasion,  taking  Kimberley  by  the  way. 
While  attention  was  concentrated  on  the  advance  of  the  main  army, 
General  French,  with  a  strong  column  of  cavalry,  was  despatched  on  a  race 
by  a  more  easterly  route  to  ensure  the  envelopment  of  the  Boers  before 
Kimberley.  On  the  fourth  day  the  siege  was  raised.  The  besiegers  made 
a  dash  for  the  gap  which  the  slower  movements  of  Roberts  with  his  infantry 
force  had  not  yet  closed  up.  But  one  British  detachment  was  able  to  hang 
on  the  rear  of  the  retreating  Cronje,  while  the  cavalry  again  issuing  from 


LORD    SALISBURY  937 

Kimberley  headed  him  off  the  hne  011  which  he  was  retiring.  At 
Paardeberg  Cronje  was  trapped  after  a  furious  fight,  and  in  spite  of  the 
obstinacy  with  which  he  held  out  in  a  position  elaborately  entrenched,  his 
whole  force  was  reduced  to  surrender  nine  days  after  the  battle  of  Paarde- 
berg, on  February  27th. 

While  these  successful  operations  were  being  carried  on  in  the  western 
theatre,  Buller  had  at  last  found  a  practicable  line  of  advance.  This  time 
the  turning  movement  was  successful,  and  on  the  day  after  Cronje's  sur- 
render the  Boers  were  on  the  retreat  from  before  Ladysmith.     In  seventeen 


The  surrender  of  General  Cronje  at  Paardeberg. 
[  From  a  photograph,  by  permission  of  the  "  Graphic. "] 

days  the  entire  aspect  of  the  war  had  been  changed.  A  fortnight  later 
Lord  Roberts  was  in  Bloemfontein.  A  great  epidemic  of  typhoid  delayed 
further  operations  until  May  ist,  when  the  march  upon  Pretoria  began.  On 
May  17  Mafeking  was  relieved,  a  piece  of  intelligence  which  sent  the  entire 
population  at  home  temporarily  off  its  head.  On  June  5th  Lord  Roberts  was 
in  Pretoria. 

The  sweeping  advance  met  with  occasional  resistance,  but  the  Boers 
were  unable  to  attempt  a  pitched  battle.  Still,  however,  a  detached  force 
of  Free-Staters,  generally  commanded  by  Christian  De  Wet,  carried  on 
perpetual  raids  upon  the  British  ccmmunications  and  snapped  up  isolated 


93B  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

detachments  ;  while  the  rapidity  of  De  Wet's  movements  and  the  com- 
pleteness of  his  information  enabled  him  to  evade  pursuit.  President 
Kruger  had  himself  departed  from  Pretoria,  but  his  official  Government  and 
the  Transvaal  army  were  still  in  being.  A  severe  defeat  was  inflicted  on 
this  force  at  Diamond  Hill  on  June  i  ith,  which  may  be  regarded  as  the  last 
pitched  battle  of  the  war.  And  yet  it  was  not  till  September  that  Mr. 
Kruger  had  so  far  despaired  of  the  republic  that  he  withdrew  to  the  coast 
and  took  ship  for  Europe. 

Lord  Roberts,  with  a  somewhat  premature  optimism,  was  able  to 
announce  that  the  war  was  practically  over,  and  departed,  leaving  Lord 
Kitchener  to  complete  the  subjugation  of  the  rebels  who  still  remained  in 
arms — rebels  in  the  exceedingly  technical  sense  that  they  were  in  arms 
against  the  power  which  had  formally  proclaimed  its  sovereignty.  The 
chief  political  authority  was  still  in  the  hands  of  Sir  Alfred,  who  had  now 
become  Viscount  Milner.  At  home  Lord  Salisbury  took  the  opportunity  for 
appealing  to  the  country  by  a  dissolution,  when  the  electorate  definitely 
pronounced  that  the  work  of  settling  South  Africa  should  be  completed  by 
the  Government  which  had  entered  upon  the  war.  The  attitude  of  a 
section  of  the  Liberal  party  had  produced  an  impression  that  whatever 
might  be  the  sins  and  shortcomings  of  the  Unionists  it  would  be  dangerous 
to  entrust  the  government  to  a  party  which  was  suspected  of  an  unpatriotic 
sympathy  with  the  country's  enemies.  The  Unionist  majority  after  the 
general  election  still  stood  at  130, 

Yet  for  another  eighteen  months  the  war  remained  particularly  lively. 
The  Boer  leaders,  so  long  as  they  were  able  to  maintain  a  guerilla  warfare, 
declined  to  consider  themselves  beaten  or  to  accept  anything  short  of  that 
complete  sovereign  independence  for  which  they  had  been  fighting  from 
the  beginning.  The  brilliant  audacity  and  resourcefulness  of  several 
leaders,  and,  above  all,  of  the  ubiquitous  and  irrepressible  De  Wet,  inspired 
the  hearty  admiration  of  the  British  ;  while  the  conduct  of  many  of  the 
farm  people,  who  acted  as  combatants  or  non-combatants  according  to  the 
convenience  of  the  moment,  kept  alive  an  acute  irritation.  The  severities 
involved  were  angrily  denounced  ;  and  while  the  population  was  to  a  great 
extent  gathered  into  "  concentration  camps "  by  the  British  Government, 
and  there  maintained  and  kept  in  security,  fictitious  stories  of  British 
brutality  were  freely  circulated  and  believed  all  over  the  European 
Continent.  From  first  to  last,  however,  one  fact  had  been  conspicuous. 
While  the  press  of  nearly  all  Europe  united  in  denouncing  the  British,  the 
Powers  had  recognised  the  futility  of  any  intervention  in  a  war  which 
would  involve  fighting  not  with  British  armies  but  with  British  fleets.  The 
British  command  of  the  sea  was  so  decisive  that  the  Powers,  whatever 
their  inclinations  might  be,  had  no  choice  but  to  leave  the  Boer  States  to 
take  care  of  themselves. 

Meanwhile  Lord  Kitchener,  with  imperturbable  persistency,  drew  the 
lines  of  his  block-houses  across  the  country  until  he  had  at  last  formed  an 


LORD    SALISBURY  939 

impenetrable  net,  pressing  ever  closer  and  closer  upon  the  Boers,  who 
still  fought  on  until  at  last  that  indomitable  people  recognised  that  exter- 
mination was  the  only  alternative  to  submission.  In  March  1902  they 
opened  negotiations,  which  were  conducted  on  behalf  of  the  British  with 
unfailing  tact  and  firmness  by  Lord  Kitchener.  On  May  31st  the  provisional 
government  signed  the  treaty  which  terminated  the  war.  The  republics 
were  incorporated  in  the  British  Empire,  in  the  first  instance  as  Crown 
colonies,  but  with  the  promise  or  at  least  the  hope  that  before  long  they 
might  be  placed  in  the  same  position  as  the  colonies  which  enjoyed 
responsible  government.  Great  Britain  provided  them  with  ^3,000,000  in 
order  to  establish  them  on  a  working  financial  basis  ;  and  the  use  of  the 
Dutch  language  was  to  be  permitted  in  the  schools  and  law  courts. 
Broadly  speaking,  it  was  resolved  that  the  conquered  states  shouM  not  be 
treated  as  subject  nationalities  which  must  be  kept  in  subjection  with  a 
strong  hand ;  the  way  was  prepared  instead  for  accepting  them  as  free  and 
loyal  denizens  of  the  British  Empire. 


THE   SECOND   SALISBURY  ADMINISTRATION 

The  return  of  the  Unionists  to  power  in  1895  enticed  one  of  the  rising 
statesmen  of  that  party  to  prophesy  that  there  would  be  no  more  troubles 
with  foreign  Powers,  which  only  took  advantage  of  the  weakness  of  Liberal 
Governments.  The  prophecy  was  hardly  uttered  before  it  was  falsified. 
A  dispute  was  already  in  progress  with  France  in  regard  to  Siam  ;  and 
it  was  settled  peacefully  at  the  beginning  of  1896  only  because  Lord 
Salisbury  judged  that  the  subject  in  dispute  was  not  worth  a  war.  In 
fact  his  diplomacy  was  habitually  open  precisely  to  the  charge  levelled 
against  Liberals  of  making  concessions  in  preference  to  insisting  upon 
every  claim  for  which  a  plausible  justification  could  be  brought  forward. 
The  plain  fact  was  that  the  responsible  leaders  of  both  parties  usually  took 
very  much  the  same  view  as  to  the  general  principles  of  action  in  foreign 
affairs.  British  interests  were  to  be  safeguarded,  but  an  aggressive  tone 
was  to  be  avoided,  and  practical  considerations  were  not  to  be  over-ridden 
by  abstract  objections  to  the  methods  which  other  nations  chose  to  adopt, 
or  by  a  desire  to  check  the  natural  craving  for  expansion  on  the  part 
of  other  peoples  than  the  British.  The  rule  of  avoiding  isolated  interven- 
tion was  to  be  strictly  observed.  And  these  principles  were  not  always 
to  the  taste  of  the  advanced  members  either  of  the  one  party  which  was 
unduly  hasty  in  discovering  that  British  interests  were  involved,  or  of  the 
other  which  was  too  eager  that  Britain  should  constitute  herself  not  only 
the  advocate  but  the  fighting  champion  of  oppressed  populations  and 
nationalities. 


940  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

Thus  in  1896  a  grave  situation  was  created  by  the  threatening  language 
of  the  United  States,  which  in  effect  claimed  the  right  to  dictate  the 
settlement  of  a  boundary  dispute  between  Britain  and  Venezuela  ;  and 
extremists  were  far  from  being  pleased  when  the  case  was  submitted 
to  arbitration.  Lord  Salisbury's  justitication  was  complete,  when  after 
long  delays  the  award  of  the  arbitrators  confirmed  the  British  view  in 
practically  every  detail.  Again  in  1896  there  was  a  great  outburst  of 
popular  indignation  over  ugly  stories  of  massacres  by  the  Turks  in  Armenia. 
In  spite  of  the  agitation,  however,  Lord  Salisbury  refused  an  isolated  inter- 
vention, wherein  he  was  warmly  supported  by  Lord  Rosebery,  who,  partly 
in  consequence  of  the  line  adopted  by  a  large  number  of  Liberals,  at  this 
time  resigned  the  leadership  of  the  Liberal  party  and  assumed  the  role 
of  a  candid  and  independent  critic.  But  if  Lord  Salisbury  declined  to 
send  armies  to  Armenia,  Britain  could  take  a  definite  lead  in  another  case, 
in  virtue  of  her  position  as  the  premier  naval  power.  In  effect  it  was 
British  interposition  which  saved  Greece  from  paying  the  full  penalty  for 
challenging  Turkey  to  a  war  in  which  she  w^as  very  decisively  worsted, 
and  compelled  the  Turks  to  concede  the  establishment  of  an  autonomous 
government  in  Crete  with  a  Greek  prince  at  the  head  of  it  in  1897.  On 
the  other  hand,  British  diplomacy  appeared  to  come  off  badly  when  the 
victory  of  Japan  in  a  struggle  with  China  led  to  a  scramble  among  the 
European  Powers  for  Chinese  territory,  and  Russia  appropriated  some 
of  the  fruits  of  the  war  to  which  the  Japanese  seemed  legitimately  entitled. 
Lord  Salisbury,  in  fact,  did  not  want  Chinese  territory,  though  he  desired 
and  obtained  from  the  Powers  concerned  the  open  door  for  commerce. 
Japan  was  to  prove  later  that  she  was  very  well  able  to  take  care  of  her 
own  interests. 

Of  much  more  importance  than  the  remote  East  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Government  was  the  position  of  affairs  of  Egypt.  Since  1885  the 
Egyptian  government  had  left  the  Sudan  to  itself.  The  Mahdi  died  in 
that  year,  to  be  succeeded  by  the  Khalifa  Abdullah,  who  continued  to 
organise  a  sort  of  empire  among  the  wild  Sudanese.  Now  it  was  still  in 
theory  the  desire  of  the  British  Government  to  withdraw  from  Egypt,  but 
it  was  entirely  obvious  that  a  British  withdrawal  would  leave  Egypt  a 
prey  to  the  Khalifa.  In  1896  it  was  resolved  that  in  order  to  curb  the 
dervishes,  as  the  Khalifa's  followers  were  called,  it  was  necessary  to  push 
the  Egyptian  frontier  to  the  south,  up  the  Nile  to  Dongola.  The  jealousy 
of  Russia  and  France  caused  those  Powers  to  exercise  their  legal  rights 
in  restraining  the  Egyptian  government  from  providing  funds  for  a 
campaign.  The  money  was  therefore  advanced  by  the  British  Government, 
and  before  the  end  of  the  year  Dongola  was  occupied  without  serious 
resistance.  But  the  advance  had  only  made  it  clear  that  the  time 
had  really  arrived  for  the  reconquest  of  the  Sudan.  With  systematic 
precision  Sir  Herbert  Kitchener  prepared  his  plans  not  merely  for  a 
campaign  of  victories,  but  for  an  effective  strategic  occupation.      In  1898 


LORD    SALISBURY 


941 


the  regular  advance  began,  and  in  September  the  Khalifa's  forces  were 
completely  shattered  at  the  decisive  battle  of  Omdurman.  Abdullah,  how- 
ever, escaped,  and  it  was  not  till  the  end  of  1899  that  the  last  resistance  of 
the  dervishes  was  finally  crushed. 

Omdurman  itself  was  followed  by  an  incident  which  threatened  to  bring 
about  a  war  with  France.  A  French  expedition,  commanded  by  Major 
Marchand,  had  started  some  two  years  before  from  the  French  Sudan.  In 
the  summer  of  1898  the  intrepid  explorer  and  his  party  penetrated  into  the 
Egyptian  Sudan  and  reached  Fashoda,  where  they  hoisted  the  French  flag 


.f^< 


The  Talace  of  the  Governor-General  of  the  Sudan  at  Khartum. 

and  repulsed  an  attack  on  the  part  of  the  dervishes.  It  is  impossible  to 
question  that  but  for  the  advance  of  Kitchener  the  little  party  would  very 
soon  have  been  annihilated.  Hearing  a  report  that  there  were  troops  com- 
manded by  white  officers  at  Fashoda,  Sir  Herbert  proceeded  up  the  Nile, 
found  Major  Marchand  at  Fashoda,  complimented  him  on  his  brilliant 
enterprise,  and  hoisted  the  British  and  Egyptian  flags.  The  indignant 
Frenchman  declared  that  Fashoda  was  French  territory,  on  which  the 
French  flag  had  been  hoisted  before  it  was  in  occupation  by  the  British  ; 
and  French  sentiment  became  greatly  excited.  But  the  fact  was  too 
obvious  that  Fashoda  had  not  been  in  effective  French  occupation,  and  that 
Marchand  would  never  have  been  heard  of  again  if  the  dervish  forces  had 


942  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

not   been    shattered    by    the  British    and    Egyptian  army.        The    French 
claims  were  ultimately  withdrawn  and  the  respective  frontiers  delimited. 
In  the  sphere  of  foreign  politics,  as  actively  affecting  this  country,  one 


Eg}'pt  and  the  Sudan. 

other  event  remains  to  be  chronicled  during  this  period.  China  had  re- 
ceived a  very  rude  shock  in  the  Japanese  War,  and  a  series  of  further  shocks 
when  one  after  another  of  the  European  Powers  forced  treaties  and  conces- 


LORD    SALISBURY  943 

sions  upon  her.  At  the  same  time  a  progressive  party,  which  was  becoming 
ahve  to  the  advantages  possessed  by  Europeans,  was  temporarily  dominant, 
and  set  about  the  introduction  of  a  series  of  reforms  by  no  means  to  the 
taste  of  the  conservative  Manchus,  the  dominant  race  to  which  the  reigning 
dynasty  belonged.  A  coup  d'etat  restored  the  ascendency  of  the  Dowager 
Empress  and  the  old 
regime,  and  very  soon 
afterwards  began  what 
was  called  the  Boxer 
rising,  directed  largely 
against  Christians  and 
"foreign  devils." 
There  was  very  little 
doubt  that  the  move- 
ment was  fomented  by 
the  government,  al- 
though nugatory  edicts 
were  issued  against  the 
insurgents.  The  lega- 
tions of  the  European 
Powers  at  Pekin  were 
besieged  and  cut  off 
from  all  communica- 
tion with  the  outside 
world  ;  and  the  attempt 
to  effect  a  relief  by 
means  of  an  entirely 
inadequate  mixed  force 
under  Admiral  Sey- 
mour failed.  The  re- 
lieving force  itself  had 
to  be  relieved.  The 
Powers,  working  in 
reasonable  concert,  at 
length  collected  a  suf- 
ficient force  which  marched  on  Pekin  under  the  command  of  the  German 
Marshal  Count  Waldersee.  Happily  it  was  found  that  the  legations  had 
held  out  successfully.  A  heavy  war  indemnity  was  imposed  upon  the 
Chinese,  and  the  incident  terminated  without  any  rupture  among  the 
Powers. 

In  India  the  most  prominent  events  v/ere  the  two  disastrous  famines 
of  1897  and  1900,  a  severe  and  prolonged  outbreak  of  the  bubonic 
plague,  and  a  somewhat  exceptionally  severe  period  of  compaigning  among 
the  tribes  in  the  north-west  frontier  presently  followed  by  the  organisa- 
tion of  a  frontier  province  separate  from  the  Punjab, 


Queen  Victoria,  1837-1900. 
[From  a  photograph  by  Bassano.] 


944  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

In  the  sphere  of  domestic  legislation  Ireland  again  had  its  turn.  Home 
Rule  was  for  the  time  being  put  entirely  out  of  court,  and  the  still  unhealed 
division  in  the  ranks  of  the  Irish  Nationalists  kept  that  party  comparatively 
inactive.  It  was  the  main  business  of  the  Unionists  to  demonstrate 
that  the  people  of  Ireland  could  still  be  sympathetically  and  satisfactorily 
governed  without  having  a  legislature  of  their  own  at  Dublin.  Mr. 
Chamberlain  had  not  departed  from  his  old  desire  to  extend  to  Ireland 
methods  of  self-government  which  should  not  involve  the  separation  of 
the  legislatures.  On  the  land  question,  while  there  was  sufficient  variety 
in  the  ideal  solutions  which  individuals  were  inclined  to  propound,  every- 
one wanted  to  improve  the  lot  of  the  tenants  without  inflicting  undue 
loss  upon  landlords.  The  main  difference  between  the  two  parties  was 
that  one  was  somewhat  more  anxious  on  the  landlords'  behalf  and  the 
other  on  that  of  the  tenants.  Hence  the  Government  introduced  a  Land 
Bill  with  the  usual  object  of  improving  the  facilities  for  land  purchase. 
Being  favourably  received  by  the  Nationalists,  it  was  denounced  by  the 
Irish  landlords  as  a  betrayal  of  their  interests.  Being  modified  in  their 
favour,  it  was  denounced  again  with  equal  fervour  by  the  Nationalists. 
Ultimately  the  withdrawal  of  sundry  amendments  left  the  landlords  sore 
and  the  Nationalists  on  the  whole  pacified.  This  Land  Act  of  1896 
was  followed  by  the  Local  Government  Act  of  1898,  which  established 
elective  county  councils  and  district  councils.  The  working  of  the  Act 
in  Ireland  has  not  differed  conspicuously  from  the  working  of  the  earlier 
Local  Government  Act  in  England. 

Here,  however,  the  Unionists  were  not  altogether  satisfied  with  their 
own  handiwork.  The  London  County  Council  had  exercised  the  powers 
bestowed  upon  it  with  an  activity  which  inspired  alarm  in  Conservative 
quarters.  A  new  Act  broke  up  the  great  municipality  into  a  number  of 
boroughs,  to  which  a  portion  of  the  powers  of  the  London  County 
Council  were  transferred. 

Three  other  measures  demand  brief  notice.  In  1896  an  Agricultural 
Rating  Act  was  passed  to  diminish  the  pressure  of  the  rates  upon  the 
land.  Ostensibly  it  was  intended  to  relieve  the  tenant  ;  in  actual  practice 
it  was  no  doubt  the  landlords  who  benefited.  A  comprehensive  Education 
Bill  was  introduced  in  the  same  year,  but  its  extremely  complicated  char- 
acter compelled  its  withdrawal,  and  a  simpler  bill  was  introduced  in  the 
next  year.  In  effect  the  intention  was  to  free  the  voluntary  or  de- 
nominational schools  from  the  disadvantages  under  which  they  stood 
as  compared  with  those  schools  which  were  entirely  supported  out  of 
public  funds.  The  schools  were  relieved  from  liability  for  the  rates,  and 
were  given  a  substantial  capitation  grant,  while  the  Church  authorities 
still  retained  complete  control  of  the  management.  The  Opposition  de- 
nounced the  measure  as  appropriating  public  money  practically  in  order 
to  foster  the  denominational  teacliing  of  the  Established  Church,  as 
they  denounced  the  Agricultural  Rating  Act  as  a  "  dole  "  to  the  landlords. 


LORD    SALISBURY  945 

The  third  measure  was  an  Employers'  Liability  Bill,  making  the  employers 
in  certain  trades  responsible  in  case  of  injury  to  their  workmen,  but  this 
also  was  denounced  by  the  Opposition  on  the  ground  that  it  permitted 
contracting  out  and  was  therefore  practically  valueless  to  the  workmen. 

The  clamour  of  the  general  election  of  1900  had  hardly  died  down 
when  the  nation  was  plunged  into  mourning  by  the  death  of  Queen  Victoria 
in  the  sixty-fourth  year  of  her  reign,  the  longest  in  our  annals.  The 
parliamentary  situation  however  was  not  affected.  The  Liberal  party  was 
virtually  paralysed  by  the  extreme  divergencies  among  both  leaders  and 
rank  and  file  on  the  subject  of  the  Boer  War  ;  and  although  on  all  sides 
there  were  wrathful  denunciations  of  the  blunders  and  miscalculations  of 
which  the  administration  had  been  guilty  in  the  first  stages  of  the  struggle, 
the  country  had  very  definitely  refused  to  displace  ministers  in  favour  of  a 
party  so  divided  on  the  most  important  issue  of  the  hour.  When  at  the 
end  of  190 1  Lord  Rosebery  emerged  again  into  activity,  it  seemed  for  the 
moment  that  the  bulk  of  the  Liberals  and  a  large  proportion  of  those  who 
had  only  supported  the  Government /aw/^  de  mieux  would  be  ready  to  unite 
under  Lord  Rosebery's  banner,  but  that  statesman  had  no  wish  to  create 
a  party  of  his  own.  When  it  became  clear  that  it  would  not  be  possible 
for  him  to  act  in  harmony  with  the  official  Liberal  chief,  Sir  Henry 
Campbell-Bannerman,  he  reverted  to  the  position  of  candid  friend.  But 
his  intervention  had  not  been  without  effect  in  emphasising  the  general 
feeling  that  more  serious  and  more  tactful  efforts  must  be  made  to  bring 
the  hostilities  to  an  end. 

Though  Lord  Rosebery  had  failed  to  re-unite  the  Liberals,  their 
differences  were  in  fact  connected  very  much  more  with  the  past  than  with 
the  future.  When  once  the  war  was  over  there  was  nothing  really  to 
prevent  a  reunion,  since  the  imperialist  section  had  rejected  the  temptation 
to  organise  itself  as  a  separate  party.  The  Government  made  haste  in 
1892  to  provide  the  Opposition  with  a  bond  of  union  by  bringing  in  a 
new  Education  Bill,  which  was  unanimously  condemned  by  every  section 
of  the  Liberals.  More  decisively  than  ever  the  bill  asserted  the  principle 
of  retaining  the  entire  management  of  voluntary  schools  under  clerical 
control,  of  preserving  religious  tests  for  the  teachers,  and  of  paying  the 
greater  part  of  the  expenses  out  of  public  funds.  But  before  the  measure 
became  law  Lord  Salisbury  had  retired  from  office  and  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour 
had  become  Prime  Minister. 

Here  must  be  added  the  record  of  an  important  step  on  the  part  of 
the  colonies,  taken  in  the  last  year  of  the  century.  The  Australian  group 
federated  themselves  as  the  Australian  Commonwealth,  on  the  analogy  of 
the  Canadian  dominion  ;  although,  as  Newfoundland  continued  to  stand 
outside  the  Canadian  federation,  so  New  Zealand  continued  to  stand  out- 
side the  Australian  federation.  This  may  perhaps  be  taken  as  the  moment 
when  it  began  to  be  recognised  that  the  term  "colony"  was  ceasing  or  had 
ceased  to  be  properly  applicable  to  the  autonomous  states  of  the  British 

30 


946  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

Empire.     Thenceforth   it  gradually  became  customary  to  speak   of  them 
not  as  the  Colonies  but  as  the  Dominions. 


VI 

TRANSITIONAL 

Until  the  accession  of  Queen  Victoria,  the  longest  reign  in  our  history 
had  been  that  of  her  grandfather,  King  George  III.,  which  had  covered 
a  period  of  sixty  years.  During  the  last  ten  of  those  years  he  had  suffered 
a  living  death  and  had  taken  no  part  in  public  affairs.  Queen  Victoria 
had  reached  her  eighty-second  year  when  she  died  with  faculties  unimpaired 
and  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  popular  loyalty  which  had  perhaps  never  been 
higher.  The  celebration  of  her  jubilee,  the  fiftieth  year  of  her  reign, 
thirteen  years  before,  had  been  the  occasion  of  great  public  enthusiasm  ; 
and  it  had  been  used  to  assemble  together  from  all  parts  of  the  empire 
such  a  gathering  of  her  subjects  as  had  vividly  impressed  the  people  of 
England  with  the  sense  of  imperial  splendour.  That  impression  had  been 
more  than  confirmed  ten  years  /ater  by  the  celebration  of  what  was  called 
the  Diamond  Jubilee.  The  pageantry  of  these  great  functions  appealed 
to  the  general  imagination,  and  perhaps  did  more  than  any  amount  of 
reasoned  discourse  to  give  life  to  the  new  spirit  of  imperialism — a  sense 
that  the  British  Empire  is  something  more  than  a  number  of  red  spots 
on  a  map.  That  consciousness  was  still  further  vitalised  when  the  South 
African  War  displayed  the  deep-seated  devotion  of  the  dominions  overseas 
to  the  British  flag.  The  Great  Queen  died  before  the  war-cloud  was 
dispersed,  while  the  future  of  one  great  section  of  her  vast  dominions  was 
still  gloomily  uncertain  ;  but  she  had  lived  to  see  the  old  indifferentism 
pass,  and  to  know  that  her  empire  was  united  as  it  had  never  been  before. 
When  she  came  to  the  throne  the  Crown  had  lost  its  hold  on  the  affections 
of  the  people  ;  it  had  been  her  task  to  regain  for  it  the  loyalty  of  the 
nation.  She  had  made  no  attempt  to  recover  for  it  the  powers  of  control 
which  had  passed  for  ever  to  parliament,  but  she  created  for  it  a  moral 
influence  which  remains  a  vital  factor  in  the  national  life.  Her  personal 
withdrawal  from  public  functions  after  the  death  of  the  Prince  Consort 
diminished  for  a  time  the  ornamental  value  of  the  monarchy  ;  but  even 
when  she  was  least  before  the  public  eye  her  ministers  relied  upon  her 
political  sagacity,  and  her  judgment  influenced  the  councils  of  the  monarchs 
of  Europe.  England  has  known  four  queens  regnant  in  the  course  of 
a  thousand  years  ;  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  reigns  of  three  out  of  the 
four  have  covered  some  of  the  most  conspicuously  brilliant  periods  of  the 
national  history.  Queen  Anne  indeed  can  claim  little  credit  for  the  glories 
of  her  age,  but  Elizabeth  and  Victoria  both  stand  beside  and  perhaps 
above  the  greatest  of  all  our  kings. 


LORD    SALISBURY  947 

Less  than  three  years  before  Queen  Victoria  died  Mr.  Gladstone,  who 
had  first  entered  parHament  five  years  before  the  queen's  accession.  He 
attained  Cabinet  rank  in  Peel's  ministry  fifty  years  before  he  formed  the 
last  administration  of  which  he  was  himself  the  head.  For  very  nearly 
thirty  years  he  was  the  acknowledged  chief  of  one  of  the  two  great  parties, 
at  least  if  we  disregard  his  temporary  abdication  during  Lord  Beaconsfield's 
rule.  In  the  last  three  years  of  his  life  he  had  only  once  been  stirred  to 
public  utterance,  and  sufficient  time  had  elapsed  for  his  political  opponents 
to  discover  in  him  virtues  previously  unsuspected.  Endowed  with  an 
extraordinarily  persuasive  eloquence,  an  extreme  intellectual  subtlety,  and 
an  intense  moral  fervour,  he  applied 
ethical  standards  to  political  life  with  a 
surprising  courage  which  it  would  be 
difficult  to  parallel.  Like  his  master 
Peel,  he  spent  his  life  in  assimilating 
one  after  another  ideas  to  which  he 
had  at  first  been  strongly  antagonistic. 
His  weakness  lay  in  that  excessive  in- 
tellectual subtlety  which  made  it  easy 
for  him  to  persuade  himself  that  what 
he  had  come  to  regard  as  morally  right 
was  demonstrably  expedient,  and  that 
what  he  realised  as  expedient  was  war- 
ranted by  the  highest  moral  sanctions. 
But  whatever  judgment  future  genera- 
tions may  pass  upon  his  wisdom  or 
upon  his  powers  of  self-deception,  it 
will  always  be  recognised  that  he  im- 
ported into  poUtics  an  insistence  upon 

the  doctrine  that  the  highest  morality  is  also  the  highest  expediency, 
which  has  given  him  a  unique  position  among  the  practical  politicians  of 
history. 

Six  years  earlier  passed  away  his  great  contemporary,  Alfred  Tennyson. 
It  may  well  be  that  future  ages  will  not  recognise  Tennyson  as  the  greatest 
literary  figure  of  his  time  in  England  ;  but  this  is  certain,  that  he  will 
always  be  the  poet  most  representative  of  the  Victorian  Era.  A  con- 
summate artificer  in  verse,  his  merely  technical  skill  would  give  him  high 
rank  among  the  poets  of  any  age  ;  he  taught  to  lesser  men  a  style  which 
made  his  own  age  peculiarly  rich  in  minor  poets,  imitators  of  the  master, 
who  learnt  to  dress  thoughts  which  did  not  rise  above  the  commonplace  in 
dainty  and  musical  phrases.  As  distinctively  as  Pope  he  was  the  typical 
poet  of  his  own  day,  not  because  he  was  a  particularly  profound  thinker 
or  a  particularly  deep  student  of  humanity,  but  because  he  gave  an  almost 
perfect  expression  to  the  prevalent  philosophy  and  the  prevalent  ideals  of 
the  time. 


Alfred  Lord  Tennyson. 
[After  the  painting  by  G.  F.  Watts.] 


948  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

All  the  three  great  figures  which  have  just  been  described  were  repre- 
sentative of  the  transitional  period  which  politically  was  that  of  the  passage 
from  oligarchy  to  democracy.  The  arrival  of  democracy,  the  acquisition 
of  political  power  by  the  hitherto  unenfranchised  masses  of  the  community, 
was  the  essential  change  attained  in  the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  the  great  problem  now  becoming  of  vital  importance  was  how 
those  newly  enfranchised  masses  would  organise  themselves.  One  thing 
was  certain,  that  for  a  hundred  years  past  they  had  ceased  to  acquiesce  in 
the  existing  distribution  of  the  wealth  of  the  community.  They  did  not 
recognise  the  justice  of  the  principles  on  which  that  distribution  had  been 
arrived  at  by  practically  unmitigated  individual  competition.  They  did  not 
accept  the  theory  that  to  disturb  that  distribution  was  an  unwarrantable 
interference  with  the  sacred  rights  of  property.  But  for  half  a  century  the 
more  intelligent  of  them,  those  who  were  employed  in  trades  which  required 
skill  and  intelligence,  had  been  learning  to  organise  themselves,  and  their 
leaders,  the  men  who  had  organised  them  while  they  were  still  unen- 
franchised, were  no  revolutionaries.  They  relied  upon  combination  to 
secure  a  gradual  rise  in  wages,  a  gradual  diminution  in  the  hours  of 
labour. 

But  a  prolonged  period  of  trade  depression  set  in  not  long  after  the 
trade  unions  won  their  legal  recognition  in  1875.  The  result  was  that 
wages  fell  instead  of  rising,  and  the  unions  repeatedly  found  themselves 
unable  to  hold  their  own  when  they  challenged  conflicts  with  the  masters. 
The  result  again  was  discontent  on  the  part  of  large  numbers  of  the  work- 
ing men  with  the  acquiescent  attitude  of  the  trade  union  leaders,  and  that 
"  new  unionism  "  developed  which  not  only  called  for  much  more  aggressive 
action  outside  the  legislature,  but  also  demanded  active  state  intervention  ; 
not  as  in  the  past  to  secure  liberty  of  action  for  the  workman,,  but  to  impose 
restrictions  upon  the  employer.  Labour  in  effect  was  to  fight  to  obtain 
actual  control  of  the  materials  and  methods  of  production.  In  other  words, 
the  definitely  socialistic  doctrine  that  the  democratically  governed  state,  not 
private  individuals,  should  own  and  control  the  materials  and  methods  of 
production  in  the  interests  of  the  workers,  began  to  challenge  the  old  in- 
dividualism on  which  the  old  unionism  rested  ;  the  individualism  which 
professed  at  least  to  desire  nothing  more  than  the  right  of  unfettered 
combination  for  the  workmen.  As  yet,  however,  socialistic  doctrine  was 
confined  to  a  small  though  exceedingly  active  section  ;  the  old  leaders  still 
in  the  main  held  their  own. 


CHAPTER    XXXVIII 

EPILOGUE 
I 


UNDER   KING   EDWARD   VII 

The  first  phase  of  present-day  party  politics  began  with  Mr.  Gladstone's 
declaration  in  favour  of  Home  Rule  for  Ireland  ;  the  second  began  in 
1903  with  Mr.  Chamberlain's 
challenge  of  the  principles  of 
Free  Trade,  which  had  been 
held  by  the  country  practi- 
cally unquestioned  for  half  a 
century.  The  parliamentary 
year  opened  pacifically  with 
an  Irish  Land  Bill,  which 
achieved  the  apparent  miracle 
of  being  accepted  as  satis- 
factory both  by  Irish  land- 
lords and  Irish  tenants.  The 
miracle  was  accomplished  be- 
cause the  British  taxpayer 
provided  the  money  and  took 
the  risks  of  the  adjustment. 
But  in  the  meanwhile  the 
Colonial  Secretary  had  been 
paying  a  visit  to  South  Africa, 
whence  he  returned  in  the 
spring  of  1903  with  one  alto- 
gether predominant  idea  in  his  mind — that  the  supreme  task  of  states- 
manship was  to  draw  closer  the  bonds  which  held  the  great  British  Empire 
together.  In  comparison  with  this  everything  else  sank  into  insignificance. 
In  May  Mr.  Chamberlain  startled  the  world  by  proclaiming  that  one 
thing  was  needful  to  the  consolidation  of  the  Empire.  The  strength  of 
the  bond  of  sentiment  had  been  nobly  demonstrated  by  the  gallant  bands 
of  volunteers  who  had  rallied  to  the  flag  in  the  war  now  happily  over. 
But  the  bond  of  sentiment  was  not  sufficient  ;  it  must  be  strengthened  by 
interest,  by  what  Thomas  Carlyle  called  the  "  cash  nexus."     The  United 

949 


King  Edward  VII. 
[After  a  photograph  by  Lafayette,  Dubliti.] 


950  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

Kingdom  must  be  prepared  to  make  some  economic  sacrifice  in  the  interest 
of  the  Dominions.  The  new  bond  was  to  be  provided  by  the  creation  of 
a  preferential  market  in  Great  Britain  for  colonial  goods. 

No  one  in  effect  for  fifty  years  had  dreamed  of  reviving  tariffs  on 
imports.  Tea,  alcohol,  and  tobacco,  and  a  few  other  articles,  continued  to 
be  taxed  for  purposes  of  revenue,  but  no  advantage  was  given  to  home  or 
colonial  producers  of  the  taxed  articles.  In  pathetic  isolation  Mr.  Chaplin 
had  pleaded  for  the  protection  of  agriculture,  and  for  a  brief  moment  an 
attempt  had  been  made  to  raise  the  cry  of  fair  trade,  retaliation,  and 
"  making  the  foreigner  pay."  No  one  had  taken  these  things  seriously. 
But  when  Mr.  Chamberlain  spoke  it  was  impossible  not  to  take  him  seriously. 
Covert  Protectionists  emerged  from  their  despairing  silence,  men  who  had 
been  bred  if  not  born  Free-Traders  began  to  reconsider  the  arguments 
which  they  had  never  thought  of  disputing.  Others  whose  economic  faith 
was  unshaken  began  to  think  that  the  economic  sacrifice  might  after  all  be 
less  than  the  political  gain.  The  few  Liberals  who  became  immediate 
converts  became  also  the  most  uncompromising  and  enthusiastic  of  the 
advocates  of  fiscal  reform. 

But  after  the  first  shock  of  surprise  there  were  no  more  defections 
among  the  Liberals  from  economic  orthodoxy.  Nothing  perhaps  could 
have  been  conceived  better  calculated  to  close  up  the  ranks  of  an  Opposi- 
tion which  as  yet  had  only  partly  recovered  from  its  disintegration.  The 
salient  fact  fastened  upon  was  that  no  preferential  tariffs  would  be  of  appreci- 
able value  to  the  dominions  unless  food-stuffs  and  raw  materials  were  taxed 
in  their  favour,  since  their  manufactures  were  practically  a  negligible  quantity. 
To  tax  food-stuffs  and  raw  materials  would  raise  the  price  of  the  working 
man's  food  and  the  cost  of  production  to  the  home  manufacturer,  who  was 
dependent  on  foreign  supplies  for  his  raw  material.  There  were  many 
Unionists  as  well  as  Liberals  to  whom  that  argument  appealed  with  great 
force.  But  when  once  Mr.  Chamberlain  had  broken  with  the  principle 
of  Free  Trade  the  attack  upon  it  was  developed  all  along  the  line. 
First  it  was  urged  that  the  tariffs  would  provide  a  revenue  which  might 
be  appropriated  to  a  scheme  for  granting  Old  Age  Pensions,  which  Mr. 
Chamberlain  had  long  advocated  in  the  abstract.  Then  Mr.  Balfour 
began  to  perceive  a  possibility  that  tariffs,  though  undesirable  in  themselves, 
might  be  used  as  battering-rams  for  breaking  down  the  tariff  walls  raised 
against  British  goods  by  other  countries.  Moreover,  it  was  not  so  clear 
that  tariffs  would  raise  prices.  It  was  argued  that  the  foreigner  would  pay  ; 
he  would  lower  his  prices  in  order  to  keep  his  goods  on  the  British  market. 
Finally,  the  unqualified  argument  for  Protection  was  brought  into  play. 
The  competition  of  cheap  foreign  goods  was  on  the  verge  of  bringing  to 
ruin  the  British  producers.  The  industries  which  were  thus  suffering  could 
only  be  saved  by  a  tariff  on  the  foreign  articles — especially  such  as  were 
"dumped"  at  less  than  cost  price  by  bounty-fed  producers — which  would 
enable  the    British   producer  to  sell  at  a  profitable  rate.     Thus  these  in- 


EPILOGUE  951 

dustries  would  provide  increased  employment  for  the  British  working-man. 
The  answers  given  to  these  respective  arguments  were  that  as  a  matter  of 
experience  retaliation  does  not  reduce  hostile  tariffs  ;  that  we  already  pur- 
chase from  the  foreigner  at  bottom  prices,  and  therefore  he  would  not 
reduce  them  in  order  to  meet  the  tariff  ;  that  the  argument  for  pure 
Protection  came  to  nothing  at  all  if  the  foreigner  paid  the  tariff  and  supplied 
us  as  cheaply  as  before ;  whereas,  if  Protection  was  rendered  effective 
because  it  raised  the  price  of  the  foreign  product,  it  would  also  raise  the 
price  of  the  home  product  to  the  consumer.  As  for  the  argument  that  by 
protecting  British  industries  employment  would  be  increased,  it  was  replied 
that  the  increased  cost  of  all  articles  of  consumption  and  especially  of  food 
would  far  more  than  counterbalance  the  supposed  benefits  to  the  workers. 

From  1903  till  the  end  of  1905  the  battle  raged.  The  Liberals  grew 
daily  more  united,  while  Mr.  Balfour  vainly  endeavoured  to  avert  a  com- 
plete split  among  the  Unionists.  Four  prominent  supporters  of  the 
Government,  including  the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  retired  from  the  Cabinet. 
At  last  in  December  1905  Mr.  Balfour  resigned  ;  Sir  Henry  Campbell- 
Bannerman  accepted  office,  and  immediately  afterwards  appealed  to  the 
electorate.  The  result  was  overwhelming.  The  Liberals  were  returned 
with  a  soHd  majority  of  eighty-four  over  all  the  other  parties  put  together  ; 
and  even  of  those  parties  they  could  count  generally  on  the  support  of 
more  than  eighty  Irish  Nationalists  and  more  than  fifty  members  who  had 
been  returned  by  the  Labour  party  which  for  some  years  past  had  been 
steadily  organising  itself.  The  whole  body  of  the  Unionists  numbered  less 
than  one  hundred  and  sixty.  But  it  must  be  remarked  that  the  Liberal  leaders 
were  expressly  pledged  not  to  use  their  majority  to  deal  with  the  question 
of  Irish  Home  Rule  ;  while  the  fiscal  reformers  declared  that  the  battle  had 
been  won  largely  on  a  false  issue  through  the  prominence  given  to  the 
question  of  employing  Chinese  labour  in  South  Africa. 

It  was  admitted,  then,  by  the  Opposition  that  the  country  had  for  the 
moment  pronounced  decisively  against  ficcal  reform,  but  only  because  it 
had  not  become  thoroughly  accustomed  to  the  idea.  It  was  not  admitted 
that  the  country  had  intended  to  authorise  any  positive  item  in  the  Liberal 
programme.  This  view  was  naturally  not  accepted  by  the  Liberals,  who 
for  precisely  twenty  years  had  had  practically  no  voice  in  legislation,  since 
in  their  last  brief  period  of  office  all  their  measures  with  the  exception  of 
the  budgets  had  been  either  eviscerated  or  thrown  out  by  the  House  of 
Lords.  Almost  at  once  they  embarked  upon  an  extensive  programme  of 
reforms.  They  began  by  accepting  a  bill  from  the  labour  party  for  the 
protection  of  trade  unions.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Act  of  1874 
was  supposed  to  have  protected  trade  unions  from  being  sued  as  corporate 
bodies  ;  but  in  1903  a  judgment  of  the  law  courts  known  as  the  Taff 
Vale  Decision  had  shattered  this  impression.  The  Act  of  1906  was  in- 
tended simply  to  establish  as  law  what  the  world  at  large  had  supposed 
to  be  the  law  for  nearly  thirty  years. 


952  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

The  next  step  was  a  bill  to  abolish  plural  voting  ;  that  is,  to  prevent  one 
person  from  r-ecording  a  vote  in  more  than  one  constituency.  On  the 
ground  that  this  was  merely  a  party  move,  since  it  was  notorious  that  the 
great  majority  of  plural  voters  were  Unionists,  and  also  on  the  ground  that 
such  a  change  should  not  be  introduced  except  in  association  with  other 
changes  readjusting  the  existing  unfair  distribution  of  voting  power,  the 
bill  was  thrown  out  by  the  Lords. 

Then  the  Government  attacked  the  education  question,  in  accordance 
with  the  demands  of  nonconformists.  Voluntary  schools  where  the  educa- 
tion was  conducted  on  a  denominational  basis  were  not  to  be  supported 
out  of  public  funds.  If  they  could  not  be  maintained,  the  local  authority 
was  to  have  power  to  take  them  over,  to  assume  the  control,  and  to  give 
the  undenominational  teaching  which,  from  the  point  of  view  of  Anglicans 
and  Roman  Catholics,  was  rather  worse  than  purely  secular  education. 
The  Lords  made  drastic  amendments  which  the  Government  would  not 
accept,  and  the  bill  was  dropped. 

In  1907  the  programme  was  less  aggressive.  The  budget  however  had 
two  new  features.  The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  Mr.  Asquith,  for  the 
first  time  dropped  what  had  long  been  the  fiction  of  professing  to  regard 
income  tax  as  a  source  of  revenue  with  which  the  country  might  presently 
dispense.  Accepting  it  then  as  a  permanent  source  of  revenue,  Mr. 
Asquith  modified  it  by  reducing  the  amount  to  be  paid  on  incomes  which 
were  directly  earned  as  compared  with  incomes  derived  from  real  property 
and  from  investments. 

The  great  measure  of  the  year  was  Mr  Haldane's  scheme  of  army 
reform,  which  aimed  at  producing  the  maximum  of  efficiency  without 
departing  from  the  principle  of  voluntary  recruitment.  No  party  in  the 
state  had  hitherto  ventured  to  commit  itself  to  approval  of  any  of  those 
schemes  for  compulsory  service  which  were  in  general  urgently  demanded 
by  military  men  in  view  of  the  huge  armies  controlled  by  the  European 
nations.  The  main  point  of  the  scheme  was  the  reorganisation  of  the 
militia,  the  yeomanry,  and  the  volunteers  into  the  body  known  as 
"  territorials."  So  far  the  scheme  was  viewed  with  very  general  favour 
except  by  those  who  were  prepared  to  denounce  any  scheme  which  failed 
to  provide  for  compulsory  service.  Criticism  was  mainly  directed  against 
certain  reductions  in  the  regular  army  for  foreign  service,  and  in  the 
garrison  artillery  ;  while  it  was  urged  on  the  other  side  that  the  reductions 
meant  nothing  more  than  the  removal  of  inefficients,  and  that  in  effect  the 
regular  army  was  rendered  not  a  less  but  a  more  efficient  striking  force. 
This  appears  to  have  been  admitted  by  the  experts,  even  although  they 
resented  the  actual  reductions  as  unnecessary.  A  more  aggressive  warning 
note  was  struck  by  the  Government  resolutions  pronouncing  that  the 
powers  of  the  House  of  Lords  in  rejecting  and  delaying  legislation  ought 
to  be  restricted. 

In    1908  the  party  battle  again    waxed    furious.     The  retirement  and 


EPILOGUE  953 

death  of  Sir  Henry  Campbell-Bannerman  removed  a  leader  whose  tact  and 
management  had  during  his  term  of  office  won  for  him  an  admiration  and 
affection  such  as  no  one  had  previously  looked  for.  His  successor,  Mr. 
Asquith,  had  been  the  acknowledged  chief  of  the  imperialist  section  of 
Liberals,  and  for  the  moment  there  were  doubts  whether  the  party  would 
retain  its  solidarity  under  his  captaincy.  Very  soon,  however,  it  became 
apparent  that  there  was  to  be  no  abatement  in  the  Liberal  demand  for 
reforms.  The  reconstructions  of  the  Cabinet  gave  an  increased  instead  of 
diminished  prominence  to  the  more  Radical  element,  while  there  was  no 
sign  that  the  so-called  Whigs  were  at  variance  with  their  colleagues. 

The  first  measure  was  indeed  hardly  controversial,  since  Unionists  even 
more  than  Liberals  had  been  pledged  to  provide  pensions  for  the  aged 
poor  so  soon  as  the  national  revenue  should  be  able  to  bear  the  burden. 
Such  opposition  as  the  Old  Age  Pension  Bill  met  with  was  based  on  the 
argument  that  the  money  would  be  better  applied  to  strengthening  national 
defence,  or  else  upon  the  view  that  the  scheme  ought  to  be  contributory — 
that  the  pension  should  be  a  reward  of  thrift,  not  bestowed  on  the  thrifty 
and  thriftless  alike. 

The  Government  returned  to  the  attack  on  the  Education  question,  a 
subject  on  which  it  was  a  sheer  impossibility  to  take  a  popular  line.  The 
attempt  was  made  to  find  a  middle  way  which  both  denominationalists  and 
undenominationalists  could  conscientiously  accept.  The  proposal  was  that 
in  areas  where  there  was  only  one  available  school  the  regular  religious 
instruction  should  be  of  the  undenominational  order,  with  facilities  for 
denominational  instruction  to  be  given  outside  the  school  hours.  But,  in 
spite  of  prolonged  negotiations,  it  was  found  to  be  impossible  to  arrive  at 
any  scheme  which  could  command  general  assent,  and  the  bill  was  after 
all  w^ithdrawn. 

Fiercer  still  was  the  controversy  over  a  bill  which  was  to  reduce  system- 
atically the  number  of  houses  licensed  to  sell  alcoholic  beverages.  In 
a  period  of  fourteen  years  one-third  of  the  existing  licenses  w'ere  to  be 
extinguished,  but  compensation  was  to  be  provided  by  a  fund  levied  from 
the  trade  itself.  After  the  fourteen  years  it  was  to  be  recognised  that 
the  licence  would  be  granted  for  one  year  only,  carrying  with  it  no  sort 
of  right  to  count  upon  its  renewal.  The  whole  energies  of  the  licensed 
trade  were  devoted  to  a  vehement  campaign  against  the  measure;  minis- 
terialists lost  seats  at  several  bye-elections  ;  the  House  of  Lords  were 
encouraged  to  believe  that  the  Government  had  lost  the  confidence  of 
the  country  and  would  be  defeated  in  a  general  election,  and  the  Peers 
rejected  the  bill. 

Still  the  Government,  like  its  Unionists  predecessor,  refused  to  regard 
bye-elections  as  a  proof  that  it  ought  to  resign,  or,  still  more  positively, 
to  admit  the  title  of  the  House  of  Lords  to  force  an  appeal  to  the  country. 
In  1909  the  gage  of  battle  was  flung  down  more  emphatically  than  ever 
in  the  Budget   introduced  by  the  new  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  Mr. 


954  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

Lloyd  George.  The  announcement  that  the  naval  programmes  of  foreign 
Powers  necessitated  an  immensely  increased  expenditure  on  armaments 
met  with  an  extremely  reluctant  assent  from  the  economists  in  the  Liberal 
ranks,  while  the  programme  put  forward  was  stormily  denounced  as 
utterly  insufficient  by  the  Opposition.  The  Government  stood  to  their 
view  that  their  demands  did  not  go  beyond  what  was  required  by  a  reason- 
able prudence,  but  were  at  the  same  time  adequate. 

But  the  increased  expenditure  demanded  an  increased  revenue.  The 
rejection  of  the  last  year's  Licensing  Bill  was  met  by  greatly  increasing  the 
cost  of  licenses  ;  thus  the  liquor  traffic  was  to  be  laid  under  contribution. 
An  increase  of  the  duties  on  tobacco  and  on  spirits  would  levy  a  contri- 
bution from  the  working  man.  Wealth  was  to  contribute  by  an  increase 
of  the  tax  upon  incomes  exceeding  ;£5ooo  a  year,  and  of  the  death  duties. 
But  above  everything  else  a  new  tax  was  to  be  laid  upon  land  by  the 
appropriation  of  a  portion  of  what  is  called  the  Unearned  Increment;  that 
is,  the  increased  value  of  property  brought  about  not  by  the  action  of  the 
proprietors  but  by  external  circumstances — a  scheme  which  involved  an 
immense  and  complicated  system  of  revaluation.  The  Budget,  warmly 
applauded  by  Radicals  who  since  the  days  of  John  Stuart  Mill  had  claimed 
that  the  unearned  increment  was  a  fair  and  just  source  of  taxation,  was 
received  with  a  storm  of  indignation  by  the  landholders  and  the  licensed 
trade.  The  House  of  Peers  accepted  the  Government's  challenge.  It  was 
admitted  that  they  could  not  amend  a  money  bill  ;  it  was  admitted,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  they  had  the  constitutional  right  to  reject  such  a  bill  in 
its  entirety.  They  acted  upon  their  technical  right,  in  spite  of  strong  pro- 
tests from  Lord  Rosebery  and  others  who  detested  the  Budget  itself,  and 
threw  out  the  Finance  Bill. 

Ministers,  then,  were  obliged  either  to  remodel  the  Budget  so  as  to  make 
it  acceptable  to  the  Peers  or  else  to  appeal  to  the  country.  But  the 
question  was  no  longer  one  as  to  what  were  the  constitutional  powers 
technically  possessed  by  the  hereditary  chamber  ;  now  it  was,  whether 
it  should  be  permitted  to  retain  those  powers.  If  the  rejection  of  the 
Budget  were  to  be  accepted  as  a  precedent,  the  Lords  would  at  all  times 
be  able  to  force  a  dissolution.  The  Lords,  it  was  argued,  had  ceased  to 
exercise  their  proper  function  as  an  independent  revising  chamber,  and  had 
become  simply  an  instrument  of  one  party.  While  the  Conservatives  were 
in  oflice  they  could  legislate  to  their  heart's  content ;  while  Liberals  were  in 
office  they  could  carry  no  legislation  which  did  not  command  the  assent  of 
the  Opposition.  Ministers  appealed  to  the  country,  with  an  emphatic 
declaration  that  no  Liberal  Government  could  in  future  remain  in  office  until 
the  powers  of  the  Lords  were  so  curtailed  that  finance  should  be  removed 
entirely  from  their  control,  and  that  they  should  no  longer  be  able  to  pre- 
vent the  expressed  will  of  the  House  of  Commons  from  becoming  law 
within  the  period  of  a  single  parliament.  The  general  election  was  fought 
on  the  triple  issue,  the   Budget,  Tariff   Reform,  and  the  Abolition  of  the 


EPILOGUE  955 

Veto  of  the  House  of  Lords.  The  result  was  a  considerable  increase  in 
the  number  of  Unionists,  since  many  of  the  Free-Traders  who  had  voted 
against  them  at  the  last  election  considered  that  in  the  choice  of  evils 
Tariff  Reform  was  less  dangerous  than  Mr.  George's  financial  methods. 
Nevertheless  the  Unionists  were  still  outnumbered  by  the  Liberal  party 
itself,  while  for  practical  purposes  that  party  could  count  on  the  solid 
support  of  the  Labour  members  and  of  the  now  thoroughly  reunited  Irish 
NationaHsts. 

The  advanced  Radicals  undoubtedly  supposed  that  the  first  measure 
of  the  Government  would  be  a  bill  abolishing  the  veto  of  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  that  the  king  had  given  a  guarantee  that  the  Lords  would, 
if  necessary,  be  compelled  to  yield  by  an  overwhelming  creation  of  peers. 
There  was  some  indignation  when  it  was  announced  that  the  government 
of  the  country  must  be  carried  on  and  the  Budget  must  be  passed  before 
anything  else  could  be  done.  Resentment  grew  among  the  extremists 
when  it  became  known  that  the  guarantees  had  not  been  given,  and  that 
ministers  would  formulate  their  plan  before  seeking  to  obtain  them.  In 
the  great  crisis  which  had  now  arrived  it  was  felt  that  everything  turned 
upon  the  profound  political  sagacity  of  Kmg  Edward  VII.,  a  sagacity 
which  had  won  universal  recognition.  But  even  at  that  momentous  hour 
the  hand  of  death  fell.  The  strain  of  anxiety  had  broken  the  king's  health. 
On  May  5th  men  read  with  startled  alarm  the  announcement  that  he 
was  seriously  ill.  The  next  day  bulletins  announced  that  his  condition 
was  critical,  and  just  before  midnight  he  passed  away. 

In  South  Africa  after  the  treaty  of  1902  British  supremacy  was  no 
longer  in  question.  Nevertheless  the  war  appeared  to  have  been  only 
the  culminating  phase  of  a  long  period  of  racial  antagonism.  A  very  large 
proportion  of  the  British  in  those  regions  were  still  naturally  suspicious 
of  the  Dutch,  and  were  strongly  opposed  to  any  early  extension  to  them  of 
real  political  power.  In  the  view  of  Unionists  at  home,  and  of  the  former 
High  Commissioner,  Lord  Milner,  it  was  only  by  slow  and  tentative  steps 
that  it  would  become  safe  to  place  the  Dutch  colonies  on  an  equality  with 
the  British.  With  the  Liberals  however  it  had  become  an  axiom,  a 
cardinal  article  of  belief,  that  among  the  white  races  restrictions  upon 
political  liberty  are  a  disintegrating  factor  ;  that  the  loyalty  of  a  people 
was  to  be  won  not  by  a  cautious  distrust  but  by  a  generous  confidence, 
bestowed  even  at  a  considerable  risk.  The  Liberals  were  no  sooner  in 
power  than  they  resolved  to  take  the  risks  in  South  Africa,  and  to  bestow 
on  the  states  with  a  mainly  Boer  population  the  full  status  of  colonies 
with  responsible  government — it  had  not  yet  presented  itself  to  the  mind 
of  any  one  that  there  was  anything  derogatory  in  the  name  of  "  Colony." 
Lord  Milner's  place  had  before  this  been  taken  by  a  prominent  Unionist, 
Lord  Selborne,  who  was  nevertheless  prepared  loyally  to  give  effect  to 
the  policy  of  the  new  Government.  In  spite  of  warning  protests  from  the 
Opposition    leaders,  who  declined   to  share  the  responsibility,  Sir    Henry 


956  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

Campbell-Bannerman  took  the  risks,  and  conceded  responsible  self-govern- 
ment to  the  Boers  who  had  so  recently  been  engaged  in  a  desperate  struggle 
against  the  might  of  the  Empire  into  which  they  were  now  incorporated. 
Whether  the  act  was  recklessly  rash  or  courageously  magnanimous,  it  was 
justified  by  the  event,  at  least  so  far  as  the  experience  of  seven  years  can 
justify  the  formation  of  a  definite  conclusion  on  the  subject.  It  was  not 
misinterpreted  like  the  retrocession  of  1881,  and  it  converted  a  people  with 
an  emphatically  hostile  tradition  into  loyal  citizens  of  the  British  Empire. 
How  far  antagonistic  elements  had  been  harmonised  was  seen  when  the  South 

African  dominions,  after  pro- 
longed deliberation,  formulated  a 
scheme  for  the  federation  of  the 
Union  of  South  Africa — like  the 
Canadian  and  Australian  groups 
— which  was  sanctioned  by  the 
imperial  parliament  in  1909. 

In  India  the  vigorous  vice- 
royalty  of  Lord  Curzon  continued 
to  be  productive  of  much  con- 
troversy. Suspicions  that  Tibet 
was  entering  into  dangerous  re- 
lations with  Russia  led  to  de- 
mands for  a  treaty  with  that 
mysterious  state,  whose  conduct 
necessitated  a  military  expedition 
which  was  completely  successful 
in  achieving  its  objects.  Native 
sentiment  was  greatly  excited  by 
the  partition  of  the  province  of 
Bengal.  The  reasons  for  the 
excitement  caused  are  not  easily  intelligible  to  any  one  who  has  not  an 
intimate  knowledge  of  Indian  affairs.  But  the  effect  was  to  set  on  foot 
an  agitation,  not  among  the  Mohammedans  but  among  the  Hindus  of 
Bengal,  which  provided  the  Indian  government  with  very  grave  problems 
of  administration  for  at  least  five  years  to  come.  Lord  Curzon's  retire- 
ment, however,  was  brought  about  not  by  this  but  by  very  serious  friction 
between  the  Viceroy  and  the  Commander-in-Chief,  Lord  Kitchener,  in  which 
the  Unionist  Government  supported  the  latter.  Lord  Curzon's  place  was 
taken  by  Lord  Minto,  who,  like  Lord  Sclborne  in  Africa,  found  himself 
able  to  work  in  admirable  harmony  with  Mr.  John  Morley,  who  became 
Secretary  of  State  for  India  when  the  Liberals  came  into  power.  The 
agitation  among  the  Hindus  became  so  active,  and  the  language  of  the 
native  press  so  seditious,  that  there  were  loud  outcries  for  severe  repressive 
measures.  Strong  measures  were,  in  fact,  taken  by  Lord  Minto  and 
Mr.  Morley,  of  a  character  much  more  drastic  and  arbitrary  than  could  be 


British  Possessions  in  Africa,  1903. 


EPILOGUE  957 

They  were  accordingly 
condemned  by  all  those  persons  who  declined  to  recognise  any  warrant  for 
applying  different  governmental  principles  in  India  and  in  England  ;  while 
they  were  condemned  with  equal  vehemence  by  another  school  as  far  too 
lenient,  and  a  virtual  encouragement  of  sedition.  The  Indian  Government, 
however,  went  on  its  way  undisturbed  by  the  attacks  of  either  wing,  and 
again  its  conduct  appears  to  have  been  justified  by  the  results. 

During  the  reign  of  King  Edward  VII.  a  remarkable  change  took  place 


Mr.  John  Morley  in  1894. 


in  the  relations  between  the  United  Kingdom  and  the  European  Powers. 
Almost  unanimously  Europe  had  accepted  as  undoubted  facts  the  wildest 
of  fabrications  concerning  the  doings  of  the  British  in  South  Africa. 
Largely  owing  to  the  genial  personality  of  the  king  himself,  there  was  now 
a  general  disappearance  of  the  prevalent  sentiment  of  hostility.  Hitherto 
the  two  Powers  with  whom  the  dangers  of  collision  had  been  most  serious 
were  Russia  and  France.  Almost  throughout  the  nineteenth  century 
antagonism  between  the  British  Empire  and  Russia  had  been  a  dominating 
factor  in  politics,  while  ever  since  the  British  occupation  of  Egypt  there 
had  been  perpetual  friction  between  British  and  French.     At  an  early  stage 


958  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

of  the  great  war  between  Russia  and  Japan,  the  extraordinary  behaviour  of 
a  Russian  squadron,  bound  for  the  Far  East,  in  firing  upon  an  innocent 
British  fishing  fleet,  seemed  almost  to  have  made  war  inevitable.  But  the 
war  was  avoided,  perhaps  because  of  an  unmistakable  demonstration  of  the 
efficiency  of  the  British  Navy.  The  terrible  disasters  of  the  Russian 
struggle  with  Japan  did  much  to  dissipate  the  belief  in  Russian  military 
power.  The  attitude  of  the  two  empires  to  each  other  became  less  sus- 
picious, and  there  was  a  new  incHnation  on  both  sides  to  attain  the  adjust- 
ment of  clashing  interests  in  a  spirit  of  goodwill.  This  took  shape  in  the 
most  marked  manner  when  an  agreement  was  arrived  at  as  to  the  treat- 
ment of  Persia,  which  on  the  whole  had  the  approval  of  both  parties  in 
England. 

A  visit  of  the  king  to  Paris  had  an  extraordinary  effect  in  dissipating  a 
popular  French  impression  that  British  sentiment  was  actively  hostile.  An 
agreement  with  regard  to  Morocco  and  Egypt  removed  the  most  serious 
among  the  remaining  causes  of  friction,  and  a  spirit  of  warm  friendship 
grew  up  between  the  two  countries.  Unhappily  it  has  to  be  admitted  that 
a  less  cordial  spirit  was  engendered  with  another  of  the  great  Powers. 
The  sudden  determination  of  Germany  in  1905  to  develop  a  powerful  navy 
aroused  British  alarm  and  suspicion  ;  while  the  increasing  goodwill  between 
Britain,  France,  and  Russia  developed  among  the  Germans  a  belief  that  the 
British  were  pursuing  a  deliberate  policy  of  isolating  Germany  with  pre- 
sumably sinister  intentions.  The  result  was  that  each  nation  urged  forward 
naval  programmes  manifestly  with  an  eye  to  the  suspected  aggressive 
intentions  of  the  other,  while  to  each  it  appeared  that  the  motive  of  the 
other  was  not  self-defence  but  aggression.  In  well-informed  quarters  the 
idea  that  the  German  Emperor  desired  a  war  of  aggression  for  the  purpose 
of  breaking  up  the  British  Empire  was  never  credited  ;  but  in  both  countries 
a  portion  of  the  Press  persistently  maintained  an  inflammatory  tone  which 
greatly  increased  the  difficulty  of  attaining  a  mutual  understanding. 


II 

1910-1912 

At  the  moment  of  the  accession  of  King  George  V.  the  country  was 
in  the  throes  of  an  acute  constitutional  crisis.  The  general  election  had 
proved  that  in  Great  Britain,  apart  from  Ireland,  there  was  a  large  majority 
of  the  electorate  which  demanded  a  modification  in  the  character  of  the 
House  of  Lords.  From  all  quarters  schemes  were  being  propounded  for 
the  composition  of  an  ideal  Second  Chamber,  since  it  was  admittedly  un- 
satisfactory that  such  a  chamber  should  by  its  constitution  be  the  instru- 
ment of  one  party.  In  the  view  of  the  Government  the  curtailment  of 
the  powers  of  the  House  of  Lords  was  the  first  question,  though  its  settle- 


EPILOGUE  959 

ment  would  have  to  be  followed  in  due  course  by  a  reconstruction  of  the 
chamber  itself.  To  those,  however,  who  regarded  it  as  a  primary  necessity 
that  the  Second  Chamber  should  act  essentially  as  a  barrier  to  the  flood 
of  democratic  legislation,  the  great  need  seemed  to  be  a  reconstruction 
eliminating  those  elements  which  deprived  its  judgments  of  weight — the 
strengthening  rather  than  the  diminution  of  its  authority.  When  the  Lords 
made  it  clear  that  they  would  not  accept  the  Government  scheme  except 
under  compulsion,  the  Government  resolved  that  the  king  should  not  be 
called  upon  to  apply  compulsion  until  the  country  had  definitely  pro- 
nounced its  approval  of  the  scheme  itself.  At  the  end  of  the  year  parlia- 
ment was  dissolved,  and  the  scheme  was  approved  by  a  majority  of  the 
electorate  practically  identical  with  that  which  had  returned  the  ministry 
to  power  in  January. 

The  Parliament  Bill  of  1911  left  the  composition  of  the  Second 
Chamber  untouched,  while  pronouncing  that  the  reconstruction  was  re- 
quired. It  touched  the  Commons  only  by  reducing  the  life  of  a  parlia- 
ment to  five  years  instead  of  seven,  the  period  set  by  the  Septennial  Act 
almost  two  hundred  years  ago.  It  dealt  directly  with  the  veto  of  the 
House  of  Lords.  For  the  future  the  rejection  by  the  House  of  Lords 
of  a  bill  passed  by  the  House  of  Commons  was  to  be  effective  for  two 
years.  If  at  the  end  of  the  two  years  the  House  of  Commons  again  passed 
the  bill  it  was  to  become  law,  whether  there  had  or  had  not  been  a 
dissolution  in  the  interval.  It  was  made  known  that  the  king  had  been 
advised  and  had  agreed  to  create  a  sufficient  number  of  peers  to  secure 
the  Government  majority  in  the  event  of  the  bill  being  rejected  by  the 
hereditary  chamber.  A  section  of  the  Peers  were  prepared  to  die  fighting, 
to  reject  the  bill  and  to  throw  upon  the  Government  the  onus  of  destroying 
the  traditional  character  of  the  Peerage.  The  calmer  counsels  of  the 
leaders  of  the  party  prevailed,  and  the  Parliament  Bill  became  law.  But 
the  constitution  of  the  hereditary  chamber  remained  unaltered,  and  the 
Unionists  very  expressly  declared  their  intention  of  dealing  with  the 
question  on  their  own  lines  whenever  they  should  return  to  power.  The 
Parliament  Act,  therefore,  can  only  be  regarded  as  a  temporary  settlement 
pending  the  reconstruction  of  the  Second  Chamber. 

That  reconstruction  the  Government  deferred  in  spite  of  the  declarations 
of  the  Opposition  that  their  doing  so  would  be  a  breach  of  faith.  Two 
other  measures  of  constitutional  importance  were  to  take  precedence 
of  the  next  measure  dealing  with  the  House  of  Lords.  One  was  to  re- 
organise the  distribution  of  votes  among  the  electorate.  This  was  to 
be  effected  in  two  ways,  first  by  the  abolition  of  plural  voting,  so  that 
no  one  might  vote  in  more  than  one  constituency,  secondly  by  reducing 
the  term  of  residence  necessary  in  order  to  enable  a  man  to  vote  after 
changing  his  abode  from  one  constituency  to  another.  It  was  assumed 
on  all  hands  that  by  the  first  the  Unionist  vote  in  the  electorate  would 
be  reduced,  and  by  the  second  the   Liberal   vote  would  be   increased  on 


960  THE   MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

the  hypothesis  that  many  more  of  the  shifting  labouring  population  would 
be  enabled  to  exercise  the  franchise. 

The  other  measure  was  a  bill  for  conferring  at  once  upon  Ireland  a 
legislature  of  her  own,  but  upon  lines  compatible  with  the  ultimate  intro- 
duction of  similar  measures  for  Scotland,  Wales,  and  England,  while  re- 
taining the  supremacy  of  the  imperial  parliament.     The  presumed  end  in 


[Afte 


King  George  V. 

■  a.  photograph  by  Lafayette,  Dublin.] 


view  was  the  substitution  of  a  federation  of  the  four  nationalities  in  place 
of  the  unitary  system,  giving  self-government  to  each  and  a  common  central 
government  to  all,  analogous  to  the  systems  already  established  in  Canada, 
Australia,  and  South  Africa.  This  scheme  met  with  a  fervid  opposition 
from  the  Protestant  division  of  Ulster  which  feared  a  Roman  Catholic  as- 
cendency. It  was  certain  that  the  second  if  not  the  fust  of  these  two 
bills  would  only  become  law  if  the  Liberals  should  still  be  in  oflice  at  the 


EPILOGUE  961 

end  of  two  years  and  should  again  pass  the  bill  without  regard  to  the 
House  of  Lords. 

The  same  expectation  applied  to  a  bill  for  the  disestablishment  of  the 
Anglican  Church  in  Wales,  which  followed  generally  the  precedent  of  the 
disestablishment  of  the  Anglican  Church  in  Ireland  ;  the  theory  in  both 
cases  being  that  an  Established  Church  is  warranted  only  while  it  is  un- 
mistakably a  National  Church,  whereas  in  Wales,  as  in  Ireland,  the  majority 
of  the  population  belonged  to  other  communions.  In  both  cases  the 
opposition  to  disestablishment  rested  on  the  principle  first  that  only  through 
an  Established  Church  can  the  state  express  its  Christianity,  and  next  that 
in  any  case  the  state  has  no  right  to  appropriate  ecclesiastical  endowments 
which  belong  to  the  Church  and  not  to  the  state. 

While  the  Government  were  shouldering  the  responsibility  of  introduc- 
ing a  series  of  immense  and  far-reaching  modifications  in  the  constitution, 
they  were  zealous  also  in  proceeding  with  the  social  legislation  for  ameli- 
orating the  condition  of  the  masses,  of  which  the  necessity  was  studiously 
affirmed  by  all  parties  in  the  state.  Following  up  the  bill  for  conferring 
old  age  pensions,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  Mr.  George,  introduced 
in  191 1  a  great  scheme  of  National  Insurance  for  wage-earners.  Since  a 
scheme  for  national  insurance  was  in  theory  eminently  desirable,  all  parties 
declared  themselves  ready  to  extend  a  provisional  welcome  to  the  bill  ;  but 
any  scheme  would  of  necessity  be  exceedingly  complicated,  while  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  only  a  very  limited  number  of  persons  in  the  country 
could  be  capable  of  forming  a  competent  judgment  on  its  financial  soundness. 
There  were  moreover  three  fundamental  questions  on  which  the  widest 
divergency  of  opinion  was  possible.  Should  such  a  scheme  be  compulsory  ? 
To  what  classes  of  the  community  should  it  apply  ?  Should  the  whole 
cost  be  borne  by  the  state,  or  should  employers  contribute,  or  should  em- 
ployees contribute  as  well  ?  The  Government  decided  that  it  should  be 
compulsory,  inclusive,  and  contributory.  Consequently  every  detail  of  the 
bill  met  v.'ith  strong  opposition  from  one  quarter  or  another,  while  almost 
the  entire  medical  profession  proclaimed  that  the  medical  benetits  could 
not  be  provided  at  the  scale  of  payment  to  which  the  Government  declared 
themselves  limited  by  the  financial  conditions.  From  the  outset  it  was 
evident  that  the  measure  would  not  be  popular  ;  since  the  classes  for  whose 
benefit  it  was  intended  resented  its  contributory  character,  which  would 
touch  their  pockets  immediately,  while  only  a  prolonged  experience  would 
enable  them  to  realise  such  benefits  as  they  would  obtain  in  exchange. 
Nevertheless  the  bill  was  carried  and  came  into  operation  during  19 12. 
The  old  Chartist  demand  for  payment  of  members  of  parliament  was 
at  last  realised   by  the  provision  of  an  annual  stipend  of  ;^400. 

Meanwhile  the  new  unionism  had  been  gaining  ground  among  the 
working  classes.  The  leaders  of  the  movement  would  appear  to  have  had 
the  double  aim  of  consolidating  a  Socialist  vote  in  parliament,  and  of  co- 
ordinating aggressive  action  on  the  part  of  trade  unions,  so  that  the  battle 

3  P 


962  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

should  no  longer  be  between  isolated  employers  and  their  dissatisfied  em- 
ployees, but  that  the  whole  forces  of  associated  trades  should  be  brought  to 
bear  to  force  the  whole  body  of  employers  to  accept  the  men's  demands. 
A  series  of  great  trade  disputes  were  adjusted  by  the  disputants'  acceptance 
of  the  mediation  of  the  Board  of  Trade  and  the  arrangement  of  com- 
promises between  masters  and  men.  But  in  191 1  it  began  to  be  realised 
that  in  certain  cases  the  general  public  as  well  as  the  particular  antagonists 
were  materially  affected  by  the  disputes.  This  began  to  be  brought  home 
by  a  strike  of  the  railway  men  in  the  summer  of  that  year,  when  it  became 
evident  that  in  certain  employments  a  cessation  of  work  might  paralyse  in- 
dustries other  than  the  one  directly  affected.  Still  more  impressive  was  the 
great  coal  strike  at  the  beginning  of  191 2,  followed  as  the  spring  was  passing 
into  summer  by  a  strike  of  transport  workers.  The  public  supply  of  fuel 
was  cut  off  by  one,  and  its  supply  of  food  was  in  danger  of  being  cut  off 
by  the  other.  There  was  a  general  acquiescence  in  the  principle  that 
masters  and  men  should  be  left  to  fight  out  their  own  private  battles  ;  but 
it  began  to  be  very  seriously  questioned  whether  that  principle  could  be 
applied  when  those  private  battles  threw  out  of  work  businesses  which  had 
no  means  of  protecting  themselves,  and  reduced  the  supply  of  the  necessities 
of  life  for  the  general  public.  In  the  two  former  cases  named  the  action  of 
the  Government  brought  the  disputes  to  a  close  for  the  time  being.  In  the 
third,  Government  merely  tendered  advice  which  was  not  accepted,  and 
the  strife  was  left  to  work  itself  out.  In  all  three  cases  there  was  a  com- 
mendable absence  of  disorder  of  the  kind  which  is  apt  to  accompany 
extensive  trade  disputes ;  but  the  successful  treatment  of  two  particular 
emergencies  was  not  a  solution  of  the  questions  which  lay  at  the  root  of 
those  emergencies,  and  ministers  before  long  felt  it  necessary  to  pledge 
themselves  to  introduce  legislation,  probably  on  the  lines  of  compulsory 
arbitration. 

Outside  the  British  Isles,  but  "within  the  Empire,  the  most  notable 
event  was  the  visit  of  the  king  and  queen  to  India.  In  that  great  depend- 
ency, what  may  be  called  the  concluding  act  of  the  regime  of  Lord  Morley 
and  Lord  Minto  was  the  admission  of  natives  of  India  to  a  larger  share 
in  the  executive  councils  both  of  the  central  government  and  of  the  pre- 
sidencies. The  continuity  of  their  policy  was  maintained  by  their  successors, 
Lord  Crewe  at  the  India  Office  and  Lord  Hardinge  in  the  vice-royalty. 
The  disaffection  which  at  one  time  seemed  so  threatening  ceased  to  be  pro- 
minently active,  and  the  presence  of  the  Emperor  of  India  in  the  Peninsula 
appealed  forcibly  to  the  imagination  of  the  natives,  giving  rise  to  very  en- 
couraging demonstrations  of  loyalty.  The  visit  was  signalised  by  the  an- 
nouncement that  the  ancient  capital  of  the  Moguls,  and  of  imperial  dynasties 
long  before  the  Moguls,  the  city  of  Delhi,  was  to  be  restored  to  its  old 
position. 

On  the  subject  of  relations  with  the  European  Powers  only  a  few  words 
can  be   added.      Russia,  formerly  feared   as  an  aggressive  military  power, 


EPILOGUE  963 

when  she  was  the  special  object  of  imperialist  denunciation,  had  become 
instead  the  special  aversion  of  advanced  Radicals,  chiefly  because  of  the 
tyrannical  methods  of  her  domestic   administration.     She  now  adopted  a 


dictatorial  attitude  towards  the  Persian  government,  which  appeared  to  be 
in  contravention  of  the  recent  agreements,  and  it  was  chiefly  from  Radical 
quarters  that  the  diplomacy  of  the  British  Government  was  denounced  for 


964  THE    MODERN    BRITISH    EMPIRE 

weakness  in  seeking  to  preserve  friendly  relations  with  a  reactionary  power 
at  the  expense  of  a  helpless  nation. 

In  19 1 1  there  was  a  moment  of  intense  anxiety  when  it  appeared  that 
relations  with  Germany  had  been  strained  almost  to  the  breaking-point.  A 
war  between  France  and  Germany  seemed  almost  inevitable,  the  subject  of 
contention  being  Morocco,  until  it  became  generally  understood  that  in 
certain  eventualities  Great  Britain  would  feel  herself  bound  to  give  France 
effective  support.  Although  the  quarrel  was  adjusted  before  the  public 
realised  how  great  had  been  the  danger  of  a  general  conflagration,  in 
certain  quarters  in  Germany  the  British  attitude  was  resented  ;  but  the 
Governments  both  of  Britain  and  Germany  directed  determined  efforts  to 
attaining  a  better  understanding  between  the  British  and  German  nations. 
While  the  presence  of  chauvinistic  elements  made  it  impossible  to  view  the 
European  situation  without  grave  anxiety,  there  were  signs  that  the  common 
sense  of  both  nations  would  triumph,  that  the  tension  would  be  relaxed, 
and  that  mutual  suspicions  would  gradually  pass  away. 

Here  our  history  closes,  at  a  moment  when  solutions  had  been  offered 
of  two  critical  constitutional  questions,  and  of  one  critical  international 
question,  while  it  would  be  rash  to  say  that  any  one  of  the  three  had  been 
definitively  solved.  At  the  same  moment  the  industrial  question  appeared 
also  to  be  reaching  a  critical  point,  and  of  that  question  it  cannot  be  said 
as  yet  that  any  solution  holds  the  field.  This,  however,  may  be  said,  that 
the  British  people  has  shown  during  these  crises  a  temper,  a  power  of  self- 
control,  and  a  disregard  for  inflammatory  rhetoric,  in  which  lies  the  best 
augury  for  the  future. 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Archbishop,  408 

Abdul  Hamid, Sultan  of  Fuikey,  903  ' 

Abdur  Rahman,  Amir  of   Kabul,   1 

907,  908,  gig 
Aberconway,  treaty  of,  124 
Abercrombie,    Sir    Ralph,    defeats 

the  French  in  Egypt,  735-736 
Aberdeen  captured   by    Montrose, 

433 
Aberdeen,     1/  rd,    831 ;     coalition 

niinibtry  of,  857 
Abhorrers,  483 

Aboukir  Bay,  battle  of,  732-733 
Absenteeism,  689,  691 
Abyssinia,  expedition  of  1868,  8S7 
Acadia,   expulsion   of  the    French 

from,  615 
Aclea  (Ockley  or  Oakley),  battle 

of,  17 
Acre,  siege  of,  734 
Addington,  Henry,  Prime  Minister, 

737;   fall  of,  745.     See  also  Sid- 

niouth 
Addison,  Joseph,  703 
Addled  Parliament,  the,  391 
Adrian  IV.,  Pope,  90 
"  Adullaniites,"  the,  884 
„-Elfgar,   Earl  of  East  Anglia,  32, 

33.  34 
.^Ifthryth,  26 

.Ethelbald,  King  of  Mercia,  14 
•■Ethelbald,  King  of  Wessex,  17 
^thelbert.  King  of  Kent,  11,  12 
,(Ethelbert,  King  of  Wessex,  17 
^thelflaed,  the  Lady  of  Mercia,  22 
^■Ethelfrith,  King  of  Northumbria, 

/lithelgifu,  evil  influence  of,  25 

^thelred,  King  of  Wessex,  17  ; 
defeated  bv  the  Danes  at  Basing, 
18 

yEthelred  the  Redeless  or  Un- 
ready, 26,  28 

yEthelric,  King  of  Northumbria,  11 

^thelric  of  Deira  dethroned,  12 

/Ethelstan,  17 

yEthelstan,  King  of  England,  23-24 

^^thelwulf,  King  of  Wessex,  17 

Afghanistan,  diplomatic  relations 
with,  765 ;  first  war,  845-846, 
887,  904,  905;  second  war  with, 
906  ;  the  Penjdeh  incident,  gig  ; 
frontiers  defined,  928 

Africa,  partition  of,  929 

Africa,  South,  79g,  841,  908-911  ; 
first  Boer  War,  gii-gi3;  the 
Jameson  Raid  and  Second  Boer 
War,  930-939,  955  ;  Union  of, 
956 

Agincourt,  battle  of,  195-196 

Agra,  868 

Agrarian  troubles  during  minority 
of  Edward  VI.,  301,  302;  strife 
in  Ireland,  689,  832-835 


Agricola  marches  through  Scot- 
land, 2 

Agricultural  Holdings  Act,  the, 
901,  927 

Agricultural  Rating  Act,  the,  944 

Agriculture,  45,  47 ;  labourers, 
173 ;  progress  of,  2ig ;  during 
the  Middle  Ages,  233,  235  ;  dur- 
ing reign  of  Elizabeth,  375  ;  535  ; 
eighteenth  century,  695-6g7, 
77g  ;  protection  of,  784,  803-805 

Ahmed  Khel,  battle  of,  907 

Ahmed  Shah,  655,  675 

Aidan,  King  of  Scots,  defeated  by  j 
^thelfrith,  11 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  treaty  of,  597 

Alabama  claims,  the,  88i,  8gg- 
900 

Alam  Bagh,  871 

Alaskan  seal  fishery  dispute,  the, 
929 

Albany,  Duke  of.  Regent  of  Scot- 
land, 288 

Albany,  Murdach,  Duke  of,  Regent 
of  Scotland,  223 

Albany,  Robert,  Duke  of.  Regent 
of  Scotland,  222  ;  alliance  with 
France,  223 

Alberoni,  Cardinal,  machinations 
of,  576 

Albuera,  battle  of,  75g 

Alcuin,  14 

Alexander  I.,  King  of  Scotland, 
78 

Alexander  II.,  King  of  Scotland, 
115 

Alexander  III.,  King  of  Scotland, 
115,  127,  132 

Alexander  VI.,  Pope,  253;  base- 
ness of,  270 

Alexander  1.,  Tsar  of  Russia,  735, 
751  ;  and  the  Holy  Alliance,  776, 
777-778 

Alexandria,  siege  of,  736 ;  bom- 
bardment of,  915 

Alfred  the  Great,  17  ;  defeated  at 
Wilton,  18  ;  forms  nucleus  of  a 
Navy,  18  ;  defea's  Danes  at 
Ethandune,  19;  captures  Lon- 
don, 19  ;  genius  and  character 
of,  20;  treaty  with  the  Danes, 
22  ;  inventor  of  trial  by  jury,  43, 
44  ;  literary  work  of,  49 

Aliwal,  battle  of,  849 

Allahabad,  868 

Allectus,  4 

Alma,  battle  of  the,  860 

Almanza,  battle  of,  561 

Almarez,  761 

Almeida,  siege  of,  759 

Alsace  and  Lorraine  lost  by 
France,  893 

Althorp,  Lord,  791  ;  sponsor  of  the 
First  Factory  Act,  817,  819 
965 


America,  591 ;  Anglo-French  strug- 
gle for,  6i2,  6x5  ;  resistance  to 
Grenville's  policy,  643-646  ;  re- 
sistance to  Townshend's  taxes, 
651  ;  estrangement  of,  658-661 ; 
the  War  of  Independence,  661- 
673  ;  confederation  of  states,  667 

America,  United  States  of,  the, 
721-722;  war  with,  766;  Civil 
War  in,  880-882,  929 

Amherst,  Lord,  captures  Louis- 
bourg,  624 

.Vmherst,  Lord,  Governor-General 
of  India,  796-797 

"Amicable  Loan"  proposed  by 
Wolsey,  268 

Amiens,  Mise  of,  105 

Amiens,  Peace  of,  the,  724  ;  treaty 
of,  the,  737,  743 

Amin  Chand,  631 

Amirs,  Napier's  quarrel  with  the, 
847 

Anarchy  among  the  Britons,  8, 
II 

Ancruni  Moor,  battle  of,  295 

Andr^,  Major,  captured  and  exe- 
cuted by  the  Americans,  671 

Angles  settle  in  Britain,  6-8 

Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  6,  ii,  17, 
23.  37.  49.  236 

Anglo-Saxon  j-olity,  38-47 

.\ngus,  Earl  of,  Archibald  "  Bell- 
the-Cat,"  treasons  against  James 
III.  and  IV.  of  Scotland,  260, 
288 

Anjou,  Counts  of,  71 

Anlaf  or  Olaf,  Norse  leader,  23 

Annates  Act,  the,  281 

Anne  of  Cleves  married  to  Henry 
VIII.,  286 

Anne,  Queen,  reign  of,  554-570 

Anselm,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
69, 71,72 

Anson,  Commodore,  593,  596 

Anti-Corn-Law  League,  the,  820, 
821,  823 

Antoinette,    Marie,    execution    of, 

725  . 
.Antoninus,  Wall  of,  2 
.Anwar-ud-Din,  604,  605 
.Appellant,  the  Lords,  180,  181 
Apprentices,  Statute  of,   375,   535, 

816 
Appropriation  of  supplies,  165,  472 
Arabi  Pasha  resists  European  con- 
trol of  Egypt,  915 
Arakan,  annexation  of,  797 
Archers,  the  English,  48,  76,  125; 

superseded  by  use  of  gunpowder, 

234 
Architecture  of  the   Middle  Ages, 

236 
Arcot,  capture  and  defence  of  by 

Clive,  606-607,  864 


966 


Argyle,  Archibald,  Earl  of,  433, 
436,  440;  execution  of,  485 

Argyle,  Archibald,  Marquis  of, 
rebellion  and  execution  of,  493 

Argyle,  John,  Duke  of,  570;  op- 
poses Mar  at  Sheriffmuir,  573 

Argyle,  Duke  of,  911  ;  retires  from 
the  Gladstone  Ministry,  914 

Aristocracy,  Anglo-Saxon,  39 

Arkwright,  Richard,  inventor  of 
the  water-driven  spinning-jenny, 
698 

Arlington,  membsr  of  the  Cabal, 
474 

Armada,  the  Spanish,  346-350, 
352 

Armed  Neutrality,  the,  671,  735 

Armenia,  Turkish  massacres  in, 
940 

Armour,  obsolescence  of,  234 

Arms,  Assize  of,  82,  88 

Army,  Standing,  beginnings  of,  468  ; 
reorganisation  of,  899  ;  Haldane's 
reforms,  952 

Arni,  battle  of,  607 

Arnold,  Benedict,  663,  671 

Arnold,  Matthew,  888 

Arran,  Earls  of,  289 

Arran,  Earl  of,  355 

Arras,  Conference  at,  between  the 
English  and  French,  200 

Art  of  the  Middle  Ages,  236 

Arthur,  King,  6 

Arthur  of  Brittany  defeated  by 
John,  94 

Arthur,  Prince  of  Wales,  son  of 
Henry  VII.,  married  to  Katha- 
rine of  Aragon,  247 

Articles,  Lords  of  the,  186,  415 

Articuli  super  Cartas,  132 

Arts,  industrial,  introduction  of, 
169 

Arundel,  Archbishop,  182 

Arundel,  Earl  of,  181 

Aryans,  the,  4 

Asaf  ud-Daulah,  680 

Ashanti,  expedition  of  1864,  the, 
878;  second,  900 

Ashbourne's  Act,  Lord,  919,  924 

Ashflown,  Saxon  victory  at,  18 

Ashley.     See  Shaftesbury 

Aske,  Robert,  leader  of  the  Pilgri- 
mage of  Grace,  285 ;  execution  of, 
286 

Assam,  annexation  of,  797 

Assandun,  battle  of,  28 

Assize  of  Arms,  82,  88  ;  of  North- 
ampton, 86 

"Association,"  the,  342 

Asquith,  Herbert  H.,  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer,  952  ;  Prime  Min- 
ister, 953 

Attacotti,  4 

Attainder,  Acts  of,  208,  209,  217, 
524 

Auckland,  Lord,  Governor-General 
of  India,  845,  846 

Auersladt,  battle  of,  750 

Augsburg,  Interim  of,  300 

Augustine  introduces  Latin  Chris- 
tianity, II 

Aurangzib,  Emperor,  537 

Aurangzib  dynasty  of  India,  the, 
603 

Aurelianus,  Ambrosias,  6,  8 

Austerlit?.  battle  of,  749 


INDEX 

Australia,  722 ;  colonisation  of,  799- 
800 ;  constitution  and  govern- 
ment of,  under  \'ictoria,  838-840  ; 
discovery  of  gold  in,  839;  Com- 
monwealth of,  945 

Austria,  British  alliance  with,  614  ; 
French  Republic's  war  with,  724  ; 
successes  of,  against  the  French 
Republic,  728 ;  makes  treaty  of 
Campo  Formio  with  Napoleon, 
730 ;  joins  second  coalition 
against  Napoleon,  734,  735,  827  ; 
intervention  of,  in  the  Crimea, 
859;  and  Northern  Italy,  879; 
rivalry  with  Prussia,  892-893 

Austrian  Succession,  War  of  the, 
590.  593 

Ayslabie,  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer, disgraced,  581 

Azores,  Sir  Richard  Grenville's  en- 
gagement with  the  Spanish  fieet 
off  the,  352 

Bacon,  Francis,  Lord  Verulam, 
354.  382,  394  ;  impeachment,  395 

Bacon,  Nicholas,  354 

Bacon,  Roger,  the  father  of  modern 
science,  235 

Badajoz,  siege  of,  759,  760 

Baden-Powell,  Sir  Robert,  defender 
of  Mafeking,  935 

Badon,  Mount,  battle  of,  6,  8 

Bagsceg  attacks  Wessex,  18 

Bahamas,  colonisation  of,  533 

P.alaclava,  860,  861 

"  Balance  of  Power,"  the,  231,  613 

Bilance  of  Trade,  372 

Balfour,  Arthur  James,  Chief  Secre- 
tary for  Ireland,  923,924  ;  Prime 
Minister,  945 

Balkan  States,  revolt  of,  903 

Ball,  John,  the  Lollard,  177 

Balliol,  Edward,  wins  Scottish 
crown,  151  ;  deposed,  152  ;  at- 
tempts to  regain  Scottish  crown, 

Balliol,  John,  127,  133-134,  136 

Ballot,  introduction  of  the,  899 

Balmerino,  Lord,  imprisonment  of, 
419 

Baltic,  the  battle  of  the,  735 

Bank  of  England,  foundation  of, 
543  ;  tiie  goldsmiths'  attempt  to 
ruin,  543,  578  ;  the  run  on,  730 

Bannockburn,  battle  of,  143 

Harbour,  Bishop,  his  poem  The 
Bruce,  238 

Barclay's  plot  against  William  III., 
523 

Barebones  Parliament,  the,  454 

Barhani,  Lord,  745 

Baring,  Major  Evelyn.  See  Cro- 
mer, Lord 

Barlow,  Sir  George,  Governor- 
General  of  India,  765 

Barnet,  Yorkist  victory  at,  212 

Baronets,  origin  of,  391 

Barons,  the,  revolt  against  William 
I.,  54,  66;  under  Henry  II.,  87  ; 
refuse  to  fight  for  John,  95  ;  re- 
sistance to  John,  96,  97,  98  ;  the, 
and  Henry  III.,  102,  103,  104, 
117,  120,  130,  135,  136;  and 
Edward  II.,  142,  146;  and  Ed- 
ward III.,  172  ;  position  of,  under 
Henry    VI.,    206;     power     of. 


broken,  219 ;  resistance  of,  to 
absolutism,  232;  decline  of  the 
power  of,  364 

Bartholomew,  St.,  massacre  of,  324, 
328 

Basing,  Danish  victory  at,  18 

Basing  Hall,  Royalist  defence  of, 
437 

Basle,  treaty  of,  728 

Bistille,  storming  of  the,  715 

Batavian  Republic  (Holland),  728 

Bate's  Case,  390,  401 

Bauge,  battle  of,  198  ;  Scots  at,  223 

Bavaria,  756 

Bavaria,  Charles,  Elector  of,  claims 
Austrian  Empire,  593 

Baylen,  capitulation  of,  753 

Beachy  Head,  French  victory  over 
English  and  Dutch  fleets  off,  511 

Beaconsfield,  Lord,  administration 
of,  901-905  ;  death  of,  914.  See 
also  Disraeli 

Beaton,  Cardinal,  290,  294  ;  assassi- 
nation of,  295,  296 

Beaufort,  Henry,  Cardinal,  Bishop 
of  Winchester,  becomes  Chan- 
cellor, 202 

Beauforts,  the,  descendants  ofijohn 
of  Gaunt,  202 

Becket,  Thomas,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  82  ;  becomes  Chan- 
cellor, 82  ;  opposes  the  king,  83, 
84  ;  murder  of,  85,  no 

Bedchamber  Question,  the,  822 

Bede,  Venerable,  6,  7,  11,  14,  49 

Bedford,  John,  Duke  of.  Regent  of 
France,  198,  2co 

Bedford,  Russell,  Duke  of,  minister 
of  George  HI.,  641 

Begums  of  Oudh,  the,  680,  681 

Belle  He,  capture  of,  638 

Bellingham,  Sir  Edward,  Deputy- 
Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  302,  330 

Benares,  acquisition  of,  by  Hast- 
ings, 679 

Benefit  of  Clergy,  85 

Benevolences  invented  by  Edward 
IV.,  213;  resorted  to  by  Henry 
VII.,  251;  demanded  by  James 
I-.  396 

Beresford,  General,  759 

Bengal,  Hastings's  administration 
in,  680;  under  Lord  Cornwallis, 
720-721 ;  partition  of,  956 

Bentinck.     See  Portland,  Duke  of 

licntinck.  Lord  George,  826 

BvMitinck,  Lord  William,  Governor- 
General  of  India,  797 

Bcorn,  Earl,  murder  of,  32 

Beornwulf,  King  of  Mcrcia,  invades 
Wessex,  15 

Beowulf,  49,  236 

Berkeley,  Bishop,  705 

Berlin  Congress,  the,  904 

Berlin  Decree,  Napoleon's,  751 

Bermudas,  colonisation  of,  533 

Bcrnicia,  kingdom  of,  11 

Bernicia,  69 

Berwick,  massacre  of,  134  ;  fall  of, 
144 ;  captured  by  the  Scots, 
159 

Berwick,  Duke  of,  commands 
French  forces  at  Almanza,  561 

Bhartpur,  hostilities  with,  797' 

Bhonsla,  the,  676,  678,  680,  736, 
764.  795 


Bible,  the,  William  Tyndde's 
translation  of,  378 ;  authorised 
version,  378 

Bigod,  Roger,  Earl  of  Norfolk,  138 

Bishops,  ejection  of,  under  Eliza- 
beth, 317 

Bishops  restored  to  the  House  of 
Lords,  470 

Bishops'  Book,  the,  286 

Bishops'  War,  the,  420 

Bismarck,  Prince,  892-894 

Black  Death,  the,  174-179,  219 

Black  Hole  of  Calcutta,  the,  620, 
630 

Black  Sea  Treaty,  899 

Blackvvater,  battle  of,  359 

Blackwood' s  Magazine,  8ri 

Bladensburg,  battle  of,  766 

Blake,  Admiral,  449,  451,  461 

Blenheim,  battle  of,  553 

Bloenifontein  Conference,  the,  933 

Blood  feud,  the,  44 

"  Bloody  Assize,"  the,  493 

Blore  Heath,  battle  of,  208 

Bliicher,  Marshal,  769-771 

Bocland,  46 

Boers,  the,  799,  842-843 ;  disputes 
with  the,  908 

Boer    War,    1880,     911  ;     second, 

93=^939 
Boleyn,  Anne,  275,   276;   married 

to  Henry  VHL,  280;   execution 

of,  286 
Bolingbroke,     Henry     St.     John, 

Lord,    555,  563,    566;    intrigues 

with  the  Jacobites,  569  ;  joins  the 

Pretender,  572 
Bombay,  676,  678 
Boniface  of  Savoy,  Archbishop  of 

Canterbury,  104 
Boniface  VUL,  Pope,  129 
Bonner,  Bishop,  imprisonment  of, 

299 ;    deprived   of  his   see,  304  ; 

persecution  of  Protestants,  311 
Bordars,  65 
Border  raids,  292 
Borodino,  battle  of,  762 
Boroughs,    23 ;     development     of, 

III,   140;    creation   of  councils, 

926;  London, 944 
Boscawen,  Admiral,  attacks  Pondi- 

chery,  605,  624,  625 
Bosnia,  revolt  of,  903 
Boston  "massacre,"  the,  and  "tea 

riots,"  658-659 
Boswell,  James,  705 
Bosworth,  battle  of,  218 
Botany  Bay,  convict  settlement  of, 

722 
Bothwell,    James,    Earl   of,    322  ; 

marries  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  324 
Bothwell  Brig,  battle  of,  487 
Boulogne      captured      by     Henry 

Vni.,  295  ;  surrender  of,  305 
Bourbons,   the,  588-590,  667 ;    the 

struggles  with,  672,  714  ;  restora- 
tion of,  in  France,  767 
Bouvines,  battle  of,  98 
Bow,  the,  use  of,  by  the  English, 

48 
Bowring,  Sir  John,  863 
Boycott,  Captain,  913 
Boyle,  Robert,  548 
Boyne,  battle  of  the,  511 
Braddock,  General,  defeat  of,  615 
Bradford,  John,  martyr,  311 


INDEX 

Bramham  Moor,  battle  of,  189 
Brand,   President  of  Orange  Free 

State,  909,  912 
Brandywine  Creek,  battle  of,  665 
Breda,  declaration  of,  465  ;  treaty 

of,  472,  534 
Brest,  battle  of,  522  ;   blockade  of, 

625,  729 
Bretigny,  treaty  of,  160 
Bretwalda,  16 
Brian   Boroimhe  defeats  Danes  at 

C  Ion  tar  f,  89 
Bridgewater,   Duke  of,   pioneer  of 

the  canal  system,  699 
Brigantes,  repression  of,  2 
Brigham,  treaty  of,  133 
Brihuega,  surprise  and  capture  of 

Stanhope's  force  at,  564 
Brindley,   James,  engineer  of  the 

Worslev-Manchester  canal,  699 
Bristol,  lii 

Bristol  merchants,  maritime  activ- 
ity of,  253 
Britain,   early    inhabitants    of,    i  ; 

Roman  occupation  of,  2  ;  dialects 

of,  2  ;  Roman  evacuation  of,  4 
British  North  America  Act,  888 
Brittany,  156 

' '  Broad  -  Bottomed  "     Administra- 
tion, the,  608 
Bronkhorst  Spruit,  battle  of,  911 
Br«  ugham,      Henry,     Lord,     779, 

791 
Brown,  John,  martyrdom  of,  513 
Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  545 
Browning,  Robert,  856 
Brownists,  371  ;   emigrate  to  Hol- 
land, 372 
Bruce,  Edward,  142 ;  accepts  offer 

of  Irish  crown,  145 
Bruce,     Robeit,     128,    133;     wins 

Scottish    crown,    136-138,    141 ; 

death  of,  144 
Bruce,  General,  679 
Brunanburh,  battle  of,  23 
Brut,  poem  of  Layamon,  236 
Brythonic  invasion,  i 
Buckingham,      Edward     Stafford, 

Duke  of,  condemnea  for  treason 

against  Henry  VIH.,  266 
Buckingham,       George       Villiers, 

Duke   of,  favourite  of  James  I. 

and    Charles    L,   394,    397-399, 

401 ;  murder  of,  404 
Buckingham,  George  Villiers   (2), 

Duke  of,  474,  479 
Buckingham,  Henry  Stafford,  Duke 

of,  insurrection  against  Richard 

in.,  216-217 
Budget,   Liberal,  of  igog   rejected 

by  the  Lords,  954 
Buenos  Ayres,  expedition  to,  750 
Building,  great  expenditure  on,  in 

fifteenth  century,  221 
Bulgaria,  revolt  of,  903 
Bulier,    General    Sir    Redvers,  as- 
sumes chief  command  in  South 

Africa,  935 
Bulowal,  battle  of,  849 
Bunker's  Hill,  battle  of,  661 
Bunyan, John,  544 
Buonaparte,  Jerome,  made  King  of 

Westphalia,  752,  772 
Buonaparte,  Joseph,  made  King  of 

Naples,     750;     of    Spain,    753, 

762 


967 


P.uon.ii)ailc,  Louis,  made  King  of 
Holland,  750 ;  deposed  by  Na- 
poleon, 756 

Buonaparte,  Napoleon.  i'<ftf  Napo- 
leon I. 

Burgh,  Hubert  de,  justiciar,  100, 
101,  102 

Burghs.     See  Boroughs 

Burgoyne,  General,  664  ;  surrenders 
at  Saratoga,  665 

Burgundy,  Philip,  Duke  of,  makes 
truce  with  Henry  \'.,  198 

Burgundy,  Philip,  Duke  of,  210 

Burh,  the,  47 

Burke,  Edmund,  648,  653,  684  ; 
introduces  his  Economic  Reform 
Bill,  684,  705 ;  denounces  the 
French  Revolution,  714 

Burleigh,  Lord,  351  ;  death  of,  353 

Burleigh,  William  Cecil,  Lord, 
minister  of  Eli;;abeth,  315,  317, 
319.-  325.  344.  351  ;  character  of, 
353-354 

Rurmah,  Amherst's  war  with,  796- 
797  ;  annexation  of  Upper,  864  ; 
annexation  of  Lower,  928 

Burnell,  Robert,  Chancellor,  119 

Burns,  Robert,  809 

Burnt  Candlemas,  the,  159 

Burrard,  Sir  Harry,  754,  755 

Busaco,  battle  of,  759 

Bussy,  M.  de,  606,  608 

Bute,  Jchn,  Earl  of,  chief  adviser 
of  George  111.,  637;  Prime 
Minister,  638-640 ;  resignation, 
641 

Butler,  Sir  William,  views  on  the 
situation  in  South  Africa,  933 

Buxar,  battle  of,  657 

Bye  Plot,  the,  against  James  I., 
386,  387 

Byng,  Admiral,  defeats  Spanish 
fleet  off  Cape  Passaro,  577,  617; 
execution  of,  618 

Byron,  Lord,  787,  811 

Cabal,  the,  474 

Cable,  the  first  submarine,  853 

Cabot,  John  and  Sebastian,  253 

Cade,  Jack,  rebellion  of,  205,  802 

Cadiz,  Drake's  expedition  to,  347; 
taken  by  Howard  and  Essex, 
352 ;  Buckingham's  expedition 
to,  398;  .Sir  George  Rooke's  ex- 
pedition to,  552 

Caedmon,  49,  236 

Caermarthen,  Marquis  of.  See 
Dan  by 

Cjesar,  Jvilius,  invades  Britain,  i 

Cassarism  in  France,  776 

Cairns,  Lord,  895 

Cairo,  occupation  of,  915 

Calais,  siege  of,  158 ;  treaty  of, 
160  ;  loss  of,  by  Mary  I. ,  313 

Calcutta,  603  ;  the  Black  Hole  of 
620,  630 

Calder,  Admiral,  746 

Calendar,  reform  of  the,  610 

Calvinism,  <io6,  415 

Cambridge,  Adolphus,  Duke  of,  781 

Cambridge,  Ri^-hard,  Earl  of,  con- 
spiracy of,  against  Henry  V.,  194, 
203 

Cambuskenneth,  battle  of,  135 

Camden,  Lord,  Viceroy  of  Ireland, 
739 


968 


Cameronians,  the,  487 

Campbell,  Sir  Colin,  Commander- 
in-Chief  in  India,  871 

Campbell-Bannerman,  Sir  Henry, 
leader  of  the  Liberal  Party,  945  ; 
administration  of,  951-953  ;  death 
of.  953 

Camperdown,  battle  of,  730 

Campian,  Robert,  the  Jesuit,  339 

Campo  Formio,  treaty  of,  73a 

Canada,  English  and  French 
strugglefor,534 ;  French coUmists 
in,  612 ;  Anglo-French  struggle 
for,  622,  624,  626-629,  640,  659  ; 
invasion  of,  by  Americans,  6(33  ; 
the  Canada  Act,  722 ;  American 
invasion  of,  766  ;  affairs  of  (1815- 
1832),  799-800;  discontent  in, 
836  ;  Act  of  Reunion  of,  837  ;  Do- 
minion of,  888 

Canal  system,  origin  of,  699 

Canning,  Cjeorge,  Foreign  Secretary, 
752  ;  resigns,  758,  761  ;  policy  of, 
782-783,  786;  becomes  I'rime 
Minister,  786  ;  death  of,  787,  795 

Canning,  Lord,  Governoi -General 
of  India,  868,872  ;  becomes  Vice- 
roy, 872 ;  887 

Canons,  Book  of,  Scottish,  419 

Canton,  capture  of,  872 

Cape  Colony,  737  ;  reoccupation 
of.  750,  775  ;  Dutch  settlers  in, 
841,  844 

"  Cape  to  Cairo"  project  of  Cecil 
Rhodes,  931 

Capital  and  labour,  relations  of 
during  eighteenth  century,  695  ; 
antagonism  of,  802 ;  conflicts, 
853-854.  948 

Capitalism,  beginning  of,  220 

Carausius,  4 

Carham,  battle  of,  30 

Carleton,  Sir  Guy,  author  uf  the 
Quebec  Act,  659,  664 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  856,  888 

Carnarvon,  Lord,  909 

Carnatic,  the,  678,  764 

Carnot,  Lazare  N.  M.,  French 
statesman,  726 

Carolinas,  colonisation  of,  534 

Caroline,  Queen,  584 

Caroline  of  I'runswick,  wife  of 
George  IV.,  781 

Cartagena,  rei-ulse  of  liritish  (icet 
at,  592 

Carteret,  George  Granville,  Lord, 
586 ;  minister  for  foreign  affairs, 
594.  608 

"  Cartridge  Incident,"  the,  866,  868 

Cartwright,  Edmund,  inventor  of 
the  power-loom,  698 

Casket  Letters,  the,  326 

Castillon,  English  defeat  at,  207 

Castlebar,  Race  of,  741 

Castlereagh.  Lord,  742,  758;  For- 
eign Secretary,  761,  767;  policy 
of,  778  ;  suicide  of,  782 

Castles,  66 

C/lteau  CambrcJsis,  treaty  of,  316 

Catherine  "  liar-lass,"  224 

Catherine,  Tsarina,  aggression  of, 
.  713.  733 

C  atherinc  do  Medicis,  319,  321 

<"atliolic  Association,  the,  789 

Catholic  Emancipation,  737,  750, 
786,  789-790 


INDEX 

Catholic  Relief  Act,  683  ;  Ireland, 

692 
Cato  Street  Conspiracy,  the,  780 
Cavagnari,  Sir  Louis,  907 
Cavendish,  Lord  Frederick,  murder 

of,  915 
Cavour,  Count,  878,  880 
Cawnpore,  massacre  of,  S6S-S70 
Cnxton,  William,  214,  240 
Ceawlin,  King  of  Wessex,  11,  12 

Cecil.     See  Burleigh  and  Salisbury 

Celts,  1-6,  TO 

Ceolwulf,  King  of  Mercia,  deposed 

by  Beornwulf,  15 
Ceorls,  39,  43,  46,  48,  55,  64 
Ccrdic,  9  ;  house  of,  35 
Cetewayo,  King  of  the  Zulus,  908 
Ceylon,  737;  acquired  by  Britain, 

-.  775 

Chamberlain,  Joseph,  911,  921,  925  ; 
Colonial  Minister,  930;  adopts 
Protection,  949 

Chamberlain,  Sir  Neville,  906 

Chanda  Sahib,  605,  606,  607 

Chandernagur,  603;  captured  by 
Clive,  621,  631 

Chaplin,  Walter,  champion  of  pro- 
tection for  agriculture,  951 

Charles  I. ,  accession  of,  397 ;  marries 
Henrietta  Maria,  397 ;  arouses 
antagonism  in  Scotland,  418  ; 
surrender  and  imprisonment  of, 
437  ;  renews  hostilities,  441  ;  trial 
and  execution  of,  444  ; 

Charles  II.  accepts  the  Solemn 
League  and  Covenant,  448  ;  ac- 
cession of,  465  ;  character  of,  467  ; 
foreign  policy  of,  471  ;  marries 
Catherine  of  Braganza,  471 ;  war 
with  the  Dutch,  472  ;  secret  treaty 
with  Louis  XIV.  of  France,  476  ; 
religious  policy  of,  476-477;  in- 
trigues with  Louis  XIV.  of 
France,  479,  483  ;  policy  of,  488  ; 
death  of,  490;  founder  of  the 
Royal  Society,  548 

Charles  V.,  Emperor,  alliance  of, 
with  Henry  VIII.,  265,  300 

Charles  VI,,  Emperor,  590,  593 

Charles  IV.,  King  of  France,  149 

Charles  v..  King  of  France,  i6r 

Charles  X.  of  France,  abdication  of, 
791 

Charles  IV.  of  Spain,  abdication  of, 
753 

Charles  XII.  of  Sweden,  561 

Charles,  Archduke  of  Austria, 
defeats  General  Jourdan,  728 

"Charlies"  superseded  by  police- 
men, 784 

Charniouth,  battle  of,  17 

Charter  of  Henry  I.,  98 

Charter,  the  Forest,  131 

Charter,  the  Great,  99,  10 1,  120, 
126, 131 

Charter,  the  People's,  853 

Chartered  Company,  South  Africa, 
the,  931 

Charters,  municipal,  95,  112 

Chartists,  the,  820,  821,  823,  824, 
827,  854 

Chatham,  Earl  of.     See  Pitt 

Chatham,  I'larl  of,  comnianflrr  of 
military  in  Walchcrcn  expedition, 
758 


Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  238 

Chelmsford,  Lord,  Commander-in- 
Chief  in  Zulu  War,  910 

Cheriton,  battle  of,  432 

Chesapeake  and  Shan?ton,  duel  cf, 
766 

Chester,  battle  of,  10,  11 ;  Fenian 
plut  at,  886 

Chesterfield,  Lord,  588,  610 

Chevy  Chace,  ballad  of,  187 

Cheyte  Singh,  deposition  of,  680 

Chillianwalla,  battle  of,  851 

China,  war  with,  863,  872,  877  ; 
war  with  Japan,  940;  Bo.xer 
rising,  943 

Chinese  labour  in  South  Africa, 
951 

Chippenham,  Peace  of,  19 

Choiseul,  Duke  of,  plans  invasion 
of  England,  625  ;  negotiations 
with  William  Pitt,  628 

Christianity  in  Britain,  4 ;  spread 
of,  11-12 

t'hurch,  the,  13-14,  40;  and  State, 
relations  of,  55 ;  under  William 
'■•  57-58.  79.  82,  109;  under 
Edward  I.,  121,  129;  and  Com- 
mons under  Henry  IV.,  190; 
during  the  MiJdle  Ages,  226, 
228  ;  organisation  of,  in  England, 
232  ;  degraded  state  of,  at  time 
of  the  Reformation,  270  ;  and  the 
Reformation,  299-301  ;  Protector 
Somerset's  dealings  with,  302- 
303  ;  during  the  Tudor  period, 
367-372 ;  855 

Church  of  Ireland,  831,  832 

Churchill,  John.    See  Marlborough 

Churchill,  Lord  Randolph,  resigna- 
tion of,  925 

Cintra,  Convention  of,  755 

Circumspecte  Agatis,  royal  ordi- 
nance, 121 

Ciudad  Rodrigo,  759,  760 

Civil  List,  the,  779 

Civil  War,  the,  428-444 

Clanship,  40,  41 

Clare,  Earl  of,  739 

Clarendon,  Assize  of,  88 

Clarendon  Cede,  470 

Clarendon,  C  onstitutions  of,  83 

Clarendon,  Edward  Hyde,  Earl  of, 
chief  adviser  of  Charles  II.,  469  ; 
fall  of,  473 

Clarendon,  Lord,  Foreign  Secre- 
tary, 858,  862,  872 

Clarence,  George,  Duke  of,  anaign- 
mcnt  and  death  of,  214-215 

Class  war,  802-807 

Claudius,  Emperor,  annexes  Brit- 
ain, 2 

Claverhouse,  John  Graham  of. 
Viscount  Dundee,  487,  488,  514 

Clavering,  General,  6;6 

Clement  VII.,  Pope,  and  Henry 
VIII.,  276 

Cle:gy,  celibacy  of,  58 

Clergy,  the,  and  Edward  1.,  129- 
131  I  relations  of  Henry  \'in. 
with,  282  ;  cease  to  be  an  Estate 
of  Parliament,  152;  refuse  to  take 
the  oath  to  William  III.,  506 

Clerich  Laicos,  129 

(  Icrkenwell  gai.l,  Fenian  attempt 
to  blow  up,  886 

Cleveland,  Duke  of,  808 


INDEX 


969 


Clifford,  Lord,  474 

Clinton,  General,  665,  668,  669, 
670 

Clive,  Lord,  602  ;  and  the  conquest 
of  India,  600,  615,  620,  624,  629- 
63s ;  administration  of,  657  ; 
attack  on,  in  Parliament,  675 

Clontarf,  battle  of,  89 

Closure,  Parliamentary,  introduc- 
tion of,  921 

Cloth  of  Gold,  Field  of,  265 

Coal  strike,  1912,  the,  962 

Coalfields, development  of, 700,  801 

Coalition  against  Napoleon,  (i.)725, 
(ii-)733.  768 

Coalition  Ministry,  the  (George 
111.),  685-686 

Coalition  Ministry,  Lord  Aber- 
deen's, 831,  857' 

Cobden,  Richard,  875 

Cobham,  Lord,  execution  of,  193 

Coenwulf,  King  of  Mercia,  15 

Coercion  Bills,  Ireland,  832,  834, 
835.913 

Coinage,  debasement  of,  295,  543 

Colbert,  French  statesman,  537 

Colborne,  Sir  John,  Governor  of 
Canada,  837 

Colchester,  siege  of,  442 

Coleman,  Father,  implicated  in 
Oatcs'  plot,  480 

Colenso,  battle  of,  935 

Coleridge,  Samuel  'I'aylor,  810 

Colet,  John,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  270 

Colley,  Sir  George,  defeated  at 
Laing's  Nek  and  Majuba,  912 

Collieries  Bill,  the,  824 

Collingwood,  Lord,  746 

Collins,  William,  703 

Colonies,  development  of,  under 
Victoria,  835 

Colonisacion,  beginnings  and 
growth  of,  531,  612-636,  799 

Colt  Brigg,  Canter  of,  599 

Columbus,  Christopher,  253 

Combination  Laws,  S02  ;  repeal  of, 
806 

Comes,  41,  59 

Commentiation,  60 

Commerce,  46,  47,  iii,  n8,  140- 
141 ;  between  England  and 
France,  155 ;  growth  of,  166, 
220-221;  under  Henry  VII., 
252;  under  the  Tudors,  372  ;  in 
seventeenth  century,  535  ;  Scot- 
tish impetus  of  the  Union  to, 
559;  under  George  II.,  586- 
588 ;  expansion  of,  during  the 
eighteenth  century,  695  ;  depres- 
sion of,  after  the  Napoleonic 
wars,  778 

Committees  of  the  Articles,  aboli- 
tion of,  516 

Commons,  House  of,  growth  of 
power,  118, 165  ;  and  Henry  IV., 
190-191,  219;  authority  of  the, 
232  ;    power  over   finance,   364  ; 

-  conflicts  with  the  House  of  Lords, 
927,  952,  953,  9S4 

Commonwealth,  the,  445  ;  war  with 
Holland,  451 ;  foreign  policy  of, 
460 

Commune  Concilium,  59 

Commutation,  82,  173,  174 

Compton,  Bishop  of  London,  495, 
498 


Comyn,  John,  claimant  to  Scouish 

throne,  133,  137, 
Confirmatio    Cartarum,    131,    135, 

136,  139 
Conflans,  Admiral,  625 
Coii^^t'  d'dlire,  282 
Congregation,  Lords  of  the,  319 
Congress,  American,  660,  661,  663  ; 

rejects  British  overtures,  667 
Conservatives,  the,  813,  814 
Consols  created  by  Pelham,  609-610 
Consort,  the  Prince,  878 
Conspiracy  Law,  the,  898,  901 
Conspiracy  to  Murtler  Bill,  I'almer- 

ston"s,  873 
Constantme,  King  of  Scots,  23 
Constantius  Chlorus,  4 
Constitution,    development   of  the, 

232 
Constitutional  crisis,  the,  955,  958 
Continental    system,     Napoleon's, 

749 
"  Convention     of     London,"     the 

(1884),  912,931 
Convention  of  Westminster,  616 
Convention,  the  Scottish,  557 
Convention     Parliament,     fhe,    (i) 

467  (2)  502 
Convention    Parliament,    Scottish, 

514 

Convict  settlements  in  Australia,  839 

Convocation.  See  Church,  and 
Clergy 

Cook,  Captain,  voyages  of,  722 

Coote,  Sir  Eyre,  defeats  the  French 
at  Wandewash,  634;  routs  Haidar 
Ali,  679 

Cope,  Sir  John,  defeat  of,  at  Preston- 
pans,  600 

Copenhagen,  battle  of,  735  ;  bom- 
bardment of,  752 

Corn  Law,  the,  779,  784,  805  ; 
repeal  of  the,  814,  823 

Cornishmen,  rising  of,  under  Henry 
Vll.,246 

Coroners,  94 

Corporation  Act,  the,  470;  aboli- 
tion of,  788 

Corporations,  214 

Corruption,  Parliamentary,  by 
Walpole,  584 

Corsica  offered  to  Britain,  650 

Corunna,  battle  of,  755 

Cornwallis,  Admiral,  746 

Cornwallis,  Lord,  his  operations  in 
America,  668,  670,  671  ;  Gover- 
nor-General of  India,  719  ;  Lord- 
Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  740,  741, 
746 ;  returns  to  India  as  Gover- 
nor-General, 765 

Cottars,  65,  695 ;  exiinction  cf, 
696,  803 

Cotton  famine,  the,  882 

Cotton  industry,  introduction  of ,375 

Cotton-mule,  invention  of,  by 
Samuel  Crompton,  698 

Council,  the  Great,  58,  59 

Council  of  Executors  nominated 
by  Henry  VIII. ,  297 

Council  of  Executors  favour  re- 
formed doctrines,  299 

Council  of  Twelve,  164 

Courts  of  Law,  86 

Coutances,  Walter  of,  Justiciar,  93 

Covenant,  National  League  and, 
420 


Covenant,  Solemn  League  and, 
431,  434,  438;  publicly  burnt, 
470 

Covenanters  withdraw  from  Eng- 
land, 438 ;  routed  at  RuUion 
Green ,  486  ;  routed  at  Drumclog, 
487  ;  persecution  of,  488,  559 

Cowpe:-Temple  Clause,  the,  S98 

Crafts,  grow  th  of,  141 ;  progress 
of,  219 

Cranborne,  Lord.  See  .Salisbury, 
Marquis  of 

Cranmer,  Archbishop,  291  ;  and 
the  divorce  of  Katharine  of  Ara- 
gon,  279-281,  303,  309;  martyr- 
dom of,  311-312 

Crecy,  battle  of,  157 

Crefeld,  battle  of,  623 

Cr6py,  Peace  of,  295 

Cressingham,  Hugh,  134 

Crete,  autonomy  of,  940 

Cr6vant,  battle  of,  199  ;  the  Scots 
at,  223 

Crewe,  Chief  Justice,  399 

Crimean  War.  the,  859-862 

Crimes  Act,  Ireland,  922,  924 

Crimes,  punishment  of,  under  the 
early  English,  43-44 

Criminal  Code  revised  by  Peel,  784 

Criminal  Law  Amendment  Act, 
898,  901 

Cromer,  Lord,  Agent  and  Consul- 
General  in  Egypt,  916 

Crompton,  Sanmel,  inventor  of  the 
cotton-mule,  698 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  429;  raises  his 
"  Ironsides,"  431 ;  at  Marston 
Moor,  432  ;  and  the  New  Model, 
435 ,  victory  at  Preston,  442 ; 
succeeds  Fairfax,  448;  victory 
at  Dunbar,  449  ;  victory  at  Wor- 
cebter,  449;  character  of,  450; 
becomes  Lrrd  Protector,  455; 
policy  of,  456;  declines  title  of 
king,  459;  war  with  Spain,  460; 
alliance  with  France,  461 ;  death 
of,  462 

Cromwell,  Richard,  Protector,  463 

Cromwell,  Thomas,  278,  279;  ap- 
pointed Vicar-General,  283;  fall 
and  execution  of,  288 

Cronje,  General,  surrender  of,  at 
Paardeberg,  937 

Croprc  ly  Bridge,  battle  of,  433 

Crown,  powers  of  the,  219  ;  and 
people,  conflict  of,  383;  and 
Parliament,  581 

Crusades,  the,  69,  86 

CuUoden,  battle  of,  600 

Cumberland,  114 

Cumberland,  Ernest,  Duke  of, 
popular  detestation  of,  781  ;  be- 
comes King  of  Hanover,  815 

Cumberland,  William,  Duke  of,  de- 
feated at  Fontenoy,  596  ;  defeats 
Young  Pretender  at  Culloden, 
600  ;  signs  Convention  of  Kloster 
Seven,  621 

Curia  Regis,  74,  86 

Currency,  lack  of,  in  early  England, 
46  ;  growth  of,  74,  in 

Curzon,  Lord,  Viceroy  of  India, 
956 

Customs  duties,  120 

Customs,  "  Great  and  Ancient," 
139,  167,  169 


970 

Dacoits,  sujipression  of,  in  India, 

798 
Dalhousie,  Lord ,  Governor-General 

of  India,  850-851,  864 
Dalrymple,  Sir  Hew,  754,  755 
Dalrymplc,   Sir    John,    Master    of 

Stair,  517 
Danby,  Thomas  Osborne,  Earl  of, 
minister  of  Charles  II.,  478  ;  im- 
peachment and  imprisonment  of, 
481;   release  of,   490;   498,  503, 
508,  522 
Danegeld,  64,  66,  74 
Danelagh,  the,  19 
Danes,    descent    of    the,     15-16  ; 
defeat  of,  at  Aclea,  17;  conquer 
Northimibria,  18 ;  invade  Wessex, 
18  ;  dtifeat  Saxons  at  Basing,  18  ; 
defeated  at  Ethandune,  19  ;  seize 
Exeter,     19 ;    invasions    of,    27  ; 
general  massacre  of,  on  St.  Brice's 
Day,  27;  attack  on  Ireland,  89 
Danton,  716, 725 
Darien  Scheme,  the,  539 
Darnley,     Henry     Lord,    marries 
Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  322  ;  murder 
of,  323 
Darwin,  Charles,  888 
David,  King  of  Scotland,  75,  76 
David  I.,  Kmg  of  Scotland,  75,  76, 

78,  79.  114 
David  II.,  King  of  Scotland,  150; 
sent  to  France,  152;  defeated  by 
English  and  taken  prisoner,  158  ; 
released,  159  ;  captive  in  England, 
185  ;  death  of,  186 
David  ap  Grififith  captures  Hawar- 

den,  124,  125 
David,  John,  explorer,  335 
Death  Duties,  creation  of,  927 
Death  penaky  almost  abolished  by 

Wilham  I.,  56 
De  Bohun,  Henry,  144 
Deccan,  the,  764 
Declaration       of       Independence, 

American,  the,  663 
Declaration  of  Right,  the,  503 
Declaration   of   Rights,   American, 

660 
Declaratory  Act,  648 
Declaratory    Act     (Ireland),    689 ; 

repeal  of,  694 
Defoe,  Daniel,  555,  704 
De    Grasse,    Admiral,    co-operates 
with   George   Washington,   671  ; 
defeated  by  Rodney  in  the  West 
Indies,  672-673 
De  (irey,  John,  96 
Deira,  king<lom  of,  11 
De     Lacey,     Hugh,    justiciar     of 

Ireland,  91 
Delhi  sacki  d  by  Nadir  Shab,  675  ; 
863  ;      SiiKihia's     and     Holkar's 
attack  on,    764  ;   siege  of,    869  ; 
capital  of  India,  962 
Demesne,  the,  46 

Democratic  movement,  the,  777,  946 
Denmark,    Canning's   coercion   of, 

752,  880 
Deoiham,  battle  of,  10,  11 
Derby,  Lord,  I'rime  Minister,  829, 
830,    873 ;    third    administration 
of,  884-886  ;  resignation  of,  903 
Derby,    Lord,    Colonial  Secretary, 

918.    See  also  Stanley,  Lord 
D'Erlon.     See  Drouel 


INDEX 


Dermot,  King  of  Leinster,  go 
Derry,  siege  of,  511 
Desmond's  rebellion,  338 
Despenser,     Hugh,     favourite     of 

Edward  II.,  148 
D'Estaing,  French  Admiral,  668 
Dettingen,  battle  cf,  594 
Devon  Commission,  the,  833-834 
Devonshire,  Duke  of,  Prime  Minis- 
ter, 618 
Devonshire,  Duke  of,  930  ;  resigna- 
tion of,  951 
Devonshire,  Earl  of,  498 
De  Wet,  General  Christian,  937-938 
Dialogue  on  the  E.xchequer,  Fitz- 

Neal's,  55 
Diamond  Hill,  battle  of,  937 
Dickens,  Charles,  856 
Dilke,  Sir  Charles,  911 
Dinapur,  the  mutiny  at,  870 
Dingan,  King  of  the  Zulus,  843 
Diplomacy,  international,   rise   of, 

243.  244 

Directory,  the  French,  725 

Disraeli,     Benjamin,     822,      826  ; 

Chancellor    of    the    Exchequer, 

829 ;   novels  of,    856 ;    leader   of 

the  Commons,  873-874,  884,  894  ; 

Prime     Minister,    901  ;    foreign 

policy  of,  901-904 ;  death  of,  914 

"  Divine  right  of  kings,"  the,  383- 

384 
Dogger  Bank,  battle  of  the,  671  ; 

incident  of  the,  95S 
Domesday  Book,  64-66 
Donalbane,  King  of  Scotland,  70 
Donald,  Lord  of  the  Isles,  claims 
Earldom  of  Ross  and  is  defeated 
at  Harlaw,  223 
Dongola,  occupation  of,  940 
Donne,  John,  544 
"  Dooms,"  or  Laws,  42,  43 
Dorchester,  Lord.     See  Carleton 
Dost  Mohammed,  ruler  of  Kabul, 

84s,  846;  restored,  846,  863 
Douglas,  Bishop  Gavin,  poet,  378 
Douglas,  Catherine  "  Barlass,"  224 
Douglas,  Lord  James,  ' '  the  Black," 

142,  224 
Douglas,  Lord  William,  224 
Dover,  riot  at,  32;   loyalty  of,  to 

John,  100;  treaty  of,  476,  488 
Drake,    Sir    Francis,    harries    the 
Spaniards,  334-33S  '<  Darien  ex- 
pedition, 335;  expedition  to  the 
West     Indies,    342 ;     expedition 
to  Cadiz,  347,  349  ;  Lisbon   ex- 
pedition, 351  ;  expedition  to  the 
West  Indies,  352 
Dresden,  battle  of,  762 
Drogheda  stormed  by  Cromwell,  446 
Drouet  D'Erlon,  Marshal,  770,  773 
Drumclog,  rout  of  Covenanters  at, 

487 
Dryden, John,  546 
Dudley,  Lord  Guildford,  marriage 
to  Lady  Jane  Grey,  306;  execu- 
tion of,  310 
Dunbar,  battle  of,  449 
Dunbar,  William,  poet,  378 
Duncan,  Admiral,    wins   battle   of 

Camperdown,  730 
Duncan,  King  of  .Scots,  33 
Dundalk,  battlt-  of,  145 
Dundee.     Sec  Claverhousc 
Dunes,  battle  of  the,  461 


Dunkeld,  battle  of,  516 

Dunkirk,  461 ;  sold  to  France  by 
Charles  II.,  471 

Dunning's  resolution,  684 

Dunsinane,  battle  of,  33 

Dunstan,  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, 25-26 

Dupleix,  602-608 

Dupplin  Moor,  battle  of,  151 

Durban,  Sir  Benjamin,  Governor 
of  Cape  Colcny,  842 

Durham,  Lord,  Governor  of 
Canada,  837 

Dutch  wars  with  the  Common- 
wealth, 451;  with  Charles  II. ,  472 

Duties,  reduction  of,  785,  S75,  876 

Dynamite  outrages,  918 

Eadred,  King  of  England,  sub- 
dues the  Danes,  25 

Eadric  Streona,  27 

Ealdormen,  position  and  duties  of, 
41.  59 

East  India  Company,  the,  374,  472, 
522,  531,  536,  537,  538,  541,  578, 
602,  605-608,  656,  676,  681,686, 
717  ;  abolition  of,  718,  815,  872 

East  India  Company,  Dutch,  472 

East  India  Company,  the  French, 
537.  541  ;  struggle  with  British 
East  India  Company,  597,  602, 
60s 

Eastern,  or  Prussian  Company,  374 

Eastern  Question,  the,  902 

Eastern  rising,  the,  301 

Ecclesiastical  Commission,  Court 
of,  created  by  James  II.,  495 

Ecclesiastical  Regulations,  Scottish, 
419 

Ecgbert,  King  of  Wesse.x,  15-16 

Ecgfrith  of  Northumbria  defeated 
at  Nechtansmcre,  14 

Economic  Reform  Bill,  Burke's,  684 

Edgar,  King  of  England,  reign  of, 
25-26,  32 

Edgar,  King  of  Scotland,  70 

Edgar  the  /4£theling,  29 

Edgar  the  .lEthling,  35 

Edgar  the  .^theling,  elected  king, 
50,  53 

Edgehill,  battle  of,  429 

Edict  of  Nantes,  the,  revoked  by 
Louis  XIV.,  494 

Edinburgh  captured  by  the  forces 
of  Bruce,  142;  294;  sacked  by 
Protector  Somerset,  299;  treaty 
of,  319 

Rdmburgh  Revinv,  The,  811 

Edington,  or  Ethandune,  battle  of, 
19 

Edith,  wife  of  Edward  the  Con- 
fessor, 31 

Edmund  "  the  Deed-doer,"  King, 
24 

Edmund  Ironside,  28 

Edmund,  St.,  18,  22 

Education,  reform  of,  270 

Education,  854-855  ;  Forster's  Act, 
897  ;  Act  of  1891,  926 

Education  Bill,  944,  945  ;  defeated 
by  the  Peers,  952  ;  Asquith's,  953 

Edward  the  Black  Prince,  159,  160, 
161,  162,  163,  164 

Edw.ird  the  Confessor,  31 

Edward  the  Elder,  King  of  Wessex, 
reign  and  policy  of,  22-53 


Edward  the  iMaityr,  26 

Edward  I.  defeats  de  Montfort  at 
E\eshain,  107  ;  reign  of,  117-141  ; 
character  of,  118;  policy  of,  iig; 
and  the  Church,  121 ;  conquers 
Wales,  122  ;  defeated  near  Menai 
Strait,  125  ;  and  the  Constitution, 
126;  conquest  of  Scotland,  127- 
128;  policy  of,  128;  relations 
with  Philip  IV.  of  France,  128  ; 
Flemish  Expedition,  131 ;  con- 
tinental relations,  136  ;  policy  of, 
137,  138-141 ;  and  finance,  139- 
140 ;  commercial  developments 
under,  141 

Edward  II.  invades  Scotland,  142; 
follies  of,  145-148  ;  forced  to  ab- 
dicate, and  murdered,  149-150 

Edward  III.  proclaimed  and 
crowned,  149  ;  overthn-ws  Morti- 
mer, 150 ;  defeats  Scots  at  Hali- 
don  Hill,  152;  war  with  France, 
154 ;  his  claims  to  the  French 
throne,  154-155 ;  invades  Nor- 
mandy, 157  ;  military  prowess  of, 
160  ;  renews  his  war  w  ith  France, 
162;  disasters  of  his  later  years, 
163;  policy  of,  166;  strains 
royal  prerogative,  167;  and  the 
baronage,  172 

Edward  IV.  proclaimed  king,  209  ; 
marriage  of,  211  ;  captured  by 
Warwick  and  released,  212  ;  flees 
to  Burgundy,  212 ;  regains  the 
throne,  212-213  '<  character  and 
policy  of,  213-215  ;  proposed 
war  upon  France,  215  ;  death  of, 
215 

Edward  V.  accession  of,  215  ; 
murder  of,  216 

Edward  VI.,  death  of,  306 

Edward  VII.,  reign  of,  949  ;  death 
of,  955 

Edwardes,  Herbert,  850,  851 

Edwin,  Earl  of  ^Iercia,  34  ;  de- 
feated at  York,  37  ;  51 

Edwin,  King  of  Northumbria,  12 

Edwy  appointed  king,  24 ;  divi- 
sion of  his  kingdom,  25 

Edwy,  son  of  .lilthelred,  29 

Egypt,  Napoleon's  expedition  to, 
731-734  ;  British  relations  with, 
915 ;  Britain  takes  control  of, 
916  ;  Salisbury's  policy  in,  928- 
929,  940 

Elections,  borough  and  shire,  under 
Edward  IV. ,  214 

Elgin,  Lord,  878;  Governor- 
General  of  India,  887 

Eliot,  George,  888 

Eliot,  Sir  John,  399,  400,  410 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  accession  of, 
314;  policy  of,  315;  and  the 
Church,  316;  and  the  national 
finances,  317  ;  supports  Lords  of 
the  Congregation,  319;  plots  to 
murder,  324  ;  prosperous  rule  of, 
325 ;  diplomatic  relations  with 
Spain,  329;  administration  of 
Ireland  under,  330-332  ;  alliance 
with  the  Dutch,  342  ;  helps  Henry 
of  Navarre,  352  ;  relations  with 
Scotland,  356;  death  of,  361; 
chiuacter  of,  361 

Elizabeth,  Poor  Law  of,  695 

Elizabeth,  Tsarina,  613,  614,  616 


INDEX 

Elizabethan  Age,  the,  543 

EUandune,  battle  of,  15 

Ellenborough,  Lord,  Governor- 
General  of  India,  846,  848 

Elliott,  Sir  George,  defender  of 
Gibraltar,  673 

El-Teb,  battle  of,  917 

Emancipation  of  Slaves  Act,  838, 
841 

Emmet,  Robert,  insurrection  of, 
745 

Employers'  Liability  Bill,  927, 
945 

Enclosure  of  land,  301,  695 

Encumbered  Estates  Act,  the,  835 

Enghien,  Due  d",  murder  of,  746 

Engineers,  strike  of,  1852,  854 

Engineers'  Society,  the,  890 

English  people,  traits  of  the,  117 

Enniskillen,  siege  of,  510 

Entail,  122 

Entente  cordiale,  the,  958 

Episcopacy  in  Scotland,  416  ;  Act 
abolishing,  516 

Episcopate,  Scottish,  restoration  of 
by,  James  VI.,  356 

Erasmus,  270 

Eric,  King  of  Norway,  115,  132 

Escheat,  63 

Essex,  Earl  of,  captures  Cadiz, 
325.  354  ;  fall  of,  357-359  ;  failure 
in  Ireland,  360 ;  execution  of, 
360 

Essex,  Robert  Devereux,  Earl  of, 
commands  the  Parliamentary 
forces,  429 ;  commits  suicide  in 
,  the  Tower,  489 

Etaples,  Peace  of,  246 

Ethandune,  battle  of,  19 

Eugene,  Prince,  commander  of  the 
Austrian  forces,  552;  joined  by 
Marlborough,  553 ;  drives  the 
French  out  of  Italy,  560 

Euphues,  John  Lyly's,  379 

Europe,  state  of,  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  230-232 ;  condition  of, 
during  reign  of  Elizabeth,  320- 
321,  327;  settlement  of,  after 
Waterloo,  775 

European  Concert,  the,  903 

Eustace,  Count,  of  Boulogne,  32 

Eustace,  son  of  Stephen,  77 

Exchequer,  Court  of,  74 

Exchequer,    "Stop"   of  the,    477, 

Excise,  540 

Excise  Bill,  Walpole's,  587 
Exclusion  Bill,  the,  481,  482 
Exeter,   Danes  occupy  and   retire 

from,  19 
Exeter,    Marquis   of,   executed   for 

treason,  287 
Export  trade  under  Edward   III., 

169 
Evesham,  battle  of,  107 
Eylau,  battle  of,  751 
Eyre,    Sir    George,    Governor    of 

Jamaica,  887 

Factories  and  Workshops  Acts, 
1867,  890;  modification  of,  927 

Factory  Act,  first,  the,  815,  816- 
818,  824,  825  ;  Fielden's,  827 

Ea'crie  Queen,  The,  380 

Fairfax,  Lord,  holds  Hull  against 
Royalists,  430,  433 


971 


Fairfax,  Sir  1  homas,  Conunander- 
in-Chief  of  the  Parliamentary 
forces,  435,  442,  448  ;  joins  Monk, 
,46s 

Palaise,  treaty  of,  85,  92,  114 

Falkirk,  battle  of,  127    136,  600 

Falkland,  Lucius  Carey,  Lord, 
469 

Family  Compact,  the,  (i.)  589;  (ii.) 
638 

Family  Compact,  Canadian,  799 

Fashoda  incident,  the,  941 

Fawkes,  Guy,  388 

Federation  League,  the,  917 

Felonies  Act,  305 

Felt  on,  John,  assassin  of  Bucking- 
ham, 404 

Fenianism,  885-886,  8g6 

Fenwick,  Sir  John,  discloses  Jaco- 
bite intrigues,  524 

Ferdinand  of  Aragon  makes  alli- 
ance with  Henry  VII. ,  244-245 

Ferdinand  of  Spain,  596 

Ferrar,  Bishop,  martyred,  311 

Feudal  System,  51,  53,  60 

Fielden's  Factory  Act,  827 

Fielding,  Henry,  705 

Fifth  Monarchy  Men,  the,  457, 
468 

Finance,  national,  74,  126,  139; 
Commons  assert  exclusive  right 
over,  191  ;  chaos  of,  during  reign 
of  Edward  VI.,  305;  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  540 

Finch,  Speaker,  410 

Fire  of  London,  the  Great,  472 

Firozpur,  849 

Firozshah,  battle  of,  849 

Fiscal  Policy,  the  problem  of,  950- 
951 

Fisher,  John,  Bishop  of  Rochester, 
270;  committed  to  the  Tower, 
282  ,  executtd,  283 

Fitz-Neal,  Richard,  55,  109 

Fitz-Osbern,  Roger,  insurrection  of, 
56 

Fitz-Osbern,  William,  51 

Fitz-Peter,  Geoffrey,  justiciar,  93, 
94.  95.  97 

Fitz-William,  Lord,  Viceroy  of  Ire- 
land, 739 

Five  Articles  of  Perth,  the,  417 

Five  Members,  impeachment  of 
the, 427 

Five  Mile  Act,  the,  470 

Flambard,  Ranulf,  68,  71 

Flamsteed,  548 

Flanders,  130,  154 

Fleetwood,  General,  463 

Fletcher,  Andrew,  of  Saltoun,  558 

Fleury,  Cardinal,  minister  of  Louis 
XV.  of  France,  589 

Flodden,  battle  of,  263,  264 

Flood,  lienry,  693 

Florentines,  financial  relations  with 
Edward  I.,  140;  banishment  of, 
147 

Florida,  673 

Fly-shuttle,  invention  of,  by  John 
Kay,  697 

Folc-iand,  46 

Folc-moot,  54,  55,  60 

Folk-moots,  43 

Fontenoy,  battle  of,  596 

Forbes,  Duncan,  600,  601 

Foreign  commierce    221 


972 

Forest  Law,  56 

Forfeiture,  63 

Formigny,  battle  of,  204 

Forster,  William  Edward,  his  Edu- 
cation Act,  897  ;  Chief  Secretary 
for  Ireland,  913-914 

Fort  Duquesne,  capture  of,  624 

Fort  St.  David,  604 

Fort  St.  George.     See  Madras 

Fort  William.     See  Calcutta 

Forty  Articles,  the,  304 

"Forty-shilling  freeholders,"  the, 
789 

"Forward  Policy"  (India),  the,  887 

"  Four  days  battle,"  the,  472 

Fox,  Charles  James,  684;  coalition 
with  North",  685,  707;  alliance 
with  Pitt,  745  ;  death  of,  750 

Fox,  Henry,  617,  618 

Fo.xe,  John,  author  of  the  Book  of 
Martyrs,  378 

France,  relations  and  wars  with, 
56,  71,  81,  82,  93,  94-96.  97.  98. 
loi,  104,  108,  128,  130-131, 
149;  the  Hundred  Years'  War, 
is2-i63,  167,  181,  192-200,  204  ; 
210,  218,  219,  230-232,  243,  245, 
254,  262,  265,  266-268,  291-295, 
313.  319-321.  328,  340-342,  386, 
399.  461-462,  468,  471,  476,  479, 
494-495.  498-500,  518-519.  523- 
524,  526-530  ;  in  Canada,  533  ; 
in  India,  537,  541  ;  550-554.  560- 
563.  566-568,  575-577.  588-591. 
592-596;  in  India,  597,  602,  605- 
608,  622-635  ;  '1  Canada,  612- 
613;  614-629,638-641;  supports 
America  in  her  War  of  Independ- 
ence, 666;  Pitt's  commercial 
treaty  with,  709;  the  Revolution, 
714-717,  724  ;  the  war  with  the 
Republic,  724 ;  under  the  Re- 
public, 731  ;  sends  force  under 
Hoche  to  assist  Wolfe  Tone's 
rebellion,  740;  Cobden's  com- 
mercial treaty  with,  875 ;  and 
Italian  unity,  879;  war  with 
Prussia,  892-893 

Franchise,  extension  of,  in  1832, 
792 

Franchise  Bill,  the,  918 

Francis  I.,  Emperor  of  Austria, 
596 

Francis  I.  of  France  meets  Henry 
VIII.  at  the  Field  ..f  the  Cloth 
of  Gold,  265  ;  ally  of  the  Scots, 
292 

Francis,  Phili]),  676 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  659 

Franks,  4 

Frascr,  General ,  expels  Holkar  from 
Northern  India,  765 

Frederick,    El'ctor-Palatine,    385 ; 
marries    Elizabeth,   daughter  of 
James  I. ,  392 
Fri:derick  the  Great  of  Prussia  and 
the  Austrian  Succession,  593,  594, 
596,  612 ;  his  war  with  Austria, 
613-6x4,  616-622,  628-638;    de- 
signs on  Poland,  638 
Free  Kirk,  th-,  856 
Free  Trade,  568,  784,813.  821,  825, 
826,  834  ;    Gladstone's  Budgets, 
874,  875;  challenged  by  Joseph 
Chamberlain,  949 
Freemen,  the,  48,  65,  iio-iii 


INDEX 

French  Canadians,  the,  836 

French,  General,  935 

Frere,    Sir  Bartle,    High    Conuuis- 

sioner  for  South  Africa,  909 
Friars,  no 

Friedland,  battle  of,  751 
"Frith,"     the,     or    Saxon-Danish 

treaty,  22 
Frobisher,  Martin,  Arctic  voyages 

of,  335.  349 
Fuentes  d'Onoro,  battle  of,  759 
Fulk,  Count  of  Anjou,  71 
Fyrd,  the,  48,  55 

Gaekwar,    the,    676,    678,    680, 

795 

Gaelic  invasion,  i 

Gaels,  the,  2,  5 

Gage,  General,  660 

Gama,  Vasco  da,  253 

Gardiner,  Stephen,  Bishop  of  Win- 
chester, 278,  291  ;  imprisonment 
of,  299,  303  ;  released  by  Mary, 
309;  310 

Garibaldi,  880 

Garrisons,  Roman,  in  Britain,  2 

Gascony,  campaign  in,  157 

Gatacre,  General,  935 

Gaunt,  John  of.     See  Lancaster 

Gaveston,  Piers,  favourite  of  Ed- 
ward II.,  145  ;  death  of,  147 

Geddes,  Jenny,  419 

General  Assembly  of  the  Kirk, 
415;  defies  Charles  I.,  420;  in- 
troduce Presbyterianism,  355, 
516 

Geoffrey,  Count  of  Anjou,  75 

Geoffrey  of  Monmouth ,  236 

George  I.,  accession  of,  571-572; 
alliance  with  France,  575 

George  II.,  584;  at  the  battle  of 
Dettingen,  594;  death  of,  628 

George  III.,  character  of,  636; 
opposition  to  the  Whigs,  641  ; 
madness  of,  647,  711,  758; 
thwarts  Fox's  India  Bill,  687 ; 
death  of,  780;  his  character, 
781 

George  III.,  851 

George  IV. ,  accession  of,  790 ;  treat- 
ment of  his  wife,  Caroline  of 
Brunswick,  781;  death  of,  790; 
his  character,  790 

George  V. ,  reign  of,  958  et  seq. 

George,  David  Lloyd,  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchecjuer,  953-954  ;  his 
National  Insurance  Act,  961 

German  Empire,  the,  892-894 

(German's  Town,  battle  of,  665 

Germany,  popular  risings  in,  827  ; 
recent  naval  development  of, 
958 

Gesiths,  41 

Ghazni,  846 

Ghent,  treaty  of,  766 

Ghurkas,  friendly  relations  with  the, 
765 

Gibbon,  Edward,  706 

Gibraltar  captured  by  Sir  George 
Rookc  554;  besieged  by  Spain, 
670;  sicgi- of,  671,  672;  relieved 
by  Howe,  673 

Gilbert,  Sir  Humplirfy,  374; 
fionecr  of  Imperialism,  531 

(Jilbcrts  .Act,  803,  818 

Gildas,  6,  n 


Gild-merchants,  112 

Gilds,  growth  of,  141 ;  the  craft, 
220,  375,  376 

Ginckel,  General,  Conuuander  in 
Ireland,  512 

Girondins,  the,  725 

Gladstone,  William  Ewart,  822; 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  857, 
874,  885  ;  proposes  disestablish- 
ment of  Church  of  Ireland,  886; 
becomes  Liberal  leader,  894 ; 
Prime  Minister,  505  ;  second  ad- 
ministration, 911;  Irish  mea- 
sures, 913  ;  third  administration 
of,  920  ;  fourth  administration  of, 
924;  retirement  of,  924,  927; 
death  of,  947 

Glencoe,  massacre  of,  517 ;  battle 
of.  935 

Glendower,  Owen,  leads  Welsh 
rising  against  Henry  IV.,  189, 
190,  191 

Gloucester,  Earl  of,  138 

Gloucester,  Gilbert,  Earl  of,  chosen 
elector ,  106 

Gloucester,  Humphrey,  Duke  ot. 
Regent  of  England,  198,  203,  204 

Gloucester  invested  by  Charles  1., 

430 
Gloucester,  Richard,  Duke  of,  215. 

See  Richard  III. 
Gloucester,  Robert,  Earl  of,  75,  76, 

77 
Gloucester,  Statute  of,  120 
Gloucester,  Thomas    Duke  of,  op- 
poses   Richard    II.,    180;   arrest 

and  death  of,  181 
Goddard,  Captain,  678 
Goderick,      Frederick      Robinson, 

Lord,  Prime  Minister,  787 
Godfrey,  Sir  Edmund  Berry,  murder 

of,  481 
Godiva,  Lady,  34 
Godolphin,    Lord,   492,   502,    522; 

retirement  of,  524  ;  returns  to  the 

ministry,  528,  563,  564 
Godoy ,  Don  Manuel  de,  minister  of 

Charles  IV.  of  Spain,  753 
Godwin,  Earl,  30,  31,  32 
Goldsmith,  Oliver,  697,  704 
Gorhoduc,  by  Nicholas  Udall,  380 
Gordon,  General,  sent  to  the  Sudan, 

916;    death    of,    at     Khartum, 

917 
Gordon,    Lord    George,   leader  of 

the  "  No-Popery  "  riots,  684 
Gordon,  George  W'illiam,  inciter  of 

Jamaican  insurrection,  887 
Goschen,  G.  J.,  Chancellor  of  the 

Exchequer,  921 
Gough,  Lord,  849,  851 
G)vernment,continuity  of,  after  the 

Norman  Conquest,  54.  59  ;  evolu- 
tion of,  118 
Gower,  John,  author,  239 
Grace,  Act  of,  508 
Grafton,  .Augustus  Fitzroy,  Duke  of, 

colleague  of  William    Pitt,  649; 

his  administration,  650-654 
Ciraham,      General,     defeats     the 

Mahdi  at  El-Teb,  917 
Graham.  Sir  James,  822 
Granby,  Marquis  of,  625 
Grand  .Alliance,  the,  524-530,  561 
Grand  Remonstrance,  the,  436 
Granville,  Lord,  895,  911 


Grattan,   He.tiiy,  693,   694  ;   leader 

(f    the     Irish    Parliament,    738, 

740 
Gravelines,  defeat  of  the  Spanish 

Armada  off,  349 
Gray,  Thomas,  704 
Great  Contract,  the,  391 
(jreat  Council,  the,  04,  104,  106 
Great  Trek,  the,  842  843 
Greece,  War  of  Independence,  787  ; 

war  \\  ith  Turkey,  940 
(iioene,  Robert,  580 
('■regory  VII.,  Pope,  conflict  with 

William  I.,  57 
Grenville,  George,  Prime  Minister, 

641 ;  his  colonial  policy,  643-647  ; 

743.  745 

Grenville,  Lord,  ministry  of,  750 

(irenville,  Sir  Richard,  engages 
Spanish  fleet  off  the  Azores,  352 

Gretna  Green,  611 

Grey,  Charles,  Lord,  Prime  Minis- 
ter, 791,  814,  815,  829 

(irey,  George,  841 

Cjrey,  Lady  Jane,  306  ;  execution  of, 
310 

Grey,  Lord  Leonard,  Deputy-Lieu- 
tenant of  Ireland,  2qi 

GriflRth,  King  of  North  Wales,  34 

Grossetete,  Bishop  of  Lincoln, 
no 

Grouchy,  Marshal,  771 

Guadeloupe,  capture  of,  625 

Gualo,  Papal  legate,  loi 

Guesclin,  Bertrand  du,  161 

Guienne,  loss  of,  207 

Gujerat,  battle  of,  851 

Gunpowder,  adoption   of,   in   war, 

234-235 
Gunpowder  Plot,  388 
Gutlienberg,  John,  inventor  of  the 

printing-press,  24.0 
Guthrum,  defeat  of,  by,  and  treaty 

with,  Alfred,  19-20 
Gwalior,  capture  of,  679  ;  campaign 

against,  847 

Haakon,    King    of    Norway,    in- 
vades Scotland,  115 
Habeas  Corpus,    writ   of,    refused 

by  Charles  I . ,  400 
Habeas    Corpus    Act,    482;    Irish 

demand  for,  690  ;  suspension  of, 

779,  884,  885 
Hadrian's  Wall,  2 
Haidar    Ali,  656;    Hastings's  war 

with,  678 
Hal,  Prince,  189  ;  and  Judge  Gas- 

coigne,  191 
Haldane,  Lord,  Army  reforms  of, 

952 
Hales,  Colonel,  495 
Hales,  Treasurer,  murder  of,  177 
Halfdan  attacks  Wessex,  18 
Halidon  Iliil,  battle  of,  152 
Halifax,  502,  508 
Halifax,    George   Savile,    Earl   of, 

483 
Halifax,  Charles  Montague,  Lord, 

562 
Hamilton,  William,  Duke  of,  558 
Hampden,  John,  427,  430 
Hampton   Court   Conference,  the, 

387.  40s 
Hanover,      severance     of,      from 
Britain,  814 


INDEX 

Hanoverian   Succession,    the,    557, 

,  558,  568-571 

Hanseatic  League,  254 

Hapsburgs,  the,  777 

Harald  Hardraada,  36,  37 

Harcourt,  Lord,  Viceroy  of  Ireland, 
691 

Harcourt,  Sir  William,  creates 
Death  Duties,  927 

Ilardinge,  Henry,  Lord,  Governor- 
General  of  India,  848,  850 

Ilarfleur,  siege  of,  195 

Hargreave,  Robert,  inventor  of  the 
spinning-jenny,  697 

Harlaw,  battle  of,  222 

Harley.     ^c«  Oxford,  Earl  of 

Harold  Godwinson,  chief  minister, 
32-33 ;  his  promise  to  William 
the  Conqueror,  34  ;  elected  king, 
35;  difficulties  of,  36;  defeat 
and  death  of,  38,  50 

Harold  "  Harefoot,"  31 

Harthacnut,  King  of  England, 
31 

Hartington,  Lord,  911,  921.  Sec 
also  Devonshire,  Duke  of 

Harvey,  William,  discoverer  of  the 
circulation  of  the  blood,  547 

Hasting  the  Viking,  20 

Hastings,  Jolm,  claimant  to  Scot- 
tish throne, 133 

Hastings,  Lord,  execution  of,  by 
Richard  III.,  216 

Hastings,  Marquess  of,  Governor- 
General  of  India,  765,  794-796, 
864 

Hastings,  Warren,  Governor  of 
Bengal,  674 ;  made  Governor- 
General  of  India,  674  ;  impeach- 
ment of,  718-719 

Havelock,  Sir  Henry,  869,  870 

Havre  bombarded  by  Rodney, 
625 

Hawarden  captured  by  David  ap 
Griffith,  124 

Hawke,  Admiral  Lord,  596,  621  ; 
defeats  French  fleet  at  Quiberon 
Bay,  626 

Hawkins,  Sir  John,  333,  349  ;  har- 
ries Spanish  shipping,  351  ;  ex- 
pedition with  Drake  to  the  West 
Indies,  352 

Hawley,  General,  defeat  of,  at  Fal- 
kirk, 600 

Heathfield,  battle  of,  12 

Heavy  Brigade,  charge  of,  at  Bala- 
clava, 861 

Hedgely  Moor,  battle  of,  210 

Helvetian  Republic,  the  (Switzer- 
land), 731 

Hengist,  Jutish  chief,  6,  8 

Hengston  Down,  battle  of,  17 

I  lenry  I. ,  character  of,  70  ;  marries 
Edith,  71  ;  wars  with  Normandy, 
71,  72;  and  the  Church,  72; 
P'A\cy  of,  73-75,  109 

Henry  II.,  accession  of,  81 ;  conti- 
nental possessions  of,  81 ;  charac- 
ter and  policy  of,  82-83  '•  quarrel 
with  Beckct,  83,  84 ;  insurrec- 
tions against,  85,  87  ;  invasion  of 
Ireland,  90,  109 

Henry  III.,  accession  of,  loi ;  as- 
sumes the  Government,  102 ;  char- 
acter of,  103 ;  and  the  Papacy, 
103-104;  expeditions  in  France, 


973 

104;  war  with  Wales,  104;  con- 
firmations of  the  Charter,  105. 
117;  struggle  with  de  Montfort, 
105  ;  death  of,  107 

Henry  IV.,  accession  of,  188;  re- 
bellions against,  188-190  ;  death 
of,  190 

Henry  V.,  character  of,  192;  per- 
secutes the  Lollards,  192  ;  his  war 
with  France,  192-198;  conquest 
of  Normandy,  197  ;  death  of,  198 

Henry  VI. ,  marriage  of,  204  ;  cap- 
tured by  the  Yorkists,  207,  208  ; 
imbecility  of,  207 ;  restored  to 
the  throne  by  Warwick,  212; 
death  of,  213 

Henry  VII.,  crowned  on  Bosworth 
field,  218  ;  accession  of,  241 ;  in- 
.surrections  against,  243  ;  alliance 
with  Spain,  244-245;  occupation 
of  Brittany,  245  ;  character  of, 
248 ;  domestic  policy  of,  249 ; 
foreign  policy  of,  249  ;  methods 
of  filling  his  treasury,  250-251 ; 
policy  of,  252 

Henry  VHI. ,  marries  Katharine  of 
Aragon,  262;  attacks  Guienne, 
262;  relations  with  James  IV. 
of  Scotland,  263 ;  alliance  widi 
France,  265  ;  wars  with  France, 
266  ;  obtains  title  of  Defender  of 
the  Faith,  269  ;  divorce  of  Katha- 
rine of  Aragon ,  275  ;  conflict  with 
the  Papacy,  278-281 ;  despoils 
the  monasteries ,  283-284 ;  marries 
Jane  Seymour,  2S6  ;  marries  Anne 
of  Cleves,  286;  suppresses  the 
monasteries,  287;  his  designs  on 
Scotland,  289,  continental  and 
Scottish  relations,  291;  marries 
Catherine  Howard,  291 ;  marries 
Catherine  Parr,  291 ;  alliance  with 
Emperor  Charles,  294  ;  wars  with 
Scotland  and  France,  294-295 ; 
and  finance,  295  ;  fixes  the  suc- 
cession, 296 ;  death  of,  297 

Henryson,   Robert,  Scottish  poet, 

239 

Heptarchy,  the,  9-10 

Herat,  siege  of,  846  ;  captured  by 
the  Persians,  863 

Herbert,  George,  545 

Hereditary  succession,  119 

Hereford,  Duke  of,  banished  Dy 
Richard  IL,  183;  claims  the 
crown,  184 

Hereford,  Earl  of,  conspiracy 
against  William  I.,  54 

Hereford,  Humphrey  de  Bohun, 
Earl  of,  128,  130,  138 

Heretico  Comburendo,  Statute  de, 
190 

Hereward  the  Wake,  53,  54 

Herzegovina,  revolt  of,  903 

Hicks  Pasha,  annihilation  of  his 
expedition  against  the  Mahdi,  916 

High  Commission,  Court  of,  316, 
371  ;  abolished,  425 

Hildebrand.     AV^  Gregory  VII. 

Hill,  General,  761 

Hindus,  the,  and  the  Mutiny,  867, 
868 

Hobbes,  Thomas,  547 

Hoche,  General  Lazare,  727  ;  com- 
mands French  expedition  to  Ire- 
land, 74  X 


974 

Hohenlinden,  battle  of,  735 

Ilolkar,  676,  764,  795 

Holland,  war  with  the  Common- 
wealth, 451 ;  w.ir  with,  under 
George  III.,  671  ;  yn  .3  coalition 
against  Napoleon,  726;  invaded 
by  the  French,  727 ;  Batavian 
Republic,  728;  defeat  in  the 
Texel,  734 

Holies,  Denzil,  410 

Holy  Alliance,  the,  776,  777 

Holy  Roman  Empire,  the,  230  ; 
disbolved  by  Napoleon,  750  ;  892 

Home,  John,  705 

Home  Rule,  896-897,  904,  920,  923, 
924,949,  951,9' o 

Homildon  Hill,  battle  of,  189 

Hone,  William,  prosecution  of, 
779 

Hong-Kong  ceded  to  Britain,  863 

HonoriusHI.,  Po])e,  loi 

Hood,  Admiral,  726 

Hooker,  Richard,  Ecclesiastical 
Polity  of,  372 

Hooper,  John,  Bishop  of  Gloucester, 
martyred,  31 1 

Hopton.Sir  Ralph, Royalist  General, 

430 
Horsa,  Jutish  chief,  6,  8 
Hotham,  Admiral,  728 
Hotspur,  Harry.     See  Percy 
Hougoumont,  Chateau  of,  772 
Howard   of  Effingham,   Lord,   de- 
feats the  Armada,  349 
Howe,  Admiral,  Lord,  668  ;  relieves 
Gibraltar,    673;    defeats    Frencli 
fleet  off  Ushant,  727 
Howe,  General,  662,  663,  668 
Hubert  de  Burgh.     Sre  Burgh 
Hubert,  Walter,  death  of,  96 
Hugh,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  93 
Hughes,  Admiral,  679 
Huguenots,  the,  320,  385,  386;  in- 
troduction of  new  industries  by, 

69s.  697 
Hull    besieged    bv    the    Royalists, 

432 

Humbert,  General,  741 

Humble  Petition  and  Advice,  the, 
458.459 

Hume,  Davifl,  705 

"  Hundred  Days,"  the,  768-774 

Hundred  Years'  War,  the,  153, 
207 

Hundred-reeve,  43 

Hundreds,  42 

Huskisson,  William,  President  of 
the  Board  of  Trade,  784  ;  com- 
mercial policy  of,  785;  resigns, 
788  ;  death  of,  792 

Huss,  John,  269 

Hutchinson,  Governor,  659 

Huxley,  Professor,  £89 

Hyde,  Edward.     See  Clarendon 

Hyde,  Laurence.     See  Rochester 

}Iyde  Park,  demonstration  of  Re- 
formers at ,  884 

Ibf.rian-S,  the,  I 

Ibrahim  Pasha,  defeat  of,  at  Nava- 

riiio,  788 
Icono'  lasm,  Puritan,  429 
Imperiahsm,  946 
Impey,  Sir  Elijah,  676,  681-68 
Impositions,  the,  390 
Income  tax,  779,  823,  875,  952 


INDEX 

Indemnity,  Acts  of,  507 

Independence,  American  Declara- 
tion of,  the,  663 

Independents,  371 

India,  591;  the  struggle  for,  602, 
640 ;  consolidation  of  British 
power,  655-657  ;  under  Warren 
Hastings,  674-682  ;  Fox's  Bill, 
686;  Pitt's  Bill,  717;  Napoleon's 
designs  on,  734,  736;  under  Wel- 
lesley,736;  under  Lord  Hastings, 
794-796;  under  Amherst,  796- 
797;  under  Lord  William  Ben- 
tinck,  797,  844.  887;  the  Mutiny, 
864 ;  Queen  Vict  ria  proclainietl 
Empress  of,  905 ;  reforms  of 
Lord  Ripon,  917;  famines  of 
1S97  and  1900,  943  ;  the  King's 
vibit  to,  962;  Delhi  restored  to 
its  ancient  position  as  capital, 
962;  under  Curzon,  956 

India  Act,  1858,  872 

Indian  National  Congress,  the, 
928 

Indulgence,  Declaration  of,  477; 
(James  II.),  496 

Industrial  revolution,  the,  852  ;  un- 
rest, 963-964 

Industry,  development  of,  under 
the  Tudors,  372,  375  ;  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  535  ;  eighteenth 
century,  695,  801 ;  depression  of, 
after  the  Napoleonic  wars,  778- 
780  ;  revival  of,  801 

Ine,  King  of  Wessex,  Dooms  or 
Laws  of,  14 

Infanticide,  suppression  of,  in 
India,  798 

Inkerman,  battle  of,  861 

Innocent  III.,  Pope,  quarrel  with 
John,  96 

Innocent  IV.,  Pope,  obtains  funds 
from  Henry  III.,  104 

Inquisition,  the  Spanish,  327 

Instrument  of  Government,  the, 
454 

Insurance  Act,  National,  the,  961 

Iiitercursus  Magnus,  treaty  of,  254 

Interim  of  Augsburg,  300 

Invention,  the  era  of,  801 

Inverlochy,  battle  of,  436 

Ionian  Isles  ceded  to  Britain,  775 

Ireland,  annexation  of,  88-91  ; 
Danish  attacks  on,  89,  144-145  ; 
government  of,  257-259;  Irish 
Parliament,  restricted  powers  of, 
259,  290-291;  disturbances  in, 
302,  425;  under  James  I.,  3S9  ; 
Cromwell's  campaign  in,  446  ; 
under  William  HI.,  509-513; 
Lands  Bill,  the,  525  ;  commerce 
and  industry  of,  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  539 ;  during  the 
eighteenth  century,  688-695  ; 
trade  of,  693;  Iri  h  Mutiny  Bill, 
694  ;  restrictions  on  trade  of,  710  ; 
Revolution  to  the  Union,  738; 
the  Union  with,  741  ;  Robert 
Emmet's  insurrection,  745  ;  dis- 
order in,  813;  discontent  ui,  823, 
824;  the  potato  famine  in,  825, 
826,  834;  Peel's  Coercion  Bill  for, 
826;  insurrection  in,  827;  after 
the  Reform  Bill,  831;  agrarian 
strife  in,  832;  emigration  move- 
ment, 835;  Feni.inism,  883-884; 


disestablishment  of  Church  of, 
886,  894;  troubles  in,  895 ;  Glad- 
stone's Land  Act,  896  ;  Universi- 
ties Bill,  900;   Gladstone's  Bills 
for  relief  of  distress  and  compen- 
sation for  evictions,  913  ;  disturb- 
ances and  violence  in,  915  ;  arrest 
of  agitators,  922-923;  Irish  Party, 
924,  927  ;  Land  Bills,  926  ;  Land 
Act  of  1896,  944  ;  Local  Govern- 
ment Act  of  1898,  944 
Iron  industry,  development  of,  700 
Ironfields,  development  of  the,  801 
Isabella,  Queen  of  Edward  II.,  144, 

146,  149 
Isabella  of  Spain,  358 
Isandlwana,  battle  of,  910 
Ismail,  Khedive  of  Egypt,  915 
Italy,  Napoleon's  conquests  in,  728; 
campaigns    of    Napoleon,    735; 
War  of  Unity,  878  ;  completion 
of  Unity  of,  892 

Jacobinism,  725,  802 

Jacobite  intrigues,  518,  522;  re- 
bellion of 1715, 573-575 ;  of  1745, 
596.  597-601,  608 

Jacobitism,  prevalence  of,  in  the 
Highlands,  559 

Jamaica,  colonisation  of,  460  ; 
troubles  in,  837  ;  insurrection  in, 
887 

James  I.,  King  of  Scotland,  222, 
223;  assassination  of,  224;  poetry 
of,  239 

James  II.,  King  of  Scotland,  222, 
224 

James  III.,  King  of  Scotland,  222, 
225  ;  defeat  and  murder  of,  259 

James  IV.  of  Scotland  marries 
Margaret,  daughter  of  Henry 
VII.,  248;  reign  of,  259-261; 
defeated  and  slain  at  Flodden, 
264 

James  V.  of  Scotland,  289 

James  VI.  of  Scotland,  minority 
of,  329,  354  ;  and  the  Church, 
356 ;  accession  to  the  throne  of 
England,  383.     See  also  James  I. 

James  I.,  accession  of,  383;  his 
policy  in  religious  affairs,  386  ; 
Roman  Catholic  plots  against, 
387  ;  character  of,  388-389 ;  policy 
of,  389 ;  foreign  policy  of,  391- 
397  ;  death  of,  397 

James  II.,  accession  of,  490;  char- 
acter and  policy  of,  491-498 ; 
flight  of,  502  ;  campaign  in  Ire- 
land, 509  ;  death  of,  529 

James,  Duke  of  York,  gains  naval 
victory  over  Dutch  off  Lowestoft, 
472 

James,  the  Old  Pretender,  529 

Jameson  Raid,  the,  930 

Japan,  878;  war  with  China,  940; 
war  with  Russia,  958 

Jassy,  peace  of,  713 

Java  wrested  from  the  Dutch, 
76s 

Jeanne  d'Arc,  the  Maid  of  Orleans, 
raises  siege  of  Orleans,  igg  ;  de- 
feats the  English  at  Pataye,  200; 
crowns  Ciiarles  VII.,  200;  mili- 
tary success  of,  200 ;  capture  and 
death  of,  200 ;  loyalty  of  the 
Scots  to,  223 


Jeffre3'S,  Judge,  conducts  the  Bloody 
Assize,  493  ;  imprisoned,  502 

Jellalabad,  846 

jena,  battle  of,  750 

Jenkins's  ear,  592 

Jerusalem,  86 

Jervis,  Admiral,  728;  defeats 
Spanish  fleet  off  Cape  St.  Vin- 
cent, 729 

Jesuits,  the,  320;  and  Elizabeth, 
338-339;  mission  of:  to  England, 
371  ;  influence  of,  in  France,  476 

Jews,  expulsion  of,  by  Edward  1., 
140;  readmitted  by  the  Common- 
wealth, 456 

Jhansi,  866;  capture  of,  871 

Jingoism,  903 

Joan  of  Arc.     See  Jeanne  d'Arc 

John,  accession  of,  94  ;  war  with 
Philip  of  France,  95;  conflict 
with  the  Papacy,  96-97  ;  alliance 
with  Emperor  Otto,  98 ;  char- 
acter and  death  of,  loo-ioi,  117 

John  of  Gaunt.     See  Lancaster 

John,  King  ofFrance,  taken  prisoner 
at  Poictiers,  159 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  702,  809 

Jourdan,  Marshal,  727,  728;  de- 
feated at  Talavera,  757,  762 

"July  Revolution,"  the,  791 

Jumieges,  Robert  of.  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  32 

Junot,  General,  752,  753,  754 

Juntas,  the  Spanish,  753 

junto,  the,  562,  564 

Jury,  trial  by,  43 ;  selection  and 
functions  of  the,  94 

Justice,  administration  of,  44 

Jutes  settle  in  Britain,  6-8 

Kabul,  846 ;  British  mission  to, 
906,  907 

Kathrs,  the,  841,  842 

Kandahar,  capture  of,  846  ;  relief 
of,  by  Roberts,  907 

Katharine  of  .Aragon  married  to 
Arthur,  Prince  of  Wales,  248 

Kaunitz,  Prince,  of  Austria,  614, 
619 

Kaveripak,  battle  of,  607 

Kay,  John,  inventor  of  the  fly- 
shuttle,  697 

Keats,  John,  811 

Ken,  Bishop,  497 

Kennedy,  Bishop,  governs  Scot- 
land, 225 

Kent,  Edward,  Duke  of,  781 

Ket,  Robert,  rebellion  of,  301 

Khalifa,  operations  against  the,  940 

Khalsa,  the,  848,  850,  851 

Khartum,  fall  of,  917 

Kildare,  Gerald  Fitzgerald,  Earl  of, 
Deputy-Lieutenant  of  Ireland, 
257 

Kildare,  Earl  of,  290 

Kildare,  Earl  of,  "  silken  Thomas," 
insurrection  of,  291 

Killiecrankie,  battle  of,  516 

"  Killing  Time,"  the,  492,  513 

"  Kilmainham  Treaty,"  the,  915 

Kilsythe,  battle  of,  436 

Kimberley,  siege  of,  935 

Kinship,  system  of,  43.  44 

Kirk  Sessions,  Scottish,  516 

Kirke,  Colonel,  511 

Kirke's  Lambs,  493 


INDEX 

Kitchener,  Lord,  in  South  Africa,  | 
936,  938;  in  India,  956 

Kloster  Seven,  Convention  of,  621 

Knighthood,  139 

Knights  of  the  Shire,  94,  152,  174 

Knox,  John,  304,  309,  321  ;  death 
of,  355  ;  his  History  of  the  Refor- 
mation in  Scotland,  378 

Knut  (Canute)  conquers  England, 
30;  reign  of,  31 

Knut,  King  of  Denmark,  threatens 
invasion  of  England,  54 

Koniggratz,  battle  of,  893 

Kruger,  Paul,  President  cf  the 
Transvaal,  931  ;  flight  of,  938 

Kunersdorf,  battle  of,  625 

Labour  and  wages,  219 ;  beginning 

of  conflict  with  capitalism,  221  ; 

struggles  with  capital.  802,  853- 

854.  948 
Labour  Party,  the,  951 
Labourers,  the,  45,  46 
Labourers' Dwelhngs  Act,  the,  901 
Labourers,  Statute  of,  174,  205 
Ladysmith,  siege  of,  935 
Laets,  45 

Lafayette,  General,  670 
La  Have  Sainte,  772,  773 
Laing's    Nek,    battle    of    (1880), 

912 
Laissez-faire,    economic    doctrine, 

702,  813,  817,  834,  853,  890 
Lake,  Bishop,  497 
Lake,  General  Lord,  defeats  Mar- 

athas,  764 
Lake  School,  the,  810 
Lally,   General,    besieges   Madras, 

634 ;    defeated    at    Wandewash, 

634 
Lambert    resuscitates   the    Rump, 

463.  464 
Lancaster,  John  of  Gaunt,  Duke  of, 
heads    the    anti-clerical   faction, 
163  ;  commands  forces  in  France, 
163  ;   proposal  as  to  the  succes- 
sion, 164 ;  maladministration  of, 
179  ;  recalled,  180 
Lancaster,  Thomas,  Earl  of,  139  ; 
opposes  Edward  II.,  147;  execu- 
tion of,  148 
Land  Acts,  Irish,  896,  944 
Land  Bill,  Irish,  Gladstone's,  914 
Land  Bills,  Irish,  921,  922,  926 
Land  League,  the  Irish,  904,  913, 
914;    attack  on,  by  the   Times, 

923 

Land  Purchase  Act  (Ireland),  Ash- 
bourne's, 919,  924 

Land-ia.\',  the  519 ;  reassessment 
of,  in  1692,  542  ;  588 

Land  tenure,  44,  60-62,  176,  219 

Landen,  battle  of,  519 

Lanfranc,  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, 54,  58,  67  ;  death  of,  68  ;  72 

Langland,  \\'illiam,  author  of  the 
Vision  of  Piers  Plowman,  175, 
238 

Langport,  battle  of,  436 

Langside,  battle  of,  325 

Langton,  Stephen,  Archbishop,  96, 
98,  99,  102,  no 

Largs,  battle  of,  115 

La  Rochelle,  British  fleet  defeated 
at,  163 

Laswari,  battle  of,  764 


975 

i^atimer,   Lord,   impeachment   of, 

164 
Latin  language,  use  of,  in  mediaeval 

England,  236 
Laud,  Archbibhi  p,  407,  408,  412; 

arrested  on  charge  of  treason,  423 
Lauderdale,     Lord,    Governor    of 

Scotland,  474,  485 
Law,  Saxon,  42  ;  evolution  of,  73- 

74.88 
Lawrence,  Sir  Henry,  849,  850,  851, 

866,  869 
Lawrence,  Sir  John,  866;   Gover- 
nor-General of  India,  887 
Lawrence,  Major  Stringer,  604,  606, 

607 
Lay  investiture,  58 
Layamon,  English  poet,  236 
Learning,  progress  of,  14,  49 
Leeds,  Duke  of.     See  Danby 
Leicester,   Earl  of.     See  Montfort, 

Simon  de 
Leipzig,  battle  of,  762 
Leith,  sack  of,  294  ;  treaty  of,  319 
Lennox,  Duke  of,  355 
Lenthall,  Speaker,  and  Charles  I., 

427 
Leo  X.,  Pope,  265 
Leofric,  Earl  of  Mercia,  31,  34 
Leopold  of  Austria,  716 
Leslie,  David,  436 
Leuthen,  battle  of,  622 
Levant  Company,  the,  374 
Levellers,  the,  440 
Leven,  Alexander  Leslie,   Earl  of, 

420,  421,  432,436 
Lewes,    battle    of,    105  ;     Mise   of, 

106 
Lexington,  battle  of,  661 
Liberalism,  707 
Liberals,  the,  813,  814;  dissensions 

of.  945 
Liberal  Unionists,  the,  920,  925-926 
Licensing  Bill,  Asquith's,  953 
Liegnitz,  battle  of,  628 
Life  Peerages,  £63 
Light  Brigade,  charge  of,  86t 
Ligny,  battle  of,  770 
Lille,  capture  of,  562 
Limerick,  siege  of,  512  ;  treaty  of, 

513 

Limoges  sacked  and  destroyed  by 
the  black  Prince,  162 

Lincoln,  iii 

Lincoln,  Fair  of,  loi 

Lincoln,  John  de  la  Pole,  Earl  of, 
recognised  heir-presumptive  to 
the  crown,  217;  insurrection  of, 
against  Henry  VII.,  244 

Lindsay,  Sir  David,  poet,  378 

Literature,  49  ;  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
236;  English  beginnings  of,  236- 
238  ;  under  the  Tudors,  378 ;  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  543; 
during  the  eighteenth  century, 
702,  808 

Liverpool,  Robert  Jenkinson,  Earl 
of.  Prime  Minister,  761 

Llewelyn  ap  Griffith,  123-125 

Llewelyn  ap  Jorwerth,  123 

Lloyd,  Bishop,  497 

Loans,  Treasury,  709 

Lobau,  agreement  of,  730 

Lobengula,  King  of  Matabeleland, 

931 
Local  Government,  42,  93 


976 


Local  Government  Bill  (1888),  926. 
927 

Locke,  John,  his  theory  of  the 
Social  Contract,  547,  571 

Lollards,  the,  181,  190,  284  ;  re- 
peal of  Acts  against  the,  299 

Lombards,  financial  relations  with 
Edward  L,  140;  banishment  of, 
147 

London,  captured  by  Alfred  the 
Great,  19;  47,  in;  Great  Fire 
of,  the,  472 

London  Convention,  the  (1884), 
912.  933 

London  County  Council,  the,  944 

Londonderry,  siege  of,  511 

Longchamp,  William,  Chancellor 
and  Chief  Justiciar,  92 

Long  Parliament,  the,  423,  452 

Lords,  House  of,  914,  918,  927, 
952.953.  954  ;  reject  the  Budget  of 
1909,  954  ;  proposed  reconstruc- 
tion of,  958-959 

Lords  of  the  Articles,  186 

Lords  Ordaincis,  the,  147,  148 

Lose-Coat  Field,  battle  of,  212 

Lostwithiel,  battle  of,  433 

Lothian,  21  ;  ceded  to  Malcolm  of 
Scotland,  30 

Loudon  Hill,  battle  of,  138 

Louis  IX.  of  France,  105 

Louis  XL,  of  France,  210;  War- 
wick's alliance  with,  211-212; 
pays  tribute  to  Edward  IV.,  215 

Louis  XIV.  of  France  makes  secret 
treaty  with  Charles  H. ,  471,  476, 
479,  483;  revokes  the  Li^.ict  of 
Nantes,  494;  wars  of,  498,  511, 
550;  makes  overtures  for  peace, 

563 

Louis  XV.  of  France,  575,  614 ; 
and  the  "  Family  Compact,"  589 

Louis  XVI.  of  France,  714;  de- 
clares war  on  Austria,  715  ;  exe- 
cution of,  717 

Louis  XVII 1.  of  France,  763 

Louis  Philippe  of  France,  791  ; 
deposition  of,  827 

Louis  the  Dauphin  aids  the  barons 
against  John,  ico 

Louisbourg,  capture  of,  596 ;  ex- 
changed for  M.idras,  597  ;  cap- 
tured by  Amherst,  624 

Lovel,  Lord,  insurrection  of,  against 
Henry  VII.,  243 

Lowe,  Robert,  897 

Lucan, Lord,  861 

Lucknow,  868  ;  siege  and  relief  of, 
869-870 

Lumlcy,  498 

Lumphanan,  battle  of,  33 

Luneville,  treaty  of,  735 

Luther,  Martin,  265  ;  denounces 
"  indulgences,"  271  ;  condemned 
by  the  Edict  of  Worms,  272 

Luttrell,  Colonel,  653 

Lydgate,  John,  poet,  239 

Lyly,  John,  379 

Lyndhurst,  Lord  Chancellor,  876 

Lytton,  Lord,  Viceroy  of  India, 
905-907 

M'.\l,i'iNi:,  Kenneth,  King  of  Scot- 
land, 21 

M'Kay,  General,  commands  forces 
of  William  III.  in  .Scotland,  515 


INDEX 

M'Lauchlan,  Margaret,  martyrdom 
of.  513 

M'Quarrie,  Governor  of  New  South 
Wales,  799 

Macaulay,  Lord,  845,  856 

Macbeth,  King  of  Scots,  33 

MacHeths,  the,  pretenders  to 
Scottish  throne,  114,  115 

MacNaghten,  Resident,  murder  cf, 
846 

Macpherson,  James,  S09 

Macpherson,  Sir  John,  719 

MacWilliams,  the,  Scottish  pre- 
tenders, 114,  115 

Machinery,  introduction  of,  697 

Mad  Parliament,  the,  104 

Madog,  126 

Madras,  captured  by  the  French 
and  exchanged  for  Louisbourg, 
597;  604-605,  678 

Madrid,  Wellington  in,  761 

Maegth,  44 

Maes  Madog,  battle  of,  125 

Mafeking,  siege  of,  935  ;  relief  of, 
937 

Magersfontein,  battle  of,  935 

Magna  Carta,  99,  120 

Magnum  Conciliiiin,  59 

Maharajpur,  battle  of,  847 

Mahdi,  the,  916  ;  death  of,  940 

Mah^,  capture  of,  678 

Maida,  battle  of,  750 

Main  Plot,  the,  against  James  I., 
380,  387 

Maintenance  and  Livery,  Statutes 
of,  250 

Mainwaring,  408 

Mainz,  726 

Maiwand,  battle  of,  908 

Majuba,  battle  of(i88o),  912 

Malcolm  I.,  Kmg  of  Scots,  alli- 
ance with  Edmund,  24 

Malcolm  II.,  King  of  Scotland,  30 

Malcolm  Canmore,  King  of  Scot- 
land, 33  ;  entente  with  \A'illiam  1. , 

51.  53'  69 

Male  im  IV. ,  King  of  Scotland,  sur- 
renders his  claims  on  Northum- 
berland and  Cumberland,  82,  114 

Male-tolte,  130,  131 

Mallory,  Sir  Thomas,  author  of  the 
Morte  Arthur,  239 

Malplaquft,  battle  of,  563 

Malta,  seized  by  Na[)oleon,  732, 
733.  735  ;  filially  ceded  to  Britain , 
775  ;  despatch  of  Indian  troops 
to,  903 

Manchester,  Edward  Montague, 
Earl  of,  Parliamentary  General, 
429 

Manchester  and  Liverpcol  Railway, 
the,  852 

Manchester  Committees,  817 

Manchester  Martyrs,  the,  886 

Manche'tcr  School,  the,  901 

Mandeville,  Sir  John,  travellc.  and 
author,  239 

Manhood  Suffrage,  820 

Manor,  the,  43,  63,  11 1 

Mamifactmes,  growth  of,  220 

.\Iaories,  tlic,  840-841 

Map,  Walter,  236 

Mar,  Earl  of.  Regent  o."  Scotland, 
151 

Mar,  John,  Earl  of,  leads  Jacobite 
rebellion.  573 


Marathas,  the,  603,  606,  630,  632, 
655,  675.  676.  670,  680,  720,  764, 
794.  795.  864,  867 

March,  Ednmnd  Mortimer,  Earl  of, 
163 

Marchand,  Major,  at  Fashoda,  941 

Marengo,  battle  of,  735 

Margaret  of  Anjou,  208,  209,  210; 
defeated  at  Tewkesbury,  213 

Margaret  of  Denmark,  marriage  to 
James  III.  of  Scotland,  225 

Margaret,  daughter  of  Henry  VII., 
married  to  James  IV.  of  Scotland, 
248 

Margaret,  the  Maid  of  Norway,  127, 
132 

Maria  Theresa  and  the  War  of  the 
Austrian  Succession,  593-597,  614 

Marie  Louise  of  Austria  married  to 
Napoleon,  756 

Maritime  expansion  during  the 
eighteenth  century,  695 

Marlborough,  John  Churchill, 
Duke  of,  508  ;  campaign  in  Ire- 
land, 512  ;  522,  529  ;  ministerial 
supremacy  of,  549-550 ;  cam- 
paigns of,  551-555.  560  ;  Tory  op- 
position to,  554  ;  campaigns  of, 
560;  his  diplomacy,  560,  561; 
victory  uf  Ramillies.  560  ;  fall  of, 
566,  576 

Marlborough,  Sarah,  Duchess  of, 
55°'  554 ;  loses  her  influence 
with  Queen  Anne,  564,  582 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  380 

Marmont,  Marshal,  759 

Marriage  Act,  610 

Marshal,  Richard,  103 

Marston  Moor,  battle  of,  432 

Martin  Mar-Prelate  tracts,  the,  371, 
405 

Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  294  ;  married 
to  the  French  Dauphin,  299  ;  314, 
318  ;  marries  Henry,  Lord  Darn- 
ley,  322  ;  marries  Bothwell,  324; 
abdication  of,  324  ;  escapes  from 
Lochleven  Castle,  325 ;  held 
prisoner  by  Elizabeth,  326,  345  ; 
trial  and  execution  of,  344-345 

Mary  of  Lorraine,  Regent  of  Scot- 
land, 318 

Mary  I.  proclaimed  Queen,  307  ; 
marries  Philip  of  Spaui,  309  ;  per- 
secution of  Protestants,  310  ;  war 
with  France  and  death  of,  313 

Mary  II.  married  to  William  of 
Orange,  479  ;  death  of,  522 

Maserfiekl,  battle  of,  12 

Masham,  Mrs. ,  favourite  of  Queen 
Anne,  563 

Mass^na,  Marshal,  734,  759 

Masters  and  Servants  Act,  the, 
891 

Masulipatam  seized  by  Clive,  633 

Matabele,  the,  2^i,  843 

Matilda,  daughter  of  Henry  I., 
recognised  heir  to  the  English 
throne,  72,  75 ;  retires  from 
ICngland,  77 

Maud,  Empress.     Sec  Matilda 

Maurice  of  Saxony.     See  Saxe 

Mauritius,  annexation  of,  765 , 
finally  ceded  to  Britain,  775 

Mayflower,  sailing  of  the,  408,  533 

Maynooth,  Peel's  grant  to,  834 

Mayo,  Lord,  Viceroy  of  India,  905 


Mca,th,  Earl  of,  Justiciaiof  lu-land, 

91 
Medway,  Dutch  fleet  sails  up  the, 

472 
Mehemet  Ali,  Pasha  of  Egypt,  war 

with  Britain,  822 
Melbourne,  Lord,  Prime  Minister, 

814,  815,  819,  832,  837-838 
Melville,    Andrew,    Scottish     Re- 
former, 355,  416 
Menai  Strait,  Edward  I.  defeated 

near,  125 
Menhchikoff,  Prince,  860,  861 
Mercantile  system,  the,  586 
Mercantile  Theory,  the,  538,  701 
Mercantilism,  beginnings  of,  372 
Merchant  Adventurers,  220,  255,373 
Merchants  of  the  Staple,  167,  169, 

220,  373 
Mercia,  50 
Metcalfe,       Lord,     Governor       of 

Jamaica,  838 
Methuen,  General  Lord,  935 
Methuen  Treaty,  the,  568 
Methven,  battle  of ,  138 
Miani,  battle  of,  847 
Middle  Ages,  chief  features  of  the, 

226-240  ;   social   aspects  of  the, 

232-235  ;  intellectual  aspects  of, 

23s 

Middlesex,  impeachment  of,  407 

Military  methods,  Danish  and 
Saxon,  48 

Militia  Bill,  the,  618 

Millenary  Petition,  386 

Milner,  Lord,  High  Commis- 
sioner in  South  Africa,  933,  938 

Milton,  John,  544 

Minden,  battle  of,  625 

Minorca,  seizure  of,  562  ;  captured 
by  the  French,  617  ;  640,  673 

Minto,  Lord,  Governor-General  of 
India,  765 

Minto,  Lord,  Viceroy  of  India,  956- 
957.  962 

Mir  J  afar,  631,  632,  634,  656 

Mir  Kassim,  656 

Miracle  plays,  380 

Mirat,  the  massacre  of,  868 

Mise  of  Amiens,  105  ;  of  Lewes, 
106 

Model  Parliament,  the,  129 

Mogul  Empire,  the,  602,  655 

Mogul,  the,  764;  proclamation  of 
restoration  at  Delhi,  868 

Mohammed  Ali,  606,  607 

Mohammedans,  the,  in  India,  867 

Mohun  Persad,  676 

Moltke,  General  von,  892 

Monarchy,  39,  40,  59  ;  and  aris- 
tocracy, conflict  of,  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  229 

Monasteries,  valuable  work  of, 
during  the  Middle  Ages,  234 ; 
suppression  of,  287 

Money  bills,  690,  876 

Monk,  George,  Commonwealth 
General,  449  ;  Governor  of  Scot- 
land, 464 ;  assumes  control  of 
affairs  in  England,  465 

Monniruth,  James,  Duke  of,  482  ; 
his  victory  at  Bothwell  Brig,  487  ; 
defeated  and  captured  at  Sedge- 
moor,  493 

Monopolies,  trade,  168,  373,  375  ; 
abolition,  395,  541 


INDEX 

Monson,  Colonel,  676;  repulsed  liy 

liolkar,  764 
Montague,    Bishop   of  Chichester, 

408,  409 
Montague,  Charles.     Sei^  Halifax 
Montague,     Henry     Pole,      Loid, 

287 
Montcalm,  Marquis  de,  613 
Montenegro,  revolt  of,  903 
Momfort,    John    de,    claimant    of 

Brittany,  156 
Montfort,  Simon  de,  103-108 
Moiitfort,  Silicon  de,  the  younger, 

107 
MoiUgomerie  brothers,  rebellion  of, 

71 
Montjoy,  360 
Montreal,  capture  of,  629 
Montrose.  James,  Marquis  of,  de- 
feats Covenanters  at  Tippermuir, 

433;     captures    Aberdeen,   433; 

successes   of,   436  ;   capture  and 

execution  of,  447-448 
Moore,    Sir  John,   754;    killed  at 

Corunna.  755 
Moots,    Shire   and    Hundred,   42- 

43 
Morahty  plays,  380 
Moray,    Randolph,    Earl   of,    142; 

Regent  of  Scotland,  150,  151 
Moray,  James  Stuart,  Earl  of,  321  ; 

appointed     Regent   of  Scotland, 

325  ;  his  rule,  329 
Mordaunt,  General,  621 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  270,  274,  280, 

282  ;  executed,  283,  366,  379 
Moreau,  General,  728,  735 
Morkere,  Earl  of  Northumbria,  34, 

35;  defeat  of,  37,  51 
Morlaix,  battle  of,  156 
Morley,  Lord,  Secretary  for  India, 

956-957,  962 
Moroccan  Crisis,  the,  964 
Morte  Arthur,  the,  239,  378 
Mortimer,  Edmund,  Earl  of  March, 

163 
Mortimer,  Roger,  (i.)  107  ;  (ii.)  144  ; 

subdues  Ireland,  145  ;  148,  149  ; 

execution  of,  150 
Mortimer's   Cross,  Yorkist  victory 

at,  209 
Mortmain,  Statute  of,  121,  181 
Morton,  Archbishop,  248,  270 
Morton,    James    Douglas,  Earl  of, 

Regent  of  Scotland,  329,  354 
Morton's  Fork,  251 
Moscow,  burning  of,  762 
Mudki,  battle  of,  849 
Multan,  850 

Municipal  Reform  Act,  819 
Munro,     Maj(-ir     Hector,     defeats 

Shujah  Daulah   at   Buxar,  656- 

657 
Murat,  Joachim,   King  of  Naples, 

753.  769 
Muscovy  Company,  the,  374 
Mutiny  Act,  506 
Muzaffar  Jang.  606 
Mysore,    Warren    Hastings's    war 

with,  678 
Mystery  plays,  380 

"  Nabobs,"  the,  686 

Nadir  Jang,  606 

Nadir  Shah  sacks  Delhi,  675 

Nagpur,  annexation  of,  864,  865 


977 

Namur  recaptured  by  William  III., 
523 

Nana  Sahib,  867,  870 

Nanda  Kumar,  676 

Nankin,  treaty  of,  863 

Nantes,  Edict  of,  385 

Napier,  Sir  Charles,  847 

Napier,  Sir  Robert,  887 

Naplesjoins  coalition  against  Napo- 
leon, 726;  conquered  by  France, 
734 ;  Bourbon  dynasty  of,  over- 
thrown, 880 

Napoleon  I. ,  725  ;  conquests  of,  in 
Italy,  728 ;  makes  treaty  of 
Campo  Formio  with  Austria, 
730;  Egyptian  Campaign,  731- 
734  ;  makes  overtures  for  peace, 
734,  735  ;  his  designs  on  India, 
734,  736 ;  closes  ports  to  English 
goods,  743;  projects  invasion  of 
England,  746;  the  Continental 
System,  749 ;  successes  against 
Austria  and  Prussia,  750;  issues 
Berlin  Decree,  751  ;  invades 
Portugal,  752 ;  marries  Marie 
Louise  of  Austria,  756;  deposes 
Louis  from  Holland,  756; 
Moscow  Campaign,  756 ;  Moscow 
Expedition,  761  ;  abdication  of, 
763;  escapes  from  Elba,  767; 
final  overthrow  at  Waterloo, 
771-774;    sent    to    St.    Helena, 

775 
Napoleon  HI.,  858,  875,  879,  880, 

892,  893 
Napoleon,  Louis,  enrolled  as  special 

constable  during  Chartist  riots, 

828 
Naseby,  battle  of,  436 
Natal,  843-844 
National  Assembly,  the,  94 
National  Assembly  (France),  the, 

715 
National  Debt,  519,  542,  579 
National  League,  Irish,  915 
Nationalist  movement,  the,  777 
Nationalists,    Irish,    demands    of, 

690 
Naval  power   under    George    II., 

596 
Navarette,  battle  of,  161 
Navarino,  battle  of,  787 
Navigation  Act,  first,  221  ;  revival 

of,  by  Henry  VII.,  254 
Navigation    Acts,    the,    373,    451, 

452,  471.  534  ;  repeal  of,  785 
Navy,  Alfred  the  Great's,  19,  20, 
21  ;    beginnings  of,   47 ;    Henry 
VIII. 's,  333;    reorganisation   of, 
by  V^ane  and  Blake,  451 
Neerwinden,  battle  of,  519 
Kegapatam,  capture  of,  671,  679 
Nelson,    728 ;    at    battle  of  Cape 
St.  Vincent,  729  ;   victory  of  the 
Nile,  732-733;  victory  of  Copen- 
hagen, 735  ;  pursues  Villeneuve, 
746  ;  victory  of  Trafalgar,  747 
Nennius,  6 

Nepal,  Hastings's  war  with,  765 
Netherlands,  French  success  in  the, 
727;    campaigns    in,    518,    522, 

550-554 
Neville's    Cross,    battle    of,    158, 

185 
New  Brunswick,  837 
New  Forest,  56 

3  Q 


978 


New  Model  Army,  the,  433 

New    Orleans,    British    defeat    at, 

766 
New  South  Wales,  722,  799-800, 

839 
New  York  taken  by  Howe,  664 
New  Zealand,  annexation  of,  839, 

840:  945 
Newburn,  battle  of,  421 
Newbury,  first  battle  of,  430;  second 

battle  of,  433 
Newcastle,  Duke  of.    Prime   Min- 
ister,  611,    617 ;    coalition    with 

Pitt,  6i8  ;   dismissed  bv  George 

III.,  637-638 
Newfoundland,  945 
Newfoundland  Fisheries   disputes, 

929 
Newman,  Cardinal,  855,  856 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  547 
Newton  Butler,  battle  of,  511 
Ney,    Marshal,   rejoins   Napoleon, 

768 
Nicholas  I. ,  Tsar  of  Russia,  858 
Nicholas  III.,  Pope,  121 
Nicholson,  General,  869 
Nightingale,  Florence,  862 
Nile,  battle  of  the,  732-733 
Nine  Hours  Bill,  the,  901 
Nizam,  the,  678,  719,  720,  736,  764, 

796,  867 
Nobility,  Anglo-Sa.\on,  39  j 

Nobles,  Scottish,  factions  of,  289       | 
Nonconformists,    371,    372,    470; 

policy  of  James  II.  towards,  496  ; 

under  William  III.,  507;  under 

Queen  Anne,  554,  555 
Non-Jurors,  507 
Non-resistance,  496 
Nootka  Sound,  Spanish  claim  to, 

713 

"  No  Popery"  riots,  496,  684 

Nore,  mutiny  of  the  British 
squadron  at  the,  729 

Norfolk,  130,  138 

Norfolk,  Earl  of,  conspiracy  against 
William  I.,  54 

Norfolk,  Ralph  Guader,  Earl  of,  in- 
surrection of,  56 

Norfolk,  Duke  of,  banished  by 
Richard  II.,  183 

Norfolk,  Thomas  Howard,  Duke 
of,  charged  with  treason  to 
Henry  VIII.,  298 

Norman  Conquest,  changes  result- 
ing from,  55,  60 

Norman,  penalty  for  slaying  a,  55, 
60 

Norman  rule,  general  characteris- 
tics of,  108 

Normandy,  56;  lost  by  John,  95; 
conquest  of,  by  Henry  V.,  196- 
197  ;  retaken  by  France,  204 

Norse  Chronicle,  the,  37 

Norsemen,  21 ;  in  Cumberland  and 
Westmoreland,  24 

North,  Lord,  652;  Prime  Minister, 
654,  658;  efforts  to  conciliate 
America,  667;  his  Regulating 
Act  for  India,  675  ;  administra- 
tion of,  683-684;  Irish  policy, 
692 ;  succeeded  by  Pitt,  707 ; 
coalition  with  Fo.\,  685 

Northampton,  Assize  of,  86,  96 

Northampton,  treaty  of,  144,  150, 
151 


INDEX 

Northampton,  Yorkist   victory  at, 

208 
Northbrook,  Lord,  Viceroy  of  India, 

905 
Northmen,  coming  of  the,  15-16, 

17 
Northumberland,  114 
Northumberland,  Earl  of,  rebellions 

against  Henry  IV.,  189 
Northumberland,      John      Dudley, 

Duke  of.   Protector,  302  ;  policy 

of,  303  ;  execution  of,  308 
Northumberland,    Thomas    Percy, 

Earl  of,  insurrection  of,  against 

Elizabeth,  327 
Northumbria,  11  ;  Christianity  in, 

13;  SO 
Norway,  relations   with   Scotland, 

"5. 

Norwich,  11 1 
Nott,  General,  846 
Nottingham,  Council  of,  180 
Nottingham,  Earl  of,  502,  508 
Nottingham,   minister   of  William 

III.,  519 
Nova  Scotia,  837 
Nuncomar,  676 

Gates,  Titus,  author  of  the  Popish 

Plot,  480,  492 
O'Brien,  Smith,  insurrection  of,  835 
Occam,   William,   the   schoolman, 

23  s 

Occasional  Conformity  Bill,  the, 
555  ;  repealed  by  Stanhope,  577 

Ochterlony,  765 

O'Connell,  Daniel,  leader  of  the 
Catholic  Agitation,  789;  enters 
Parliament,  790,  819,  831,  832  ; 
imprisonment  of,  833 

Octennial  Act,  Ireland,  691 

Oao,  Bishop  of  Bayeux,  51 

O  Donnell,  Mr.,  action  against  the 
Times,  923 

Offa,  King  of  Mercia,  15  ;  recog- 
nised lord  of  England,  15 

Olaf,  Norse  leader,  23,  27 

Old  Age  Pensions,  950,  953 

Old  Guard,  Napoleon's,  charge  of, 
at  Waterloo,  774 

Oldenburg,  anne.xation  of,  by  Na- 
poleon, 756 

Oliver,  Chief  Justice,  of  Massachu- 
setts, 659 

Omdurman,  battle  of,  941 

O  Neill,     Shane,    Irish     chieftain, 

331 

"  Open  Door,"  the  (China),  940 

Open  Field  System,  45,  695;  dis- 
appearance of  the,  803 

Opium  War,  the,  863 

Orange  Free  State,  the,  844,  908- 
9qo,  931 ;  annexation  of,  939 

O-angeman,  the,  740 

O'uainers,  the  Lords,  147,  148 

O'deal,  trial  by,  44 

Orders  in  Council,  the,  751,  766 

Orewyn  Bridge,  battle  of,  125 

Orford,  Lord,  562.  See  also  Rus- 
sell, Admiral 

Orleans,  Philip,  Duke  of,  Regent  of 
I-" ranee,  575 

Orleans,  siege  of,  199 

Ormonde,  Duke  of,  supersedes 
Marlborough,  567  ;  impeachment 
and  flight  of,  572 


Orsini  plot,  the,  872 
Osbeck,  Peter.  iVi?Warbeck,Perkin 
Ossian,  James  Macpherson's,  809 
Oswald,  King  of  Northumbria,  de- 
feats   Welsh    at    Hexham,    12; 

overthrown,  12 
Oswin,  KingofDeira,  12 
Oswy,  King  cf  Northumbria,  12 ; 

conversion  of,    13 ;    and   Strath- 

clyde,  14 
Otterburn,  battle  of,  187 
Oudenarde,  battle  of,  562 
Oudh,    633,    67s,    680,   764,    796; 

annexation  of,  866 ;    Nawab  of, 

see  Shujah  Daulah 
Outram,  Sir  James,  863,  870 
Overbury,  Sir  Thomas,  murder  of, 

394 
Owen,  Robert,  817;   doctrines  of, 

853 
Oxenham,  John,  voyages  of,  335 
Oxford,  Earl  of,  favourite  of  Richard 

II.,  179 
Oxiord,    Robert    Harley,    Earl  of, 

intrigues  of,  565 ;  his  fall,  569  ; 

impeached,  572 
Oxford  Movement,  the,  855 
Oxford,  Provisions  of,  104 

Paardeberg,  capture  of  General 
Cronje  and  his  force  at,  937 

Pacifico,  Don,  830 

Paganism,  decline  of,  11  ;  of  the 
Restoration,  544 

Palmerston,  Lord,  early  career  of, 
758,  788,  791  ;  foreign  policy  of, 
813,  821,  829;  Schleswig-Hol- 
stein  affair,  830 ;  attitude  to 
Russia,  845 ;  Home  Secretary, 
857,  658,  860;  Prime  Minister, 
861,  862,  863,  872,  874,  876; 
death  of,  877 

Pandulph,  papal  legate,  97,  102 

Paniput,  battle  of,  655 

Papacy,  relations  with,  55,  57,  73, 

96-97,     103,     104,     109,     119,     121, 

129,  132,  136,  171 ;  position  of, 
during  the  Middle  Ages,  227-232  ; 
and  the  Reformation,  272.  320; 
"deposes"  Elizabeth,  327;  and 
theTudors,37o;  papist  plots,  real 
and  imaginary,  against  James 
I.,  387;  Puritan  view  of,  407; 
fail  of  the  temporal  power  of 
the, 894 
Paper  tax,  the,  abolition  of,   875- 

876 
Papineau's  rebellion,  836 
Paris,  Matthew,  historian,  236 
Paris,   Peace   of,   639,   666 ;   allied 
armies  enter,  763  ;  treaty  of ,  862 ; 
siege  of,  893,  894 
Parker,  .Admiral  Sir  Hyde,  735 
Parliament,    representative,   origin 
of,  93;  constitution  and  powers 
of,  165;  under  Edward  IV.,  214; 
power  of,  2rg  ;  under  Henry  VII., 
252 ;    the   Seven   Years,   or   Re- 
formation, 278  ;  refuses  supplies 
to    Charles    I.,    399;    and    the 
Crown,  581  ;    corruption  of,  by 
Walpole,    584 ;    the    Parliament 
Bill    (igii).    958;     made    quin- 
quennial, 959  ;  payment  of  mem- 
bers, 961.     See  also  Commons, 
and  Lords 


Parliament,  Scottisli,  415 

Parliaments  (nickname):  Addled, 
391  ;  Barebones,  454  ;  Good ,  164, 
165;  Long,  423,  452;  Mad,  104; 
Simon  de  Alontfon's,  106  ;  Merci- 
less, iSo;  Model,  118,  129; 
Rump,  465  ;  Short,  421  ;  Won- 
derful, ico;  of  Barons,  146 

Parliamentary  reform,  advocacy  of, 
by  the  y  unger  Pitt,  710 ;  de- 
mand for,  790;  813 

"  Parliamentary  trains,"  852 

Parnell,  Charles  Stewart,  Irish 
leader,  904,  913,  914  ;  overtures 
of,  rejected  by  Gladstone,  919  ; 
921;  attack  on,  by  the  Times, 
923  ;  death  of,  923 

Parnell  Commission,  the,  923 

Parr,  Catherine,  291 

Parsons,  Robert,  the  Jesuit,  339 

Partition  Treaty ,  first,  528  ;  second, 
528 

Party  government,  origin  of,  478- 
479  ;  finally  established,  572 

Party  system,  the,  519-522,  581- 
58s 

Passaro,  Cape,  Admiral  Byng's 
victory  over  the  Spanish  fleet  off, 
577 

Passive  obedience,  496,  505 

Pathans,  794,  795 

Patna,  868 

Paul  I.,  Tsar  of  Russia,  alliance 
with  Britain  against  Napoleon, 
733.  735 

Pa  via,  battle  of,  266 

Pax  Koniana ,  2 

Payment  in  kind,  or  barter,  custom 
of  the  early  English,  46,  47 

Payment  of  M.P.  's,  961 

Peace  of  Westminster,  the,  478 

Pe;\ce  Preservation  Act,  8g6,  901  ; 
abandonment  of,  913 

Peasantry,  condition  of,  during  the 
Middle  Ages,  233 

Peasants'  Revolt,  the,  165,  172-179, 
219 

Peckham,  John,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  121 

Pecquigny,  treaty  of,  215 

Pedro  the  Cruel  reinstated  by 
Edward  the  Black  Prince,  161 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  Home  Secretary, 
782,  788 ;  resigns,  791 ;  Prime 
Minister,  814,  817,  819,  820, 
821,822-826;  death  of,  828  ;  his 
work  and  character,  828 

Peele,  George,  380 

"Peelers"  (policemen),  institution 
of,  784 

"  Peep  o'  Day  Boys,"  the,  740 

Peerage  Bill,  Sunderland's,  578 

Peers,  hereditary,  172 

Peers.     See  Lords,  House  of 

Peishwa,  the.  765,  795 

Pekin,  occupation  of,  878 ;  Euro- 
pean    Legations    at,     besieged, 

943 

Pelham,  Henry,  583  ;  Prime  Min- 
ister, 608-611 

Pembroke,  Aymer  de  Valence, 
Earl  of,  147 

Pembroke,  William,  Earl  of.  Pro- 
tector, lOI 

Penda,  King  of  Mercia,  13 

Peninsula  War,  the,  754-763 


INDEX 

Penjdeh,  collision  of  Russian  and 
Afghan  troops  at,  919 

Penn,  William,  534 

Pennsylvania,  colonisation  of,  534 

Penny  Post,  creation  of  the,  853 

Penruddock's  rebellion,  457,  458 

Pentland  Rising,  the,  486 

People's  Charter,  the.  853 

Perceval,  Spencer,  Prime  Minister, 
758;  assassinated,  761 

Percy,  Bishop,  809 

Percy,  Henry  (Hotspur),  rebellion 
of,  189 

Persia,  765,  845  ;  attacks  Afghani- 
stan, 863;  trouble  with  Russia, 
963 

Perth  captured  by  forces  of  Bruce, 
142 

Peter  the  Great,  562,  576,  577,  613 

Peterborough   sacked  by  William 

I-.53 
Peterborough,    Lord,    military  ex- 
ploits of,  in  Spain,  561 
Peter's  Pence  abolished  by  Parlia- 
ment, 282 
Petition  of  Right,  the,  400,  410 
Petitioners,  483 

Philadelphia  occupied  by  Howe,  665 
Philip  Augustus,  King  of  France, 

86,  93,  94,  95,  97,  98 
Philip,    Captain,  Governor   of  the 
convict  settlement  in  New  South 
Wales,  723 
Philip  of  Spain  proposes  marriage 
to  Elizabeth,  316  ;  his  war  with 
the  Netherlands,  321  ;  claims  the 
crown   of    England,    346 ;    char- 
acter and  policy  of,  353 
Philip  VI.,  King  of  France,  153 
Philiphaugh,  battle  of,  437 
Philippine  Islands,  the,  722 
Phoeni.x  Park  murder,  the,  915 
Pichegru,  Marshal,  727,  728 
Picts,  incursions  of,  4,  6,  7,  21,  6g 
Piers  Plowtna?i,  Vision  of,  175 
Pigott,  Governor,  imprisonment  of, 

678 
Pigott,  forger  in  the  Parnell  case, 

923 
Pi  ho  forts,  capture  of  the,  877-878 
Pilgrim  Fathers,  the,  533 
Pilgrimage  of  Grace,  the,  284 
Pindaris,  794 

Pinkie  Cleugh,  battle  of,  298 
Pirates,  4,  7 

Pitt,  Willia'm,  617;  coalition  with 
Newcastle,  618  ;  policy  of,  622, 
628;  dismissed  by  George  III., 
637-638 ;  refuses  office,  647  ; 
accepts  office  with  Grafton,  649  ; 
becomes  Earl  of  Chatham,  649  ; 
policy  of,  650;  resignation,  654  ; 
last  speech  and  death  of,  667 
Pitt,  William,  the  'Younger,  684  ; 
becomes  Prime  Minister,  686  ; 
makes  commercial  treaty  with 
France,  709 ;  public  loans  and 
Sinking  Fund,  709-710;  domes- 
tic policy  of,  707  ;  fails  to  carry 
Parliamentary  Reform  Bill,  711  ; 
foreign  policy  of,  712,  725  ;  wars 
with  Napoleon,  730,  733 ;  resig- 
nation of,  737 ;  recalled,  745  ; 
death  of,  749 
Place,  Francis,  807 
Place-names,  41 


979 

Plague,  the,  470 

Plan  of  Campaign,  the,  921 

Plantagenets,  the,  81-184 

Plassey,  battle  of,  624,  632 

Plevna,  siege  of,  903 

Plural  voting,  question  of,  959 

Plural  Voting  Bill  rejected  Ijy  the 
Peers,  952 

Pocket  boroughs,  the,  710-71 1, 
792 

Poictiers,  battle  of,  159 

Poland,  war  of  the  succession,  589  ; 
dismemberment  of,  713-714,  726 

Pole,  Cardinal,  287 

Pole,  De  la.     See  Suffolk,  Earl  of 

Police  force,  institution  of  the,  784 

Poll-tax,  the,  165,  175 

Pollock,  General,  846 

Pondichery,  603  ;  capture  of,  635 

Poor  Law  of  1601,  377;  Eliza- 
bethan, 69s;  Gilbert's  Acts, 
699,  803  ;  reform  of,  815,  818 

Pope,  Alexander,  703 

Popham,  Captain,  679 

Population,  expansion  of,  45,  47; 
distribution  of,  233,801-802 

Port  Mahon,  surrender  of,  617 

Portland,  William  Bentinck,  Duke 
of,  favourite  of  William  III.,  523 

Portland,  Duke  of,  minister  of 
George  III.,  685;  resigns,  758 

Portugal,  Napoleon's  invasion  of, 
752 

Potchefstroom,  battle  of,  911 

Pottinger,  Eldred,  846 

Power-loom,  invention  of,  by  Ed- 
mund Cartwright,  698 

Poynings'  Act,  258,  290 

Praemunire,  Statute  of,  171,  i8t 

Pragmatic  Sanction,  the,  590,  593 

Prayer  Book,  the  first,  300,  302, 
304;  of  Elizabeth,  316 

Preference,  Imperial,  949-950 

Prerogative,  the  Royal,  167 

Presbyterians,  407,  415-420,  431 ; 
negotiations  with  Charles  I.,  438, 
440;  467,  469,  516 

Preston,  battle  of  (i.),  442;  (ii.) 
574 

Preston's  plot  against  William  III., 
518 

Pretanes,  or  Britanni,  i 

Pretender,  the  Young,  598-601 

Prevention  of  Crimes  Bill  (Ireland), 

915 

Pride's  Purge,  444 

Protection,  534,  539,  568,  784,  826, 
876  ;  advocated  by  Joseph  Cham- 
berlain, 949 

Protectorate,  the,  454 

Protestantism,  rise  and  growth  of, 
273-274;  struggles  of,  327;  on 
the  Continent,  385  ;  in  Ireland, 
688 

Provisions  of  Oxford,  104 

Provisors,  Statutes  of,  171,  181 

Prussia,  alliance  with,  614,  6i6' 
French  Republic's  war  with,  725  ; 
withdraws  from  the  coalition 
against  the  French  Republic,  728; 
alliance  with  Russia  against  Na- 
poleon, 762;  wars  with  Austria 
and  France,  892-893 

Prynne,  John,  413 

Public  Law  of  Europe,  the,  752 

Pulteney,  William,  588 


980 


INDEX 


Puna,  Peishwa  of,  764 
Puniar,  battle  of,  847 
Punjab,   the,    765,   797,   845,   848  ; 

annexation  of,  851,  864  ;   867 
Purchase    system    in    the    Army, 

abolition  of,  899 
Puritans,  the,  372,  385,  404,  544 
Pusey,  Dr.  E.  H. ,  855 
Pym,   John,   400,    409,    410,    430 ; 

death  of,  431 
Pytheas  of  Massilia,  i 

Quakers,  the,  456 

Quarterly  Heview,  the,  Sir 

Quatre  Bras,  battle  of,  770 

Quebec  Act,  659 

Quebec,  capture  of,  626-628 

Queensland,  839 

Quetta,  908 

Quia    Emptores,   Statute   of,    122, 

138 
Quo  Warranto,  writ  of,  120 

Raglan,  Lord,  860 

Ragoba, 676,  678 

Railway,  the  Stockton  and  Darling- 
ton, 808 

Railways,  852 

Rajputana,  867 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  354,  361  ; 
granted  [xiteiit  for  colonisation, 
374;  imprisonment  of,  386;  exe- 
cution of,  391 ;  his  attempt  to 
colonise  Virginia,  531,  543 

Ramnagar,  battle  of,  851 

Ramsay,  Allan,  809 

Ranjit  Singh,  765,  797,  845,  848 

Ranulf  of  Chester,  loi 

Ray,  548 

Reade,  Charles,  888 

Reciprocity  of  Duties  Act,  785 

Recusancy,  388 

Redistribution  Bill,  the,  918 

Redistribution,  electoral,  959 

Redwald,  King  of  East  Anglia, 
12 

Reform  Hill,  the  (1832),  791-794, 
852  ;  Derby's,  874  ;  of  1866,  884, 
885 

Reformation,  the,  238,  268;  de- 
velopment of  the,  300  ;  in  Scot- 
land, 318,  367,  415 

Regency  Hill  (George  IIT.)  (i.).  the, 
647;  (ii.)7ii.  758 

Regulating  Act  for  India,  Lord 
North's,  675,  718 

Religion,  855 

Renaissance,  the,  268 

Renunciatory  Act  (Ireland),  695 

Representation,  Parliamentary,  792 

Representative  Parliamant,   origin 

of".  93 
Resolulioners,  the,  485 
Restoration,  the,  467 
Restoration    Law    of   Settlement, 

69  s 
Restraint  of  Appeals  Act,  281 
Retaliation,  commercial,  539 
Reunion  of  Canada  Act,  837 
Revenue,  Crown, 63, 468  ;  national, 
farming  of  the,  74,  167,  169-171, 
390 ;    and    expenditure    in    the 
seventeenth   century,    540 ;    and 
expenditure,  875 
Revocation,  Act  of,  418 
Revolution,  the,  384,  498-504 


Revolution,  the  Industrial,  P05 

Revolution,  the  "July,"  791 

Revolutions,  political,  99 

Rhine.campaignof  the.  Napoleon's, 
727 

Rhine,  Confederation  of  the,  750 

Rhodes,  Cecil,  931-932,  935 

Rich,  Edmund,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  103,  104,  no 

Richard  I.,  "  Coeur-de-Lion,"  91  ; 
captive  of  German  Emperor,  93  ; 
ransomed,  93  ;  wars  of,  93  ;  deaih 
of,  94  ;   109 

Richard  II.,  accession  of,  164  ; 
meets  Wat  Tyler  at  Smithfield, 
177  ;  conference  with  leaders  of 
the  Peasants'  Revolt,  177 ;  sub- 
ordinated by  Lords  Appellant, 
180;  asserts  his  authority,  180; 
policy  of,  181 ;  despotism  of,  183  ; 
abdication  of,  184 ;  death  of, 
188 

Richard  III.  seizes  the  crown,  216  ; 
conspiracy  against,  216 ;  char- 
acter of,  217;  policy  of,  218; 
defeated  and  slain  at  the  battle 
of  Bosworth,  218 

Richard,  son  of  Edward  IV.,  215, 
217.     See  also  Warbeck,  Perkin 

Richard  of  Cornwall,  brother  of 
Henry  III.,  104,  108 

Richardson,  Samuel,  705 

Richelieu,  Cardinal,  385,  411 

Richelieu,  Duke  of,  makes  Con- 
vention of  Kloster  Seven,  621 

Ridley,  Nicholas,  Bishop  of  Lon- 
don, 304,  309 

Ridolfi's  plot  against  Elizabeth, 
328 

Right,  Declaration  of,  the,  503 

Rights,  Bill  of,  508 

Ripon,  L<jrd,  Governor-General  of 
India,  907  ;  Viceroy  of  India,  re- 
forms of,  917 

Rizzio,  David,  assassination  of,  322 

Robert  of  Belleme,  71 

Robert  of  Normandy,  66,  68,    70, 

71 
Robert  II.,  King  of  Scotland,  186 
Robert  III.,   King  of  Scotland,  187 
Roberts,    Lord,    march   to    Kabul, 
906;  relieves  Kandahar,  907-908  ; 
takes  command  in  South  Africa, 
936;  enters  Hloemfontein,  937 
Robertson,  William,  706 
Robespierre,  725 
"  Robin  of  Redesdale,"  insurrection 

of,  212 
Robinson,  Sir  Hercules,  911 
Rochambeau,  General,  670 
Rochefort,  failure  of  British  expedi- 
tion against,  621 
Rochelle,     Buckingham's     expedi- 
tion to,  399 
Roches,  Peter  des,  102,  103 
Rochester,     Earl    of,    minister     of 

William  III.,  528 
Rochester,   Lawrence  Hyde,    Earl 

of,  492 
Rockingham,  Marquis  of.  Prime 
Minister,  647;  second  ministry, 
684;  opposes  Irish  control  of 
Irish  taxation,  692 
Rodney,  Admiral,  625  ;  successes 
of,  670  ;  defeats  De  Grasse  in  tlie 
West  Indies,  672-673 


Rogers,  John,  martyred,  311 

Rohilla  War,  the,  675 

Rolles,  John,  409 

Roman  Catholics,  enactments 
against,  340,  525 ;  banishment 
of  priests,  388 

Roman  subjugation  of  Britain,  2; 
influence  of,  5 

Rooke,  Sir  George,  defeats  the 
French  fleet  at  La  Hogue,  518  ; 
expedition  to  Cadiz,  551-552 ; 
victory  at  Vigo,  552 ;  captures 
Gibraltar,  554 

Root  and  Branch  Bill,  the,  425 

Rorke's  Drift,  defence  of,  910 

Rose,  Sir  Hugh,  871 

Rosebery,  Lord,  918;  Premiership 
of,  924,  927;  resigns  the  Liberal 
leadership,  940  ;  945 

Roses,  War  of  the,  206  ef  seq. 

Ross,  General,  766 

Rossbach,  battle  of,  622 

Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  888 

Rotten  boroughs,  the,  791 

Rouen,  siege  of,  by  Henry  V., 
197 

Roundway  Down,  battle  of,  430 

Roxburgh  taken  by  the  forces  of 
Bruce,  142  ;  siege  of,  224 

Royal  Proclamations  Act,  repeal  of, 
367 

Royal  Society,  foundation  of  the, 
548 

RuUion  Green,  battle  of,  4S6 

Rump,  Parliament,  the,  444,  445, 
450;  ejected  by  Cromwell,  453; 
dissolution  of,  465 

Runnymede,  99 

Rupert,  Prince,  leader  of  Royalist 
cavalry,  430,  432;  repulsed  by 
Admiral  Blake,  449 

Ruskin,  John,  856,  888 

Russell,  Admiral  Edward,  498, 
518,  519.      See  also  Orford,  Lord 

Russell,  Lord  John,  791  ;  Prime 
Mmister,  814,  826,  829,  834,  857, 
873;  foreign  policy  of,  878-8S0; 
retirement  of,  883,  894 

Russell,  Lord  William,  executed 
for  complicity  in  Rye  House  Plot, 
490 

Russia,  753;  quarrels  with  Na- 
poleon, 756;  distrust  of,  in  regard 
to  India,  765,  845,  905;  Palmer- 
ston's  policy  towards,  813,  822; 
the  Crimean  War,  858-859  ;  war 
with  Turkey,  903 ;  mission  at 
Kabul,  906  ;  Radical  denuncia- 
tion of,  963 ;  annexations  in 
China,  940 ;  British  relations 
with,  957-958;  war  with  Japan, 

958 
Ruthven,  Raid  of,  355 
Ruyter,  De,  the  Dutch  Admiral,  472 
Rye  House  Plot,  the,  489 
Ryswick,  treaty  of,  524 

Sacheverei.L,   Dr.,    attacks    the 

Whigs  in  his  sermons,  564 
Sackville,  Lord  George,  625 
Sadler,  Michael,  817 
Sadowa,  battle  of,  893 
Sidulapur,  battle  of,  851 
Salabat  lang,  606 
Saladin,' .Sultan.  86 
Saladin  tithe,  the,  86 


Salamanca,  battle  of,  761 
Salisbury,    Robert    Cecil,    Earl   of, 

minister  of  James  I. ,  354,  359  ; 

proposes    the    Great    Contract, 

391 
Salisbury,  Marquess  of,  885 
Salisbury,  Marquess  of,  Foreign 
Minister,  503,  914  ;  first  adminis- 
tration of,  919-921  ;  second  ad- 
ministration of,  925;  foreign 
policy  of,  92S,  930 ;  Siamese  dis- 
pute with  France,  939;  foreign 
policy  of,  939-943  ;  retirement  of, 

945 

San  Stefano,  treaty  of,  903 

Sancroft,  Archbishop,  497 

Sand  River  Convention,  the,  844 

Sanquhar,  Declaration  of,  487 

Santa  Lucia,  capture  of,  669 

Saratoga,  capilulation  of  Burgoyne 
at,  665 

Sardinia,  725,  878 

Sarsfield,  Patrick,  512 

Satara,  795,  866 

Sati,  abolition  of,  in  India,  798 

Sauchie  Burn,  battle  of,  259 

Saunders,  Governor  of  Madras, 
606 

Savoy,  725,  879 

Savoy  Conference,  the,  469 

Sasvtre,  William,  sent  to  the  stake, 
190 

Siixe,  Marsha],  wins  battle  of 
Fontenoy,  596 

Saxe-Weimar,  Duke  of,  occupies 
Quatre  Bras,  770 

Saxon  kings,  policy  of,  42 

Saxons,  the,  4;  settle  in  Britain, 
6-8 

Schipka  Pass,  defence  of  the, 
903 

Schism  Act,  the,  569;  repealed  by 
Stanhope,  577 

Scheldt,  French  Republic's  threat 
to  force  navigation  of  the,  716 

Science,  progress  of,  during  the 
seventeenth  century,  546 

Schleswig-H  olstein ,  Pal  merston's 
interference  with,  850,  8£o 

Scotland,  early  inhabitants  of,  5, 
21 ;  English  claim  to  suzerainty 
of,  23;  early  relations  with,  30,  33, 
69,  78-80,  113-115,  126-128,  131. 
141-14=;;  invasion  of,  by  John  of 
Gaunt,^i79,  185-187;  affairs  of, 
222-225,  259,  288;  the  Reforma- 
tion in,  318;  affairs  of,  durmg 
reign  of  Elizabeth,  321-325,  354  ; 
affairs  of,  under  Charles  I.,  4^4  ; 
under  the  Restoration,  485-4^^  ' 
under  James  II. ,  513  ;  the  Union, 
556;  commerce  of,  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  539  ;  after  the 
Jacobite  insurrection  of  1745, 
608 

Scots,  69;  raid  north  of  England, 
187  ;  loyalty  of,  to  Joan  of  Arc, 
223  ;  plantation  of,  in  Ulster,  390  ; 
negotiations  with  Charles  I.,  438- 
439 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  810-812 

Scotus,  Duns,  the  "  Subtle  Doctor," 
23  s 

Scutage,  O2 

Sea  power,  England's,  128  ;  growth 
of,  under  Elizabeth,  333 


INDEX 

Security,  Scottish  Act  of,  557 

Sedan,  French  capitulation  at, 
894 

Seditious  meetings,  suppression  of, 
779-780 

Selborne,  Lord,  955 

Self-denying  Ordinance,  the,  435 

Senlac,  battle  of,  38 

Sepoy  army,  the,  736 

Sepoy  Revolt,  the,  864 

Septennial  Act,  the,  575 

Septennial  Parliaments,  Irish  de- 
mand for,  690 

Serfdom,  no;  gradual  disappear- 
ance of,  173-179,  219 

Servia,  revolt  of,  903 

Settlement,  Act  of,  504,  52S 

Settlement,    Restoration    Law     of, 

695 
Sevastopol,  siege  of,  860-862 
Seven  Bishops,  trial  of  the,  497 
Seven  Weeks  War,  the,  886,  893 
Severn  bridge  (1779',  the,  700 
Severus,    campaign    against    Scot- 
land, 4  ;  Wall  of,  4 
Seymour,  Admiral,  bombards  Alex- 
andria, 915 
Seymour,  Jane,  married  to  Henrv 

VIII.,  286 
Seymour,  Thomas,  Lord  Admiral, 

execution  of,  301 
Shaftesbury,  Anthony  Ashley,  Lord, 

474 
Shaftesbury,  Earl  of  (i),  479,  481, 
482,    483 ;    attempts   to  exclude 
James   II.    from   the   succession, 
482-4S4  ;  fall  of,  48-489 
Shaftesbury,        Anthony       Ashley 

Cooper,  7th  Earl  of,  817,  825 
Shah  Shuja,  845-846 
Shakespeare,  Wilham,  381,  544 
Shannon  and  Chesapeake,  duel  of, 

766 
Sharp,  James,  Archbishop   of  St. 
I       Andrews,  486  ;  murder  of,  487 
Shaw,    Dr.,    declares    marriage  of 

Edward  IV.  null  and  void,  216 
Shelburne,      Lord,     654 ;      Prime 

Minister,  684-6S5 
Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  811 
Shepherd' s  Calendar,  The,  379,  3S0 
Shepstone,  Sir  Theophilus,  909 
Sher    AH,    Amir    of    Kabul,    887, 

906 
Sher  Ali,  governor   of  Kandahar, 

907 
Sher  Singh,  850,  851 
Sheridan,  Richard  Brinsley,  704 
Sheriff,    functions    of,    41,    59,   74, 

87 
Sheriffmuir,  battle  of,  573 
Sherpur,  battle  of,  907 
Ship  money, demand  for,  byCharles 

I.,  413;  abrogation  of,  425 
Shipping,    growth    of,    under    the 

Tudors,  373 
Shire-moot,  42-43 
Shire-reeve,  43,  59 
Shore,  Sir  John.     See  Teignmouth 
Short  Parliament,  the,  421 
Shrewsbury,   Charles  Talbot,  Earl 

of,  498;   intrigues  with  Jacobites 

524;  recalled.  565;  foils  Boling- 

broke,  570,  576 
Shrewsbury,  182  ;  treaty  of,  123 
Shujah  Da'ulah,  656,  675 


981 


Siani,  Anglo-French  dispute  over, 

939 
Sicily,  P80 
Sidmouth,  Lord  (Addington),  780, 

782 
Sidney,    Algernon,    execution     of, 

490 
Sidney,     Sir     Henry,     suppresses 

Shane  O'Neill,  331 
Sidney,  Henry,  498 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  death  of,  343 
Sikhs,     the,    765 ;     rise    of,     848 ; 

wars  with,  849-851;   loyalty  of, 

867 
Silesia,  613 
I  Silk,  duties  on,  786 
Simnel,   Lambert,    ])seudo-l",ail  of 

Warwick,  rebellion  of,  244 
.Sindh,  annexation  of,  847 
Sindhia.   676,   678,  680,  736,  764, 

795.  847.  867 
Sinking   Fund  instituted  by   Wal- 

pole,  579 
Siward,  Earl  of  Northumbria,  31, 

33'  34 
Six  Acts,  Lord  Sidmouth's,  780 
Six  Articles,  Act  of,  288,  299 
Skelton,  John,  poet,  378 
Slave  Emancipation  Act,  838 
Slave  trade,  abolition  of,  750 
Slavery    in    the  West    Indies   and 

South  Africa,  816 
Slavery,   abolition  of,  815-816 ;   in 

America,  881 
Slaves,  English,  45,  46 
Sleeman,        Colonel,       suppresses 

Tnuggee,  798 
Sliding  Scale,  the,  789,  823 
Sluys,  battle  of,  155 
Smerwick,  siege  of,  339 
Smith,  Adam,  political  economist, 

701,  705,  708,  709,  784 
Smith,  Ca])tain  John,  532 
Smith,  Sir  Sidney,  battfes  Napoleon 

at  Acre,  734 
Smollett,  Tobias,  705 
Smuggling,  708 
Social  Contract,  the,  John  Locke's 

theory  of,  547,  571 
I  Social    Reforms,    Liberal    Party's, 

951 
Socialism,  948,  961 
Socmen,  65 

Solwa}'  Moss,  battle  of,  292 
Somers,  J^ord,  562 
Somerset,  204 

Somerset,   Edward,  Duke  of,  Pro- 
tector, 298 ;  makes  war  on  Scot- 
\       land,    298;    policy  of,  299,  301; 
I        deposed,  301  ;  execution  of,  305 
;   Somerset,   John,   Earl  of,  popular 

indignation  against,  205;  death 

of,  207 
Somerset,    Robert   Kerr,    Earl   of, 

favourite  of  James  I.,  394 
Sophia,      l'",lectress     of     Hanover, 

nominated     heir     to    throne    of 

England,  528 
Soudan,        reconquest        of        by 

Kitchener,  940 
Soult,  Marshal,  755,  757.  759-  771 
South    Australia,    colonisation    of, 

839 
South  Africa.     See  Africa 
South  Sea  Bubble,  579-581 
Spafields  riot,  the,  779 


98: 


Spain,  the  Great  Armada,  346-350  ; 
relations  of  James  I.  with,  392- 
397;  war  with  Cromwell,  460; 
wars  with,  under  George  I.,  576  ; 
Walpole's  war  with,  590,  592 ; 
warwith,  under  George  III.,  639  ; 
alliance  v'ith  France  and  America 
against  Britain,  669-670;  joins 
coalition  against  Napoleon,  726  ; 
alliance  with  the  French  Re- 
public, 728,  731 ;  withdraws  from 
the  coalition  against  the  French 
Republic,  728 ;  seized  by  Napo- 
leon, 753  ;   the  Peninsula  War, 

754-763 
Spanish   plots    against    Elizabeth, 

the,  328,  340 
Spanish  Succession,  the,  526,  550 
Speenhamland  Board,  the,  and  the 

application    of    the   Poor    Law, 

804 
Spencer,  Herbert,  88g 
Spenser,  Edmund,  379,  380 
Spice  Islands,  the,  722 
Spinning   industry,  the,  695,  697- 

698 
Spinning-jenny,       Robert        Har- 

greave's,  697 
Spionkop,  battle  of,  936 
Spithead,    mutiny    of   the    British 

fleet  at,  729 
St.  Alban's,  assembly  of  barons  at, 

98 
St.  Albans,  battle  of,  207  ;  Lancas- 
trian victory  at,  209 
St.  Arnaud,  Marshal,  commander 

of    the     French    forces    in    the 

Crimea,  860 
St.  Bartholomew,  massacre  of,  324, 

328 
St.  Brice,  massacre  of,  27 
St.  lago,  repulse  of  British  fleet  at, 

592 
St.  Leger,  successful  administration 

of  Ireland,  291,  330 
St.  Vincent,  Cape,  defeat  of  Spanish 

fleet  off,  729 
Stamford  Bridge,  battle  of,  37 
.Stamp  Act  (1765),  the,  643;  repeal 

of,  648,  650 
Standard,  battle  of  the,  76 
Standing  army,  the,  reduction  of, 

under  William  III.,  525 
Stanhope,    James,    Earl    of,    562, 

564,     576 ;     his    administration, 

577 
Stanley,    Lord,    822,     886.       See 

Derby,  Lord 
Stanley,   Sir   William,  conspirator 

against  Henry  VII.,  246 
Star    Chamber,     Court     of,    251  ; 

abolished,  425 
States  General  (France),  the,  715 
Steam    engine,    invention    of,    by 

James  Watt,  700 
Steam  power,  application  of,  801, 

807 
Steamships,  852 
Steele,  Sir  Richard,  704,  705 
Stcinkirk,  battle  of,  519 
Stephen,    72;    elected    king,    75; 

character  of,  75  ;  Cjuarrel  with  the 

Church,  76;  taken  prisoner,  77; 

death  of,  78  ;  109 
Stephenson,  George,  808 
Sterne,  Lawrence,  705 


INDEX 

Stewart,  Sir  Donald,  at  Kandahar, 

907 
Stigand,  Archbishop,  35,  57 
Stirling  invested  by  the  forces  of 

Bruce,    142 ;     besieged    by    the 

Young  Pretender,  600 
Stirling  Bridge,  battle  of,  135 
Stockton  and  Darlington  Railway, 

808 
"Stop    of   the    E.xchequer,"   477, 

541 
Stormberg,  battle  of,  935 
.Strachan,  Sir  Richard,  758 
Strafford,      Thomas      Wentworth, 

Earl  of,  400  ;  supports  Charles  I. , 

403,409;  policy  in  Ireland,  412; 

impeachment  and  execution   of, 

423-424 
Stratford,  Archbishop,  trial  of,  156, 

170 
Strathclyde,  14 
Strikes,  854,  962 
Strongbow,  Earl  of  Leinster,  90 
Stuart,  Arabella,  359 
Stuart,  General,  commands  British 

expedition    to     Southern    Italy, 

750 
Submarine  cable,  the  first,  853 
Submission  of  the  Clergy,  280 
Succession,  Act  of,  282,  528 
Succession,  hereditary,  iig 
Succession,  principle  of  the,  35 
Suchet,  Marshal,  759,  760 
Sudan,  the,  915-917,  940 
Sudbury,   Archbishop,  murder  of, 

177 
Suez  Canal,  the,  purchase  of  shares 

of,  902 
Suffolk,  Michael  de  la  Pole,  Earl 

of,  179,  180 
Suffolk,     Duke     of,    executed     for 

complicity  in  Wyatt's  rebellion, 

310 
Suffolk,  William  de  la   Pole,  Earl 

cf,  negotiates  truce  with  France, 

204  ;  popular  indignation  against, 

205 
Suffren,   Admiral,   duels  with  Ad- 
miral Hughes,  679 
.Sugar  duty,  the,  824 
Sunderland,  Charles  Spencer,  Earl 

of,  562,  564;  minister  of  George 

I-.576 
Sunderland,  Robert  Spencer,  Earl 

of,  minister   of  James    II.,  492, 

519 
Supplies,  appropriation  of,  472 
Supremacy,    Act    of,    Elizabeth's, 

316 
Supreme     Head,    Act    of    (Henry 

VHI.),  282 
Suraj  ud-Dauiah,  630 
Surat,  764 
Surrey,     Earl    of,     appointed    by 

Henry  VHI.  to  govern  Ireland, 

290 ;     execution     of,     297 ;     his 

poetry,  379 
.Suvarcv  defeats  the  French  in  Italy, 

734 
Sweyn  Godwinson,  31,  32 
.Sweyn  of  Denmark,  27,  28  ;  invades 

England,  52 
.Swift,  Jonathan,  689,  704,  705 
.Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles,  888 
Switzeiland  conquered  by  France, 

731 


Tables,  the,  420 

Tacitus,  7,  40 

"  Tacking,"  origin  of,  525 

Tafif  Vale  decision,  the,  951 

Talavera,  battle  of,  756,  757 

Tallage,  87,  131,  170 

Tallagio  noH  Concedendo,  131 

Tallard,  Marshal.  553 

Talmash,  General,  522 

Tamburlaine,  Marlowe's,  380-381 

Tamworth  Manifesto,  819 

Tangier  abandoned,  490 

Tanjur,  678,  764 

Tantia  Topi,  commander  of  the 
Gwalior  army,  871 

Tariff  Reform,  949-951,  954-955 

Tariffs,  reduction  cf,  by  the 
younger  Pitt,  708 

Tasmania,  799 

Taxation,  64,  65,  66, 120, 126;  under 
Edward  III.,  158;  a  main  cause 
of  the  Revolution,  385 ;  settle- 
ment of,  under  Charles  II., 
468  ;  874-876 

Taxation,  Irish,  control  of,  691 

Taxes,  war,  87 

Taylor,  Alexander,  869 

Taylor,  Bishop  Jeremy,  545 

Taylor,  Rowland,  martyred,  311 

Tea  tax,  American  resistance  to, 
651,654,658 

Teignmouth,  Lord,  Governor-Gene- 
ral of  India,  721,  736,  763 

Telegraph,  electric,  introduction  of, 

853 

Tel-el- Kebir,  battle  of,  915 

Temple,  Lord,  638,  647 

Temple,  Sir  William,  476,  481 

Ten  Articles,  the,  284,  369 

Tenants'  Relief  Bill,  Parnell's,  re- 
jected, 921 

Tenasserim,  annexation  of,  797 

Tenchebrai,  battle  of,  71 

Teneriffe,  Blake's  victory  at, 
461 

Tennyson,  Lord,  856,  947 

Tenserie,    imposts  on   the   towns, 

n 

Terouanne,  battle  of,  263 
Territorials,  creation  of  the,  952 
Terror,  Reign  of,  the,  724 
Test  Act,   the,   478  ;  abolition  of, 

788 
Teutons,  4,  7,  8 
Tewfik,  Khedive  of  Egypt,  915 
Tewkesbury,    Yorkist    victory    at, 

213 
Texel,  capture  of  the  Dutch  fleet 

in  the,  734 
Textile  industry,  growth  of,  697 
Thackeray,    William    Makepeace, 

856 
Thegnhood,  39,  40,  41 
Thegns,  43,  45 

Theobald,  .ArchbishoiJ,  -jt,  82 
Theobald  of  Blois,  72,  75 
Theows,  3g,  46 
Thirty-nine  Articles,  the,  369 
Thirty  Years'  War,  the,  385,  411, 

461 
Thomson,  James,  705 
"  Three  Estates,"  the,  165,  166 
Throgmorton  Plot,  the,  3.1.0 
Thuggee,  suppression  of,  in  India, 

798 
Thurlow,  Lord  Chancellor,  685 


INDEX 


983 


Thurstr\n,  Archbishop,  76 

Tilxn,  military  expedition  to,  956 

Ticonderoga,  626 

Tien-tsin,  treaty  of,  872,  877 

Tilsit,  Peace  of,  751 

Times      newspaper,     the,     action 

against,  by  Mr.  O'Donnell,  923 
Tippermuir  battle  of,  43^ 
Tippu  Sultan,  or  Sahib,  679,  719- 

720,    734,    736 ;    overthrown   by 

Wellesley,  763 
Tithe  war  (Ireland),  the,  831 
Tithes,  commutation  of,  832 
Tithes  Act,  927 
Tithing,  44 

Todleben,  General,  860 
Toleration  Act,  507,  555 
Tone,  Wolfe,  rebellion  of,  739 
Tonnage  and  pounaage,  170,  399, 

401,    402,    409;    abrogation    of, 

425 

Torgau,  battle  of,  628 

Tories,  483,  489,  493  ;  and  William 
III.,  525,  528,  529;  opposition 
to  Marlborough,  554;  under 
Queen  Anne,  566  ;  707,  813 

Tories,  American,  722 

Torres  Vedras,  lines  of,  759 

Tostig,  32,  34,  35,  36,  37 

Toulon,  siege  of,  726 

Toulouse,  battle  of,  763 

Tournai,  battle  of,  263 

Tourville,  Admiral,  defeats  English 
and  Dutch  fleets  off  Beachy  Head , 
511  ;    defeated    at    La    Hogue, 

Town-reeve,  43 

Towns,  early  English,  42,  44,  47  ; 
charters  and  trading  rights.  95, 
III 

Townshend,  Charles,  Lord,  ally  of 
Sir  Robert  Walpole,  576,  578, 
580,  581 

Townshend,  Charles,  proposes  new 
taxes  on  America,  650 

Townshend,  Lord,  Viceroy  of 
Ireland,  691 

Towton,  Yorkist  victory  at,  209 

Tractarianism,  855 

Trade,  95,  in,  118;  licences  and 
imposts,  120 ;  regulation  of,  by 
Edward  III.,  167;  e.xpansion  of, 
220-221 ;  progress  of,  under  the 
Tudors,  372 ;  depression  of,  at 
end  of  nineteenth  century,  948 

Trade  disputes,  962 

Trade  Unionism,  853-854,  890-891, 
898-899,  948-961 

Trade  Unions  Act,  951 

Trades  Unions,  prohibition  of, 
802  ! 

Trading  Companies,  373,  535 

Trafalgar,  battle  of,  747 

Transport  Workers'  Strike,  1911, 
the,  962 

Transportation  of  convicts  to 
Australian  colonies,  discontinu- 
ance of,  839 

Transvaal,  the,  844,  908  ;  annexa- 
tion of,  909 ;  independence 
restored  to,  912  ;  the  Jameson 
Raid,  930  ;  annexation  of,  939 

Travancore  attacked  by  Tippu 
Sultan,  719 

Treasons  Act  282  283  ;  repeal  of, 
299;  305 


Treasons  Bill,  523 

Treasons,  Statute  of,  171 

Trek,  the  Great,  842-843 

Trelawney,  Bishop,  497 

Trent,  Council  of,  274,  320 

Trent  affair,  the,  881 

Tribal  System,  the,  40 

Triennial  Act,  the,  522 

Trincomali,  captuie  of,  671,  679 

Trinidad,  737 

Triple  Alliance,  the,  476,  576  ;  with 
Russia  and  Holland,  713 

Triumvirate,  the,  676,  678,  680-681 

Tromp,  Van,  the  Dutch  admiral, 
472 

Troyes,  treaty  of,  198 

Tudor  dynasty,  the,  241 

Tudors,  policy  and  character  of 
the,  363-372 ;  commercial  pro- 
gress under,  372 

Tun,  or  township,  the,  42,  44, 
64 

Turgot,  French  minister,  and  the 
American  War  of  Independence. 
666 

Turkey  joins  second  coalitioB 
against  Napoleon,  734  ;  war  with 
Greece,  788  ;  Palmerston's  policy 
towards,  813,  822,  858 ;  agita- 
tion against,  902-903  ;  war  with 
Russia,  903 ;  war  with  Greece, 
940 

Turner,  Bishop,  497 

Tyler,  Wat,  rebellion  of,  165,  176 

Tyrconnel,  Richard  Talbot,  Earl 
of,  Deputy-Lieutenant  of  Ireland, 
496.  509.  512 

Tyrone,  Hugh  O'Neill,  Earl  of, 
intrigues  with  Philip  II.  of  Spain, 
359  ;  rebellion  of,  360,  389 

Udall,  Nicholas,  380 
Uhtred,  Earl,  slain  by  Knut,  30 
Uitlanders,  grievances  of  the,  931- 

934 
Uhn,  capitulation  of,  748 
Ulster,  plantation  of  Scots  in,  390; 

739.  896 
Ulundi,  battle  of,  910 
Uniformity,     Act     of,    300,     303 ; 

Elizabeth's,  316,  470 
Union,   the,  cancelled   by  Charles 

n,,469 
Union  with  Ireland,  the,  695;  agi- 
tation by  O'Connell  for  repeal  of, 

831,  832-833 
Union  with  Scotland,  the,  556-560 
Unionists,  secession    of,  from   the 

Liberal  Party ,  920 
United  Empire  Loyalists,  766 
United   Irishmen,   the   Society   of, 

739 
United  States  of  America,  the,  721- 

722  ;  war  with,  766  ;  Civil  War  in, 

880-882  ;  Fisheries  Treaty  with, 

929 
"  Undertakers,"  6go 
Ushant,    battle    of,    668;    Howe's 

victory  off,  727 
Utopia,  Sir  "Thomas    More's,  378, 

379 
Utrecht ,  Peace  of,  567  ;  treaty  of, 
572. 592 

Vagabonds,  increase  of,  under 
Henry  VII.,  236 


Vagrancy,  growth  of,  after  the  dis- 
solution of  the  monasteries,  377 

Valenciennes,  capture  of,  726 

Valmy,  battle  of,  716,  725 

Van  Troaip,  the  Dutch  admiral,  472 

Vane,  Sir  Harry,  431,  451  ;  execu- 
tion of,  468 

Venezuela,  Anglo- American  dis- 
pute over,  940 

Vcrgennes,  French  minister,  and 
the  American  War  of  Independ- 
ence, 666 

Verneuil,  battle  of,  199  ;  Scots  at, 
223 

Vernon,  Admiral,  592 

Versailles,  treaty  of,  619,  673,  685 

Vcrulara.     See  Bacon,  Francis 

Vervius,  treaty  of,  353 

Veto  of  the  House  of  Lords,  aboli- 
tion of,  954,  955 

Vice  comes,  41,  59 

Victor,  Marshal,  defeated  at  Tala- 
vera,  757 

Victor  Emmanuel,  King,  878,  880 

Victoria,  colonisation  of,  839 

Victoria,  Queen,  accession  of,  814  ; 
marriage  of,  821  ;  refuses  to  dis- 
miss her  Ladies  of  the  Bedcham- 
ber, 822,  852,  S78 ;  proclaimed 
Empress  of  India,  905;  Jubilee 
of,  929  ;  death  of,  945  ;  character 
and  policy  of,  946 

Vienna ,  occupation  of,  by  Napoleon , 
748  ;  treaty  of,  756  ;  Congress  of, 
767 

Vigo,  defeat   of  Spanish  fleet   at, 

577 
Vikings,  the,  17 
Vill,the,  or  Villa,  64 
Villafranca,  treaty  of,  878 
Village,  the  English,  46 
Villars,   Marshal,  552  ;  defeated  at 

Malplaquet,  563 
Villeins,  56,  64,  65,  no;  improved 

conditions  of,  173,  219 
Villeneuve,  Admiral,  746 
Villeroi,     Marshal,     defeated      at 

Ramillies,  560 
Vimiero,  battle  of,  754 
Vinegar  Hill,  battle  of,  740 
Virginia,  colonisation  of,  375,  532 
Vittoria,  battle  of,  762 
Volunteers  (Ireland),  692,  693,  694 
Vortigern,  6 

Wade,  General,  600 

Wager  of  battle,  44 

Wagram ,  battle  of,  756 

Waitangi,  treaty  of,  840-841 

Wakefield,  Lancastrian  victory  at, 
209 

Walcheren  Expedition,  the,  758 

Wales,  117;  conquest  of,  by 
Edward  I.,  122;  Statute  of,  126 

Wallace,  William,  127,  i3r,  135- 
137 

Waller,  Sir  William,  Parliamentary 
General,  430 

^\^allingford,  treaty  of,  77 

W'alpoie,  Sir  Robert,  576,  578  ;  in- 
stitutes Sinking  Fund,  579;  be- 
comes Prime  Minister,  580 ;  policy 
of,  581-594 

Walsingham,  Sir  Francis,  339; 
statesmanship  of,  353 

Walter  of  Coutances,  Justiciar,  93 


9«+ 


Walter.  Hubert,  Justiciar,  93; 
Chancellor,  94,  95 

Waltheof,  Earl  of  Huntingdon,  51  ; 
execution  of,  54 

Walton,  Captain,  577 

Walton,  Isaac,  545 

Wandevvash,  battle  of,  628 

Warbeck,  Perkin,  impersonator  of 
the  murdered  Prince  Richard, 
245,  246,  247 

Wards,  Bill  of,  rejected  by  the 
Commons,  366 

Warenne,  Earl,  134 

Warham,  Archbishop,  270 

Warsaw,  Grand  Duchy  of,  752 

Warwick,  Richard  Neville,  Earl  of, 
"the  Kingmaker,"  208  ;  alliance 
with  IvOuis  XI.  of  France,  211  ; 
proclaims  Henry  VI.,  212;  de- 
feated and  slain  at  battle  of 
Barnet,  212 

Washington,  George,  661-664;  re- 
verses of,  665  ;  success  at  Sara- 
toga, 665;  reinforced  by  French 
troops,  670 

Washington  burnt  by  General 
Ross,  766 

Waterloo,  battle  of,  771-774 

Waterways,  growth  of  traffic  on 
the,  699-70Q 

Watt,  James,  inventor  of  the  steam 
engine,  700 

Wealth  of  Nations,  Adam  Smith's, 
701 

Weaving  industry,  the,  695,  697- 
698 

Wedgwood,  Josiah,  the  potter, 
700 

Wedmore,  Peace  of,  19 

Wellesley,  Marquess  of,  Governor- 
General  of  India,  736,  864 ; 
Foreign  Secretary,  758  ;  resigns, 
761 ;  Indian  administration  of, 
763  ;  Viceroy  of  Ireland,  782,  792 

Wellinghausen,  battle  of,  638 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  campaign  in 
Portugal,  754  ;  enters  France, 
762  ;  victories  of  Assaye  and  Ar- 
gaon,  764  ;  776;  Prime  Minister, 
787  ;  resigns,  791 ;  and  the  Re- 
form Bill,  794 ;  S19,  820,  822, 
826;  death  of,  831 

Welsh  Disestablishment,  961 

Wensleydale,  Lord,  863 

Wenlworth,  Thomas.    ."iV^  Strafford 

Weregild,  43 

Wesley,  John,  703 

Wesleyan  revival,  855 

Wessex,  royal  line  of,  59 

West  Indies,  Admiral  D'Estaing's 
operations  in  the,  668-669,  669- 

673 
Western  Australia,  colonisation  of, 
800.  839 


INDEX 

Western  rising,  the,  301 

Westminster  Confession,  the,  431  ; 
Convention  of,  616 ;  Peace  of, 
478;  Statute  of,  120,  122 

W^eston,  tool  of  Charles  I.,  411,  413 

Westphalia,  treaty  of,  461 

Wexford  stormed  by  Cromwell, 
446 

Wharton,  Lord,  562 

Whigs,  the,  483;  growth  of,  489; 
and  William  III.,  523,  528,  529; 
under  Anne,  566 ;  supremacy  of, 
under  George  I. ,  572,  583  ;  policy 
of,  under  George  I. ,  578  ;  647, 684, 
707 ;  eclipse  of  the,  759 ;  790, 
813 

Whitby,  Svnod  of,  13 

White,  Bishop,  497 

Whiteboys,  the,  690 

Wicklow,  English  defeat  in,  338 

Wichf,  John,  163,  164,  171,  175, 
181,  235,  269 

Wilberforce,  William,  816 

Wilkes,  John,  prosecution  of,  642- 
643  ;  returned  to  Parliament  for 
Middlesex,  652  ;  prosecution  of, 
653-654 

William  I.  (the  Conqueror),  32,  37, 
48,  50;  crowned,  51;  insurrec- 
tions against,  51,  52,  53  ;  oath  of 
allegiance  to,  54;  policy  of,  53- 
54 ;  his  love  of  hunting,  56 ;  re- 
lations with  Normandy  and 
France,  56;  death  of,  56;  char- 
acter of,  56-67  ;  his  resistance  to 
the  Papacy,  57 

William  II.  (Rufus),  character  of, 
67;  relations  with  the  Church, 
68 ;  insurrections  against,  68  ; 
death  of,  70 

William  III.,  policy  of,  505;  Irish 
campaign,  509;  Netherlands 
campaigns,  518,  522;  foreign 
policy  of,  524 ;  death  of,  530 ; 
and  Scotland,  556 

William  IV. ,  character  of,  790 ; 
and  the  Reform  Bill,  793;  de.ith 
of,  814 

William,  son  of  Henry  I.,  71 

William  tl:e  Clito,  son  of  Robert 
of  Nornuxndy,  71,  72 

William  the  Lion,  King  of  Scots, 
I       114 

William  the  Silent,  Prince  of 
Orange,  321,  327,  342 

William  of  Orange,  477  ;  marries 
I'rinccss  Mary,  479,  494  ;  invited 
to  England,  498 

William  of  Orange,  775 

Wilmington,  Lord,  Prime  Minister, 
608 

Wilson,  Margaret,  niartvrdom  of. 


I   Winceby,  battle  of,  431 

Winchester,  iii 

Window  tax,  the,  708 

Winnington  Bridge,  battle  of,  464 

Winwaed,  battle  of,  12 

Witan,  the,  15,  18,35,39,  55.59 

Wite,  43 

Wolfe,  General,  624;  captures 
1       Quebec,  626-628  ;  death  of,  628 

Wolsey,  Cardinal,  262 ;  diplomacy 
of,  265 ;  aspirations  to  the  papal 
throne,  266 ;  arouses  popular 
displeasure,  268  ;  and  the  divorce 
of  Katharine  of  Aragon,  276 ; 
fall  of,  277 

Wolseley,  Lord,  commands  Ashanti 
expedition,  900,  910;  victory  of 
Tel-el-Kebir,  915 ;  commands 
expedition  for  relief  of  Gordon, 
917 

Woodgate,  General,  death  of,  937 

Wool,  128,  130 ;  subsidies,  170, 
220  ;  growing,  375  ;  duties  on, 
78s 

Worcester,  baxtle  of,  449 

Wordsworth,  William,  810 

Wulfhere,  son  of  Penda,  13 

Vv'yatt,  Sir  Thomas,  insurrection 
of,  309  ;  execution  of,  310  ;  poetry 
of,  379 

Wynendael,  battle  of,  562 

Yakub  Khan,  Regent  of  Kabul, 
906  ;  marches  on  Kandahar,  907 

"  Year  of  Battles,"  the,  48 

Yeomanry,  the,  174,  175 

Yeomen,  the,  695  ;  extinction  of, 
696 

Yonge,  Charlotte  D.,  888 

York,  III 

York,  defeat  of  Edwin  and  Morkert 
at,  37 

York,  Frederick,  Duke  of,  disas- 
trous command  of,  against  the 
French,  727 ;  captures  Dutch 
fleet  in  the  Te.xel,  734,  781 

York,  Richard,  Duke  of,  antagon- 
ism to  the  King's  party,  205-7; 
appointed  Protector,  207 ;  de- 
feated and  slain  at  Wakefield, 
209 

York,  Richard,  Duke  of,  son  of 
Edward  IV.,  murdered  in  the 
Tower,  216 

Yorkists,  plots  of,  against  Henry 
VII.,  243,  244,  245,  24t) 

Yorktown  captured  by  Washing- 
ton, 671-672 

Zemindars,  the,  720 
Zorndorf,  battle  of,  623 
Zulu  War,  the,  908 
Z\ilulaiul,  841,  904 
Zutphen,  battle  of,  342 


«/l3 


Printed  by  nAi.i.ANTYNE,  Hanson  6*  Co. 
Edinburgh  b"  London 


LOAN  DEPT. 


LD2lA-50rn-2;71 
(P200l8l0)476 — A-d^ 


General  Librap'     . 
University  of  California 
Berkeley 


-y^ 


•^ 


